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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year candidate, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Studio the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title topped 5 million units in sales, this is in spite of it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was a surprise to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have a good game that would meet reasonable sales results,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer pointed out this title's review aggregate, now standing at 93, came as the most surprising moment to the team versus our early predictions and the actual outcome turned out to be. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success resulted in work on a complimentary expansion for the title with a new environment, foes, and boss fights, as announced will release in the next few months.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the team will expand. We've built an excellent group with a strong creative director with a clear direction for the project and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the human scale that worked for this game and do maybe large projects one by one,” they said.

The studio's scale sparked significant conversation when the game came out. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being relatively lean next to major studios, a quick look at the game's credits indicates many individuals were involved; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators for animation work, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a little more definitely should there be an increase in development in the coming years,” the producer stated. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators that can make collective masterpieces.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a company “focuses on preserving the key advantages that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

Although it's not the right time to reveal exact details about future projects — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer said. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell our next interests, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire this approach we will be able to do in coming projects.”