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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY candidate, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title topped 5 million units sold, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as quite a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a solid title achieving moderate sales results,” a senior team member stated.

Another leading developer noted the game's critical score, which currently sits at 93, was “maybe the biggest shock to the studio relative to “our initial expectations and the final result turned out to be. Once it was published the entire team was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception prompted Sandfall developing new free content for players with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, as announced would be out in the next few months.

That said, while the game is growing, don’t expect the studio to grow. Our team includes an excellent group guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for our work and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the human scale that worked for this game and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the producer added.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation when the game came out. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team next to major studios, a quick look at the title's staff list indicates many individuals worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We will hire slightly more definitely should there be next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the executive stated. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators that create collective masterpieces.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as developers “aims to keep the strengths that enabled this success in the first place.”

Although it's not the right time to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the team does know what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of our creations,” a developer remarked. “It's a bit too early to specify what will interest us, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The developer mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire this approach we can continue as well for future productions.”