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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year candidate, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Studio the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that the game surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s in spite of it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as a surprise for the team. I was convinced that we would have a solid title achieving some average market performance,” the COO and producer commented.

A technical director pointed out the game's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, was the most surprising moment to the team compared to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome turned out to be. When the score released the entire team were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception prompted Sandfall developing a free update for the title featuring fresh areas, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, reportedly would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. “We have a great team with a strong creative director with a clear direction for our work and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the human scale that worked for this game then develop large projects one by one,” the executive added.

The size of Sandfall generated a storm of discussion when the game came out. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the model for a studio. Despite being relatively lean next to major studios, one glance at the game's credits shows that many individuals participated; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur a little more for sure should there be an increase in development in upcoming years,” they stated. “However, I envision more of a workshop comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators that create artistic collaborations.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “focuses on preserving the successful elements that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Although it's premature for the studio to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — believe me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, forms the foundation of this project,” the lead programmer said. “It's a bit too early to specify what will interest us, yet we must to stay true to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

They added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”