🔗 Share this article

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year candidate, but also a huge commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner revealed that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as an unexpected turn for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a solid title achieving reasonable commercial success,” a key executive commented.

The CTO and lead programmer noted this title's review aggregate, now standing at 93, was “maybe the biggest shock to the studio relative to what we anticipated and what the reality proved to be. When the score released everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception resulted in Sandfall developing new free content for the title with a new environment, enemies, plus epic encounters, reportedly would be out in the next few months.

However, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project and future concepts. We intend to preserve the human scale that worked for this game then develop large projects one by one,” the executive noted.

The size of Sandfall drummed up significant conversation when the game came out. A few well-known creators, like Hideo Kojima, looked at the development group as the model for creative teams. Although the team is and was truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, a quick look at the title's staff list shows that many individuals were involved; the French studio partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“We will hire a bit more certainly when facing a future production surge down the line,” the executive said. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing a work of art together.” He noted that their core belief as a company “is more to maintain the key advantages that enabled this success originally.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically what’s next — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of what we built,” they explained. “It's still premature to announce what will interest us, however, it's crucial to adhere to our studio's essence through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

They noted that the project started with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped this approach we can continue with upcoming games.”