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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year contender, it’s also a huge financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

Its success was a shock for the team. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title garnering reasonable market performance,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s critical score, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” for everyone versus “our initial expectations and the final result proved to be. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception prompted the studio creating a free update for the game including novel settings, enemies, plus epic encounters, as announced would be out sometime soon.

However, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the studio to grow. “We have an excellent group under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for our work and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the human scale that made this possible and do maybe large projects one by one,” they noted.

The studio's scale sparked plenty of debate upon the title's release. Some developers, such as the famed director, considered Sandfall’s team as the model for a studio. Despite being indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits shows that numerous contributors worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“We will hire a little more certainly when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” the executive stated. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio comprising a handful really talented people that create a work of art together.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as a company “focuses on preserving the strengths that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Although it's not the right time to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — believe me, efforts were made — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” a developer explained. “The timing isn't right to specify future passions, however, it's crucial to adhere to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

They added how this game began with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that's something we will be able to do as well for future productions.”