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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top GOTY candidate, it’s also a huge financial hit. Developer the development team and publisher their publishing partner revealed that the game topped 5 million units in sales, and that’s even with its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as a shock for the team. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title achieving reasonable market performance,” the COO and producer stated.

Another leading developer remarked that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, was the greatest surprise” to the studio versus our early predictions and the actual outcome proved to be. Once it was published the entire team were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception resulted in work on new free content for players featuring fresh areas, foes, and boss fights, reportedly will release sometime soon.

However, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. “We have an excellent group guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for this game plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that led to our success then develop one big game after another,” they said.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, viewed Sandfall’s team as the model for game development. Despite being relatively lean next to major studios, checking Expedition 33’s credits reveals dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit slightly more definitely should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” they said. “But I would see more of a workshop of a few really talented people that can make a work of art together.” They emphasized that their core belief as a company “focuses on preserving the successful elements that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Although it's premature for the studio to say specifically about future projects — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the team does know what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer remarked. “The timing isn't right to announce future passions, yet we must to adhere to our creative core featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

They mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”