🔗 Share this article

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY contender, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title surpassed five million copies in sales, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we would have a good game that would meet moderate market performance,” a key executive commented.

A technical director pointed out this title's critical score, now standing at 93, was the most surprising moment to the team relative to what we anticipated and what the reality proved to be. Because when it dropped the entire team celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph resulted in work on new free content for the game including novel settings, foes, plus epic encounters, which they said would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. We've built an excellent group with a strong creative director who has a great vision for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the human scale that made this possible and do maybe large projects one by one,” the executive added.

The studio's scale generated plenty of debate upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, a quick look at the game's credits indicates dozens of people participated; the French studio partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit slightly more certainly if we have an increase in development down the line,” they said. “Yet I picture more of a workshop of a few really talented people that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a company “focuses on preserving the strengths that enabled this success from the start.”

While it may be not the right time to reveal exact details about future projects — rest assured, efforts were made — they are certain their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer explained. “It's still premature to specify what will interest us, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer added how this game originated from the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully this approach we can continue as well for future productions.”