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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY contender, but also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that the game topped five million copies in sales, this is despite its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as a surprise to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have a solid title achieving some average commercial success,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s critical score, which currently sits at 93, was the most surprising moment to the studio versus our early predictions and what the reality of the field was. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception prompted Sandfall developing a free update for players featuring fresh areas, adversaries, plus epic encounters, which they said will release sometime soon.

However, while the game is growing, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. “We have a talented crew under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for our work and future concepts. We'd like to keep the human scale that led to our success and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the producer added.

The size of Sandfall generated a storm of discussion upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, looked at the development group as the “ideal” for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team next to major studios, a quick look at the title's staff list indicates dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, for example.

“We plan to recruit a bit more certainly when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” they commented. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that their core belief as developers “is more to maintain the strengths that enabled this success in the first place.”

Although it's not the right time to reveal exact details what’s next — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of what we built,” a developer remarked. “It's still premature to specify what will interest us, yet we must to stay true to our creative core through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The developer added that the project originated from the visionary pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully this approach we can continue in coming projects.”