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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY contender, but also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that the game surpassed five million copies in sales, this is despite it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was a shock to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have a solid title that would meet some average sales results,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer pointed out the game's review aggregate, rated 93 by critics, was “maybe the biggest shock for everyone relative to “our initial expectations and the final result proved to be. When the score released everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception prompted the studio creating a free update for the game with a new environment, foes, and boss fights, which they said would be out sometime soon.

However, while the game is growing, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. We've built a great team guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for this game and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that worked for this game and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the producer added.

Their team size sparked plenty of debate following launch. Some developers, including renowned designers, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list shows that many individuals participated; Sandfall hired a team in Korea for animation work, for example.

“Some hiring will occur a little more for sure should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” the producer commented. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier of a few highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as a company “focuses on preserving the strengths that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to say specifically what’s next — rest assured, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of our creations,” they remarked. “The timing isn't right to specify future passions, however, it's crucial to stay true to our creative core through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer mentioned how this game started with the creative director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”