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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong Game of the Year candidate, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title topped five million copies sold, this is in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game that would meet some average commercial success,” a senior team member commented.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, was the most surprising moment to the team versus “our initial expectations and what the reality of the field was. When the score released all staff members was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception has led to Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the game including novel settings, enemies, and boss fights, which they said will release in the next few months.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the team will expand. “We have an excellent group under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for this game and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that led to our success and perhaps create one big game after another,” the producer said.

The studio's scale sparked a storm of discussion when the game came out. Some developers, including renowned designers, considered Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits reveals numerous contributors worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea for animation work, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more certainly when facing an increase in development in upcoming years,” the producer said. “But I would see more of a workshop comprising a handful really talented people that create artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that their core belief as a company “aims to keep the successful elements that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Although it's premature for the studio to reveal exact details about future projects — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” they explained. “It's a bit too early to announce what will interest us, yet we must to stay true to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The lead programmer noted that the project originated from their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that philosophy we can continue as well for future productions.”