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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY contender, it’s also a huge sales triumph. Developer the development team and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that the game exceeded 5 million units in sales, and that’s in spite of it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance was a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game that would meet moderate market performance,” a senior team member explained.

A technical director noted that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the studio compared to our early predictions and what the reality turned out to be. When the score released all staff members was screaming and jumping. The energy was electric.”

That success has led to Sandfall developing a free update for the game featuring fresh areas, adversaries, and boss fights, which they said is coming in the next few months.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a great team guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that made this possible and perhaps create one big game after another,” the producer added.

The studio's scale generated plenty of debate following launch. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, looked at this studio as the model for creative teams. Although the team is and was truly compact versus large developers, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits indicates many individuals worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea for animation work, as an instance.

“We will hire a bit more definitely should there be next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” the producer said. “But I would see rather a creative atelier with a small number of highly skilled individuals that create a work of art together.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as developers “is more to maintain the successful elements that enabled this success from the start.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to reveal exact details about future projects — believe me, I tried to get them to — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of what we built,” the lead programmer explained. “It's a bit too early to announce what will interest us, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to our studio's essence through compelling worlds plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

They mentioned how this game originated from the visionary developing his passion title. It is hoped that philosophy we can continue as well for future productions.”