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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive Game of the Year contender, but also a massive financial hit. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title surpassed five million copies in sales, this is even with its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success was an unexpected turn for the team. I was convinced that we'd create a good game achieving some average market performance,” the COO and producer commented.

Another leading developer remarked the game's review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock for everyone compared to our early predictions and what the reality turned out to be. Because when it dropped all staff members celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

That success resulted in work on new free content for players featuring fresh areas, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, as announced is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. We've built a talented crew with a strong creative director with a clear direction for our work and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that worked for this game and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the executive noted.

The size of Sandfall drummed up a storm of discussion following launch. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, considered Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for creative teams. Despite being relatively lean next to major studios, checking Expedition 33’s credits shows that dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators for animation work, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more certainly if we have a future production surge in the coming years,” the executive commented. “But I would see more of a workshop with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators that create collective masterpieces.” He noted that their core belief as a company “is more to maintain the key advantages that enabled this success originally.”

While it may be not the right time to say specifically what’s next — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the team does know what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” they explained. “The timing isn't right to announce our next interests, but it's important also to adhere to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The developer noted how this game originated from their director developing his passion title. It is hoped that's something we can continue with upcoming games.”