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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year candidate, but also a massive financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title topped five million copies sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite a surprise to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we'd create a solid title achieving reasonable market performance,” the COO and producer stated.

A technical director pointed out that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as the greatest surprise” to the studio relative to what we anticipated and what the reality proved to be. Once it was published all staff members celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph prompted the studio creating a free update for the game with a new environment, adversaries, plus epic encounters, which they said would be out sometime soon.

That said, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. Our team includes an excellent group with a strong creative director with a clear direction for this game and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that led to our success and do maybe one big game after another,” the producer added.

The size of Sandfall drummed up significant conversation upon the title's release. Some developers, including renowned designers, viewed Sandfall’s team as the model for creative teams. Although the team is and was indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the title's staff list shows that dozens of people were involved; Sandfall contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” they stated. “But I would see rather a creative atelier with a small number of highly skilled individuals capable of producing a work of art together.” He noted that their core belief as a studio “is more to maintain the key advantages that enabled this success originally.”

Although it's premature for the studio to reveal exact details about future projects — believe me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” a developer explained. “The timing isn't right to announce our next interests, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

They added how this game began with the creative director pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that philosophy we will be able to do with upcoming games.”