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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY contender, it’s also a massive sales triumph. Developer the development team along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that the game exceeded 5 million units in sales, and that’s despite its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game achieving some average market performance,” a senior team member explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted this title's critical score, now standing at 93, was the greatest surprise” to the team compared to “our initial expectations and what the reality of the field was. When the score released all staff members was screaming and jumping. The energy was electric.”

That success has led to Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, enemies, plus epic encounters, as announced will release in the next few months.

That said, while the game is growing, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. We've built a great team with a strong creative director with a clear direction for our work and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that made this possible and perhaps create large projects one by one,” they noted.

The size of Sandfall sparked plenty of debate when the game came out. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, looked at this studio as the model for a studio. Although the team is and was relatively lean versus large developers, one glance at the game's credits reveals numerous contributors participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a bit more for sure should there be next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” the executive said. “But I would see more of a workshop with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators that create a work of art together.” He noted that their core belief as a studio “is more to maintain the strengths that led to this accomplishment originally.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to reveal exact details about future projects — rest assured, I tried to get them to — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, forms the foundation of what we built,” they remarked. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell what will interest us, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our creative core through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

They added how this game started with their director “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped this approach we can continue with upcoming games.”