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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY contender, but also an enormous sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that the game exceeded 5 million units in sales, this is despite its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as quite a shock to the developers. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering reasonable market performance,” a senior team member commented.

A technical director remarked this title's review aggregate, now standing at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock to the team versus what we anticipated and what the reality of the field was. Because when it dropped the entire team was screaming and jumping. The energy was electric.”

That success resulted in Sandfall developing a free update for the game including novel settings, adversaries, plus epic encounters, as announced would be out sometime soon.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. “We have an excellent group under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for this game and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that worked for this game and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the executive noted.

The studio's scale generated significant conversation following launch. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, considered this studio as a perfect example for game development. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team versus large developers, checking the title's staff list indicates numerous contributors worked on it; the French studio partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit slightly more certainly should there be an increase in development down the line,” the executive commented. “But I would see rather a creative atelier with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing artistic collaborations.” He noted that their core belief as a studio “is more to maintain the key advantages that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, forms the foundation of our creations,” a developer explained. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell what will interest us, but it's important also to remain faithful to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

The developer mentioned how this game originated from the creative director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire that philosophy will be repeated as well for future productions.”