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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY candidate, it’s also a massive financial hit. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title topped 5 million units sold, this is despite it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was a shock to the developers. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience that would meet moderate market performance,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer noted that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock to the studio compared to our early predictions and the final result of the field was. Once it was published the entire team was screaming and jumping. The energy was electric.”

That success resulted in the studio creating a free update for players with a new environment, foes, along with challenging bosses, as announced would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, while the game is growing, don’t expect the studio to grow. We've built a great team guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for our work and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that made this possible and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the executive said.

Their team size sparked plenty of debate following launch. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the title's staff list indicates many individuals worked on it; the French studio contracted a Korean team for animation work, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a bit more certainly if we have a future production surge in upcoming years,” the producer stated. “Yet I picture more of a workshop with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing collective masterpieces.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as a studio “aims to keep the key advantages that enabled this success from the start.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically what’s next — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” the lead programmer remarked. “It's still premature to specify what will interest us, but it's important also to stay true to our creative core through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

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