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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY candidate, it’s also a massive commercial success. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that this title topped 5 million units sold, this is in spite of it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have a good game garnering reasonable sales results,” a key executive explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted the game's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to what we anticipated and the final result proved to be. Because when it dropped all staff members was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success resulted in work on a complimentary expansion for players with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, while the game is growing, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. “We have a talented crew guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for our work and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that led to our success and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer said.

The size of Sandfall drummed up plenty of debate when the game came out. Some developers, such as the famed director, viewed this studio as the model for game development. Despite being truly compact next to major studios, one glance at the game's credits reveals numerous contributors participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We will hire a little more definitely should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” the executive said. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio of a few highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as a company “aims to keep the key advantages that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to say specifically what’s next — believe me, I tried to get them to — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, is integral to our identity of what we built,” they explained. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell our next interests, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The developer mentioned how this game originated from their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that's something we will be able to do as well for future productions.”