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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive Game of the Year contender, but also an enormous sales triumph. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that the game exceeded five million copies sold, and that’s even with it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite an unexpected turn to the developers. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game garnering moderate commercial success,” the COO and producer stated.

A technical director noted that Clair Obscur’s critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone relative to “our initial expectations and what the reality of the field was. Because when it dropped the entire team was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph resulted in work on a free update for players with a new environment, enemies, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, while the game is growing, don’t expect the team will expand. Our team includes an excellent group guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that made this possible and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer added.

Their team size drummed up significant conversation upon the title's release. Some developers, such as the famed director, looked at Sandfall’s team as the model for a studio. Despite being indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits reveals dozens of people participated; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We will hire a bit more for sure when facing a future production surge in the coming years,” the executive said. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier comprising a handful really talented people that create a work of art together.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as developers “focuses on preserving the strengths that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Although it's premature for the studio to say specifically what’s next — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” a developer said. “The timing isn't right to announce our next interests, 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 lead programmer mentioned that the project started with the creative director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that philosophy will be repeated in coming projects.”