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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY candidate, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, this is even with it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite a surprise to the developers. I was convinced that we'd create a good game garnering moderate commercial success,” a senior team member stated.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked this title's critical score, which currently sits at 93, came as the most surprising moment for everyone versus “our initial expectations and the actual outcome of the field was. Because when it dropped the entire team celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

That success has led to the studio creating new free content for the game with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, as announced would be out sometime soon.

That said, as the title expands, it's unlikely the team will expand. “We have a great team guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that worked for this game and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer added.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion following launch. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being relatively lean versus large developers, a quick look at the game's credits shows that many individuals participated; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” the producer commented. “But I would see more of a workshop with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing collective masterpieces.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as a company “is more to maintain the key advantages that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — believe me, efforts were made — the team does know what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of our creations,” the lead programmer said. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell future passions, yet we must to remain faithful to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

They mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped this approach we will be able to do in coming projects.”