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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year contender, but also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner revealed that the game exceeded 5 million units sold, this is even with its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I was convinced that we'd create a solid title achieving moderate sales results,” a senior team member stated.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the studio relative to our early predictions and the actual outcome turned out to be. Because when it dropped all staff members were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

This triumph resulted in Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the title featuring fresh areas, foes, plus epic encounters, as announced will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the studio to grow. We've built a great team with a strong creative director with a clear direction for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that made this possible and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the producer noted.

Their team size sparked plenty of debate upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for game development. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits indicates many individuals participated; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators for animation work, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a bit more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” the executive stated. “Yet I picture more of a workshop with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make collective masterpieces.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as a company “aims to keep the strengths that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Despite being not the right time to reveal exact details what’s next — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” the lead programmer explained. “It's a bit too early to announce what will interest us, but it's important also to adhere to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

They noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from their director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”