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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year candidate, but also a massive sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner revealed that this title topped five million copies sold, and that’s even with its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement came as quite a shock for the team. I was convinced that we would have a good game achieving some average commercial success,” a senior team member commented.

The CTO and lead programmer noted that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, now standing at 93, was the greatest surprise” to the studio compared to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome proved to be. Because when it dropped the entire team celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

That success prompted Sandfall developing a free update for the game featuring fresh areas, adversaries, and boss fights, reportedly will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a talented crew with a strong creative director who has a great vision for the project and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that led to our success and perhaps create large projects one by one,” they said.

The size of Sandfall drummed up plenty of debate upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for creative teams. Despite being relatively lean next to major studios, a quick look at the game's credits shows that numerous contributors worked on it; Sandfall contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more definitely when facing a future production surge in upcoming years,” the executive said. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio comprising a handful really talented people that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a studio “aims to keep the key advantages that enabled this success from the start.”

While it may be not the right time to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” a developer said. “The timing isn't right to specify our next interests, yet we must to adhere to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped that philosophy we will be able to do in coming projects.”