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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY candidate, but also a huge financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title surpassed 5 million units in sales, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as a surprise to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we'd create an enjoyable experience garnering reasonable commercial success,” the COO and producer explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted the game's review aggregate, now standing at 93, came as the greatest surprise” to the team compared to our early predictions and what the reality proved to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception prompted Sandfall developing new free content for the game including novel settings, enemies, and boss fights, which they said is coming sometime soon.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. Our team includes a great team under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for the project plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer said.

The studio's scale generated a storm of discussion when the game came out. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, considered this studio as a perfect example for a studio. Despite being relatively lean versus large developers, a quick look at the game's credits reveals numerous contributors participated; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit a bit more certainly if we have a future production surge in the coming years,” the producer said. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few really talented people capable of producing collective masterpieces.” It was stated that their core belief as developers “aims to keep the key advantages that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

While it may be premature for the studio to say specifically about future projects — believe me, I tried to get them to — the team does know what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of our creations,” a developer remarked. “It's still premature to specify future passions, but it's important also to adhere to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The developer noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director developing his passion title. And hopefully that's something we can continue as well for future productions.”