🔗 Share this article

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY contender, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Developer the development team and publisher their publishing partner announced that this title surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as quite an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have a solid title achieving some average market performance,” a senior team member commented.

Another leading developer noted the game's critical score, now standing at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” to the studio compared to what we anticipated and the actual outcome proved to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

That success has led to Sandfall developing a free update for players featuring fresh areas, enemies, plus epic encounters, reportedly is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. We've built an excellent group with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for our work and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that led to our success then develop major titles sequentially,” the producer said.

The studio's scale sparked a storm of discussion following launch. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Although the team is and was truly compact next to major studios, a quick look at the title's staff list shows that dozens of people participated; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, for example.

“We plan to recruit a bit more definitely should there be next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the producer stated. “But I would see more of a workshop comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “focuses on preserving the key advantages that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Although it's premature for the studio to reveal exact details what’s next — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of our creations,” they explained. “It's still premature to be able to tell future passions, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game began with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully this approach we can continue with upcoming games.”