🔗 Share this article

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY candidate, it’s also a massive commercial success. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title topped 5 million units in sales, and that’s even with it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was a shock to the developers. I was convinced that we'd create a good game achieving some average commercial success,” a key executive stated.

The CTO and lead programmer noted that Clair Obscur’s critical score, which currently sits at 93, came as the greatest surprise” to the studio compared to what we anticipated and what the reality of the field was. Once it was published everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception resulted in work on a complimentary expansion for the title including novel settings, foes, plus epic encounters, reportedly will release sometime soon.

However, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. Our team includes an excellent group with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that worked for this game and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer said.

The size of Sandfall drummed up a storm of discussion following launch. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, considered this studio as the “ideal” for a studio. Despite being truly compact next to major studios, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits reveals many individuals participated; Sandfall hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit slightly more certainly if we have next an upcoming production peak down the line,” the producer said. “But I would see essentially a craft studio of a few exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing a work of art together.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as a company “focuses on preserving the successful elements that made this achievement possible originally.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to say specifically what’s next — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” they remarked. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell our next interests, but it's important also to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

They mentioned how this game originated from their director developing his passion title. And hopefully that's something we can continue with upcoming games.”