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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY contender, but also an enormous sales triumph. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title topped five million copies sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite a surprise to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title achieving some average commercial success,” a key executive commented.

Another leading developer remarked that Clair Obscur’s critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the team relative to our early predictions and the actual outcome of the field was. When the score released the entire team was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

This triumph has led to work on new free content for the game with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, reportedly will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. We've built a talented crew with a strong creative director with a clear direction for this game plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that made this possible then develop large projects one by one,” they added.

The studio's scale sparked significant conversation following launch. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, considered the development group as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, checking the game's credits indicates many individuals worked on it; the French studio contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, for example.

“We will hire a little more certainly if we have a future production surge in the coming years,” the producer said. “But I would see rather a creative atelier of a few exceptionally gifted creators that create collective masterpieces.” He noted that their core belief as developers “is more to maintain the successful elements that led to this accomplishment originally.”

While it may be not the right time to reveal exact details about future projects — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, is integral to our identity of our creations,” a developer said. “It's a bit too early to specify our next interests, yet we must to adhere to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from the visionary developing his passion title. And hopefully this approach will be repeated as well for future productions.”