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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY candidate, but also an enormous financial hit. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title exceeded five million copies in sales, this is even with its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving reasonable sales results,” the COO and producer stated.

Another leading developer remarked the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as the greatest surprise” for everyone relative to “our initial expectations and the final result of the field was. Once it was published everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph has led to work on a free update for the game featuring fresh areas, foes, plus epic encounters, reportedly will release sometime soon.

That said, while the game is growing, don’t expect the studio to grow. Our team includes a talented crew under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that led to our success and do maybe one big game after another,” they noted.

Their team size sparked plenty of debate following launch. Some developers, including renowned designers, viewed Sandfall’s team as the model for a studio. Despite being relatively lean next to major studios, checking the title's staff list indicates dozens of people worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur a little more for sure if we have next an upcoming production peak down the line,” they commented. “But I would see essentially a craft studio with a small number of really talented people capable of producing collective masterpieces.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as a company “focuses on preserving the strengths that enabled this success originally.”

While it may be not the right time to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — rest assured, efforts were made — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of this project,” a developer said. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell our next interests, yet we must to remain faithful to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer added that the project started with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something will be repeated with upcoming games.”