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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong Game of the Year contender, but also a massive commercial success. Developer the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title exceeded five million copies sold, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement came as an unexpected turn for the team. I was convinced that we'd create a solid title that would meet some average sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted this title's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as the most surprising moment to the studio versus our early predictions and what the reality of the field was. When the score released the entire team was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success has led to work on new free content for the title featuring fresh areas, enemies, and boss fights, which they said would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, as the title expands, don’t expect the team will expand. We've built an excellent group with a strong creative director with a clear direction for our work plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the human scale that worked for this game and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the executive noted.

The size of Sandfall generated plenty of debate following launch. A few well-known creators, like Hideo Kojima, looked at this studio as the model for a studio. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean next to major studios, one glance at the game's credits indicates dozens of people participated; the French studio partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more definitely should there be an increase in development in upcoming years,” the producer said. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators that can make a work of art together.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “focuses on preserving the strengths that made this achievement possible originally.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, efforts were made — the team does know what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, forms the foundation of what we built,” they explained. “It's still premature to be able to tell what will interest us, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The developer noted that the project originated from their director “work[ing] on his dream game. It is hoped that philosophy we will be able to do with upcoming games.”