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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY candidate, it’s also a huge sales triumph. Developer the development team and publisher their publishing partner announced that this title exceeded 5 million units in sales, and that’s in spite of it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was an unexpected turn to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title garnering reasonable commercial success,” a key executive explained.

Another leading developer noted that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, came as the most surprising moment to the studio compared to our early predictions and the actual outcome of the field was. When the score released the entire team celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

That success resulted in Sandfall developing a free update for the game featuring fresh areas, foes, along with challenging bosses, as announced would be out sometime soon.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. “We have a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project and future concepts. We intend to preserve the human scale that led to our success then develop one big game after another,” they added.

Their team size generated plenty of debate upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, viewed the development group as a perfect example for a studio. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team versus large developers, checking the game's credits shows that many individuals participated; the French studio hired a team in Korea for animation work, for example.

“We plan to recruit slightly more for sure when facing a future production surge in upcoming years,” the executive said. “However, I envision more of a workshop with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make a work of art together.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as a studio “aims to keep the strengths that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

Despite being premature for the studio to reveal exact details about future projects — believe me, efforts were made — the team does know their essential identity. “Strategic combat, is integral to our identity of what we built,” they said. “It's a bit too early to specify future passions, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

The lead programmer mentioned that the project started with the creative director developing his passion title. It is hoped that philosophy will be repeated with upcoming games.”