🔗 Share this article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY contender, but also a huge sales triumph. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title exceeded five million copies in sales, this is even with it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite a surprise to the developers. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering reasonable sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer noted the game's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, was the greatest surprise” to the team compared to what we anticipated and what the reality of the field was. When the score released the entire team celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph resulted in Sandfall developing a free update for players featuring fresh areas, foes, plus epic encounters, reportedly is coming in the next few months.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. “We have a great team under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that led to our success and do maybe major titles sequentially,” they added.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, considered the development group as the model for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is truly compact versus large developers, checking Expedition 33’s credits reveals dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit slightly more certainly should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” they said. “However, I envision more of a workshop with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as a studio “aims to keep the strengths that enabled this success originally.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans about future projects — believe me, I attempted to learn more — they are certain their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of our creations,” a developer remarked. “The timing isn't right to specify future passions, but it's important also to stay true to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with the visionary developing his passion title. And hopefully that philosophy we will be able to do as well for future productions.”