🔗 Share this article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY contender, but also a massive commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, and that’s in spite of it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance was a shock to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering some average sales results,” a senior team member stated.

The CTO and lead programmer noted that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the team relative to “our initial expectations and what the reality of the field was. Once it was published everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success prompted Sandfall developing a free update for the title featuring fresh areas, adversaries, plus epic encounters, reportedly would be out sometime soon.

That said, while the game is growing, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. Our team includes an excellent group under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for the project and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that led to our success and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the executive noted.

The size of Sandfall generated a storm of discussion when the game came out. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, viewed Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for creative teams. Although the team is and was truly compact versus large developers, a quick look at the game's credits indicates numerous contributors worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We will hire a bit more definitely when facing an increase in development in upcoming years,” the executive commented. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio with a small number of highly skilled individuals that create collective masterpieces.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as developers “aims to keep the key advantages that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

Although it's premature for the studio to reveal exact details about future projects — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer explained. “It's still premature to specify what will interest us, however, it's crucial to stay true to our creative core through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

The developer mentioned that the project began with their director “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”