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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year contender, but also a huge commercial success. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that the game exceeded 5 million units in sales, this is even with it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as a shock to Sandfall. I was convinced that we'd create a solid title that would meet reasonable market performance,” a senior team member commented.

A technical director pointed out the game's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, was “maybe the biggest shock to the team relative to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome turned out to be. When the score released the entire team were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

That success resulted in the studio creating a complimentary expansion for the game featuring fresh areas, adversaries, plus epic encounters, reportedly is coming in the next few months.

However, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. Our team includes a great team guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for the project and future concepts. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that made this possible and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the producer said.

The size of Sandfall sparked plenty of debate upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, looked at this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Although the team is and was indeed a small team next to major studios, checking Expedition 33’s credits reveals dozens of people worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more definitely should there be next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” the producer said. “However, I envision more of a workshop comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that their core belief as a company “is more to maintain the strengths that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Although it's premature for the studio to say specifically about future projects — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their essential identity. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer said. “It's still premature to specify our next interests, but it's important also to adhere to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The lead programmer noted how this game began with the creative director developing his passion title. We aspire that's something we will be able to do with upcoming games.”