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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY candidate, it’s also a huge sales triumph. Developer the development team and publisher their publishing partner announced that this title surpassed five million copies in sales, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite a shock to the developers. I was convinced that we would have a solid title that would meet reasonable sales results,” a key executive commented.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to “our initial expectations and the final result turned out to be. When the score released all staff members was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

That success resulted in the studio creating new free content for players with a new environment, adversaries, plus epic encounters, reportedly would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. “We have a talented crew under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for the project plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that worked for this game then develop one big game after another,” the executive said.

The size of Sandfall generated plenty of debate following launch. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, looked at the development group as a perfect example for creative teams. Despite being truly compact versus large developers, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits indicates dozens of people were involved; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit a bit more certainly should there be an increase in development in the coming years,” the executive stated. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing collective masterpieces.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as developers “aims to keep the key advantages that enabled this success from the start.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — believe me, efforts were made — the developers understand their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they said. “The timing isn't right to specify what will interest us, yet we must to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game started with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”