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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that the game topped five million copies sold, and that’s despite its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was a surprise to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have a solid title that would meet some average commercial success,” a senior team member commented.

A technical director remarked that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, now standing at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock to the team versus “our initial expectations and the actual outcome turned out to be. When the score released everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception resulted in the studio creating new free content for the game featuring fresh areas, enemies, and boss fights, which they said will release in the next few months.

That said, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. Our team includes a great team with a strong creative director 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.

Their team size generated plenty of debate when the game came out. Some developers, including renowned designers, looked at Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for a studio. While Sandfall was and is truly compact versus large developers, one glance at the game's credits reveals numerous contributors were involved; Sandfall hired a team in Korea for animation work, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur a little more certainly should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” they said. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that create a work of art together.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “aims to keep the successful elements that made this achievement possible originally.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically what’s next — and trust me, efforts were made — they are certain their essential identity. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” the lead programmer remarked. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell what will interest us, but it's important also to adhere to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The developer mentioned how this game began with the creative director developing his passion title. It is hoped that's something will be repeated with upcoming games.”