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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year contender, it’s also a huge sales triumph. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that this title surpassed 5 million units sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as a surprise for the team. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a good game that would meet some average market performance,” the COO and producer explained.

A technical director noted this title's review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, was the most surprising moment to the studio compared to our early predictions and the final result proved to be. When the score released everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph prompted Sandfall developing new free content for players including novel settings, enemies, plus epic encounters, which they said will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. We've built a great team under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for our work and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that led to our success and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the executive said.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion upon the title's release. Some developers, including renowned designers, viewed this studio as the model for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is truly compact versus large developers, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits indicates many individuals participated; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, for example.

“We will hire slightly more for sure should there be an increase in development down the line,” the producer said. “But I would see more of a workshop with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make collective masterpieces.” It was stated that their core belief as a studio “is more to maintain the successful elements that enabled this success in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans about future projects — believe me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their essential identity. “Strategic combat, forms the foundation of what we built,” the lead programmer explained. “It's still premature to be able to tell what will interest us, however, it's crucial to adhere to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

The developer mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director developing his passion title. It is hoped that philosophy we will be able to do in coming projects.”