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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY contender, but also an enormous sales triumph. Developer the development team and publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, and that’s even with its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was a surprise for the team. “I was strongly believing that we would have a solid title garnering some average commercial success,” a senior team member commented.

A technical director pointed out this title's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the team versus our early predictions and the actual outcome proved to be. Once it was published all staff members celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success has led to the studio creating a free update for the game featuring fresh areas, foes, along with challenging bosses, as announced would be out sometime soon.

However, while the game is growing, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. “We have an excellent group with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for the project and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that worked for this game and perhaps create one big game after another,” they said.

The size of Sandfall generated a storm of discussion when the game came out. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, looked at the development group as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team next to major studios, checking the title's staff list reveals numerous contributors were involved; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, as an instance.

“We will hire slightly more definitely should there be an increase in development in the coming years,” the executive stated. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier with a small number of really talented people capable of producing collective masterpieces.” It was stated that their core belief as a studio “focuses on preserving the key advantages that enabled this success from the start.”

Although it's premature for the studio to say specifically what’s next — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — the team does know what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer explained. “The timing isn't right to specify our next interests, however, it's crucial to stay true to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that excites us.”

The developer noted that the project started with their director developing his passion title. We aspire that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”