🔗 Share this article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year candidate, but also an enormous financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title surpassed 5 million units in sales, and that’s despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was a surprise to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title achieving some average market performance,” the COO and producer explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted this title's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as the most surprising moment to the team versus our early predictions and the actual outcome proved to be. When the score released the entire team was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success resulted in Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the title including novel settings, adversaries, and boss fights, reportedly will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the team will expand. Our team includes a great team under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for this game plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the human scale that made this possible and perhaps create one big game after another,” they said.

The size of Sandfall sparked significant conversation following launch. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, considered this studio as the “ideal” for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list indicates numerous contributors participated; the French studio hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more certainly when facing an increase in development down the line,” the producer stated. “Yet I picture more of a workshop of a few really talented people capable of producing artistic collaborations.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as a company “focuses on preserving the strengths that enabled this success from the start.”

Despite being premature for the studio to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, is integral to our identity of our creations,” a developer remarked. “It's still premature to specify future passions, but it's important also to adhere to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer noted that the project began with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something we will be able to do as well for future productions.”