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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY contender, but also a massive sales triumph. Studio the development team and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title exceeded 5 million units in sales, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as a surprise to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a good game garnering moderate sales results,” a senior team member commented.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s critical score, now standing at 93, was the most surprising moment to the studio relative to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome proved to be. When the score released the entire team celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

That success has led to Sandfall developing new free content for the game including novel settings, adversaries, plus epic encounters, reportedly will release in the next few months.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, don’t expect the studio to grow. Our team includes a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that made this possible then develop major titles sequentially,” the executive added.

Their team size drummed up significant conversation upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, considered the development group as the “ideal” for a studio. Although the team is and was indeed a small team versus large developers, one glance at the title's staff list reveals dozens of people were involved; the French studio contracted a Korean team for animation work, for example.

“We will hire a bit more definitely should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” the producer stated. “However, I envision more of a workshop comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators that can make a work of art together.” It was stated that their core belief as a studio “focuses on preserving the strengths that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans about future projects — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the team does know what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” a developer remarked. “It's still premature to announce future passions, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

They mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”