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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY candidate, but also a huge commercial success. Studio the development team and publisher their publishing partner revealed that the game exceeded five million copies sold, and that’s even with its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite a surprise for the team. I firmly believed that we would have a solid title that would meet reasonable sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer remarked this title's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to “our initial expectations and what the reality of the field was. When the score released everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph has led to work on a free update for the game featuring fresh areas, enemies, plus epic encounters, as announced would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. We've built a great team guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for our work plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that worked for this game and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the executive added.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, considered Sandfall’s team as the model for a studio. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean versus large developers, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits reveals dozens of people worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit a little more definitely if we have an increase in development in the coming years,” the executive stated. “But I would see more of a workshop with a small number of really talented people that can make a work of art together.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as a company “aims to keep the successful elements that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Despite being premature for the studio to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — they are certain their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” they explained. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell future passions, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer noted that the project originated from the creative director pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that philosophy will be repeated in coming projects.”