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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY contender, it’s also a massive financial hit. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title surpassed five million copies in sales, and that’s even with it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance was a surprise to the developers. I firmly believed that we'd create an enjoyable experience that would meet some average sales results,” a senior team member commented.

A technical director pointed out that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, was “maybe the biggest shock to the studio compared to our early predictions and what the reality turned out to be. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

This triumph prompted Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for players including novel settings, enemies, along with challenging bosses, which they said will release in the next few months.

That said, despite the game's evolution, it's unlikely the team will expand. Our team includes a great team guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for the project and future concepts. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and do maybe one big game after another,” they noted.

The size of Sandfall generated a storm of discussion following launch. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, looked at Sandfall’s team as the model for game development. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean versus large developers, checking the title's staff list reveals numerous contributors worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea for animation work, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more certainly if we have a future production surge in upcoming years,” they stated. “However, I envision more of a workshop comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that create collective masterpieces.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as developers “is more to maintain the key advantages that enabled this success from the start.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans about future projects — and trust me, efforts were made — the team does know their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” a developer said. “The timing isn't right to specify future passions, yet we must to stay true to our creative core through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire this approach we will be able to do as well for future productions.”