🔗 Share this article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY candidate, but also a massive commercial success. Studio the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that the game exceeded 5 million units in sales, this is despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a good game that would meet moderate sales results,” a key executive commented.

A technical director pointed out that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, was the greatest surprise” to the team relative to what we anticipated and the actual outcome of the field was. When the score released everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success has led to Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the game including novel settings, adversaries, plus epic encounters, which they said would be out in the next few months.

However, despite the game's evolution, it's unlikely the studio to grow. “We have an excellent group guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for this game plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that led to our success and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the executive added.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, looked at this studio as a perfect example for a studio. Despite being relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the title's staff list reveals numerous contributors worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more definitely should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” the executive stated. “Yet I picture more of a workshop with a small number of highly skilled individuals capable of producing artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as developers “aims to keep the strengths that made this achievement possible originally.”

Although it's not the right time to say specifically about future projects — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of what we built,” a developer explained. “It's a bit too early to specify what will interest us, but it's important also to adhere to our creative core through compelling worlds plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

They added how this game originated from the visionary pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that's something we can continue with upcoming games.”