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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year contender, but also a massive commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner revealed that this title surpassed 5 million units sold, this is despite its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as a surprise to the developers. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience that would meet moderate market performance,” a senior team member stated.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked the game's review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, came as “maybe the biggest shock to the team versus what we anticipated and the actual outcome of the field was. Once it was published the entire team was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception prompted the studio creating a free update for the title including novel settings, foes, and boss fights, reportedly would be out sometime soon.

That said, as the title expands, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. We've built a talented crew with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the human scale that led to our success and do maybe large projects one by one,” they said.

The studio's scale generated significant conversation upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean versus large developers, one glance at the game's credits shows that dozens of people participated; the French studio hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a little more certainly if we have a future production surge in the coming years,” the executive commented. “Yet I picture more of a workshop of a few really talented people that create artistic collaborations.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as developers “aims to keep the successful elements that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically what’s next — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the developers understand what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” they explained. “The timing isn't right to specify future passions, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer noted how this game started with their director developing his passion title. And hopefully that's something we will be able to do as well for future productions.”