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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY contender, it’s also a massive commercial success. Developer the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title topped five million copies in sales, and that’s in spite of its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as a shock to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving reasonable sales results,” a senior team member commented.

Another leading developer remarked the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” to the studio versus “our initial expectations and what the reality proved to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

That success prompted the studio creating new free content for the title featuring fresh areas, adversaries, plus epic encounters, which they said would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, as the title expands, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. Our team includes an excellent group under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for our work and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that made this possible and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer added.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion following launch. A few well-known creators, like Hideo Kojima, considered this studio as a perfect example for game development. While Sandfall was and is truly compact versus large developers, one glance at the title's staff list reveals dozens of people participated; the French studio contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“We will hire slightly more certainly should there be an increase in development in the coming years,” the executive stated. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio comprising a handful really talented people capable of producing collective masterpieces.” He noted that their core belief as a studio “focuses on preserving the successful elements that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — believe me, efforts were made — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of what we built,” they said. “It's a bit too early to announce future passions, however, it's crucial to stay true to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

They noted how this game originated from their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped this approach will be repeated in coming projects.”