🔗 Share this article

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

The game's performance came as quite a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create an enjoyable experience garnering moderate market performance,” the COO and producer stated.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out the game's critical score, now standing at 93, was “maybe the biggest shock for everyone versus “our initial expectations and the final result turned out to be. Because when it dropped the entire team was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph resulted in Sandfall developing a free update for the title with a new environment, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, reportedly will release in the next few months.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, don’t expect the studio to grow. We've built an excellent group with a strong creative director who has a great vision for this game plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that made this possible and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the producer noted.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion when the game came out. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, considered Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for creative teams. Although the team is and was indeed a small team versus large developers, checking the title's staff list indicates dozens of people were involved; the French studio hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We will hire slightly more definitely when facing next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they commented. “But I would see rather a creative atelier with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “is more to maintain the key advantages that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

While it may be not the right time to say specifically what’s next — believe me, efforts were made — they are certain their essential identity. “Strategic combat, forms the foundation of this project,” they explained. “It's a bit too early to announce future passions, but it's important also to stay true to our studio's essence through compelling worlds plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

They mentioned that the project started with the creative director developing his passion title. It is hoped that philosophy we will be able to do as well for future productions.”