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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year candidate, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that the game surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s despite its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success was an unexpected turn to the developers. I firmly believed that we would have a good game achieving moderate sales results,” the COO and producer stated.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out the game's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the studio compared to “our initial expectations and the final result turned out to be. Once it was published the entire team were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception prompted work on a complimentary expansion for players featuring fresh areas, adversaries, and boss fights, as announced is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, as the title expands, don’t expect the team will expand. We've built a great team under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for this game and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that made this possible then develop one big game after another,” the executive added.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, viewed the development group as the model for game development. Despite being relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the game's credits shows that numerous contributors worked on it; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, to illustrate.

“We will hire slightly more for sure if we have next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the producer stated. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio with a small number of really talented people that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as a studio “aims to keep the strengths that enabled this success from the start.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans what’s next — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” the lead programmer explained. “It's a bit too early to announce our next interests, yet we must to stay true to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game began with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that philosophy we will be able to do in coming projects.”