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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year contender, but also a huge commercial success. Studio the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s even with its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a surprise to the developers. I firmly believed that we'd create a solid title that would meet some average commercial success,” a key executive explained.

A technical director remarked the game's critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the studio versus our early predictions and the actual outcome turned out to be. When the score released the entire team were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception prompted the studio creating a free update for the game with a new environment, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, which they said is coming in the next few months.

However, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. “We have a talented crew under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for our work and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that made this possible then develop major titles sequentially,” the executive said.

Their team size sparked a storm of discussion following launch. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered this studio as a perfect example for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team next to major studios, a quick look at the game's credits shows that numerous contributors were involved; Sandfall contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more for sure if we have an increase in development in the coming years,” the producer stated. “But I would see rather a creative atelier comprising a handful really talented people capable of producing artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as developers “is more to maintain the key advantages that made this achievement possible originally.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to reveal exact details what’s next — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the team does know what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” a developer said. “The timing isn't right to announce our next interests, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game began with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped this approach we can continue in coming projects.”