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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY candidate, it’s also a huge commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner announced that the game surpassed 5 million units in sales, this is even with it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as an unexpected turn to the developers. I firmly believed that we'd create an enjoyable experience that would meet some average sales results,” a key executive stated.

A technical director pointed out that Clair Obscur’s critical score, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” for everyone relative to our early predictions and what the reality turned out to be. When the score released all staff members celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph prompted work on a free update for the title featuring fresh areas, enemies, and boss fights, which they said would be out sometime soon.

However, as the title expands, don’t expect the studio to grow. Our team includes a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for this game and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that made this possible and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” they added.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion following launch. Some developers, such as the famed director, viewed the development group as a perfect example for creative teams. Despite being truly compact next to major studios, a quick look at the title's staff list reveals many individuals worked on it; the French studio contracted a Korean team for animation work, to illustrate.

“We will hire slightly more definitely if we have next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” the producer commented. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio of a few highly skilled individuals capable of producing a work of art together.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “focuses on preserving the successful elements that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to say specifically about future projects — believe me, efforts were made — the developers understand their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” the lead programmer said. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell what will interest us, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our studio's essence through compelling worlds plus innovative play that excites us.”

They mentioned that the project started with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that's something will be repeated in coming projects.”