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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year contender, but also a huge commercial success. Studio the development team and publisher their publishing partner announced that this title surpassed 5 million units sold, and that’s despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a shock to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we would have a solid title that would meet reasonable sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer remarked this title's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as the greatest surprise” for everyone compared to what we anticipated and the actual outcome proved to be. Once it was published all staff members was screaming and jumping. The energy was electric.”

This triumph has led to Sandfall developing a free update for players including novel settings, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, reportedly will release in the next few months.

However, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. “We have an excellent group with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for our work and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that made this possible and perhaps create one big game after another,” they added.

The studio's scale drummed up significant conversation following launch. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, viewed Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean next to major studios, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits shows that numerous contributors were involved; Sandfall hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a little more certainly if we have next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they said. “But I would see rather a creative atelier of a few exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as a company “focuses on preserving the strengths that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

While it may be premature for the studio to say specifically about future projects — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of what we built,” they explained. “It's still premature to specify future passions, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that excites us.”

They noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”