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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top GOTY candidate, but also a massive commercial success. Studio the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that the game exceeded 5 million units sold, this is despite its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as an unexpected turn to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving some average sales results,” the COO and producer stated.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked the game's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the studio relative to what we anticipated and the actual outcome turned out to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

This triumph has led to the studio creating a free update for players with a new environment, adversaries, and boss fights, reportedly would be out sometime soon.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. “We have a talented crew under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that made this possible and perhaps create one big game after another,” they added.

The size of Sandfall drummed up plenty of debate following launch. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, viewed this studio as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean next to major studios, a quick look at the title's staff list reveals dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“We plan to recruit a little more certainly when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” the executive stated. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio of a few really talented people that create collective masterpieces.” He noted that their core belief as a studio “is more to maintain the strengths that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

While it may be not the right time to reveal exact details what’s next — believe me, I tried to get them to — the team does know what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they remarked. “It's still premature to be able to tell our next interests, but it's important also to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

The developer added how this game began with their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped this approach we will be able to do as well for future productions.”