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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong Game of the Year contender, but also a massive sales triumph. Developer the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that the game topped five million copies sold, this is even with it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as a surprise to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we'd create an enjoyable experience garnering moderate market performance,” a key executive explained.

A technical director remarked that Clair Obscur’s critical score, which currently sits at 93, was the greatest surprise” to the studio versus what we anticipated and what the reality of the field was. When the score released all staff members was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

That success has led to work on a free update for the title including novel settings, adversaries, and boss fights, as announced would be out sometime soon.

However, as the title expands, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. Our team includes an excellent group guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for this game and future concepts. We intend to preserve the human scale that led to our success then develop one big game after another,” the executive added.

Their team size sparked a storm of discussion when the game came out. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, looked at the development group as the model for game development. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean next to major studios, checking the game's credits shows that dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more for sure if we have next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” they said. “But I would see more of a workshop comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that create artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as developers “aims to keep the successful elements that enabled this success from the start.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to reveal exact details about future projects — believe me, efforts were made — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they explained. “It's still premature to be able to tell future passions, yet we must to adhere to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer added how this game started with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. We aspire this approach will be repeated in coming projects.”