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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY candidate, but also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title topped 5 million units sold, and that’s despite it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as quite a shock to the developers. I was convinced that we would have a solid title garnering some average commercial success,” the COO and producer explained.

A technical director noted this title's critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the team compared to our early predictions and what the reality of the field was. When the score released the entire team celebrated excitedly. The energy was electric.”

That success has led to work on a free update for the title including novel settings, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, as announced would be out sometime soon.

That said, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. Our team includes a talented crew with a strong creative director who has a great vision for the project plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that made this possible and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the producer added.

Their team size sparked plenty of debate when the game came out. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, looked at this studio as the model for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list shows that dozens of people worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, for example.

“We plan to recruit a little more certainly when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” the executive said. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing a work of art together.” It was stated that their core belief as a studio “is more to maintain the key advantages that enabled this success originally.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I tried to get them to — they are certain their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer said. “It's a bit too early to specify future passions, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that excites us.”

The lead programmer mentioned that the project began with their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped that philosophy we will be able to do as well for future productions.”