Despite Runaway Achievement, Expedition 33 Creators Aim to Maintain Studio Small

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY candidate, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Developer the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title surpassed 5 million units sold, and that’s in spite of it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a surprise to the developers. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game achieving moderate commercial success,” a key executive explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted this title's review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, was the greatest surprise” for everyone compared to “our initial expectations and what the reality proved to be. When the score released everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph prompted Sandfall developing new free content for the game including novel settings, enemies, and boss fights, which they said is coming in the next few months.

That said, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. We've built a great team with a strong creative director who has a great vision for this game and future concepts. We'd like to keep the human scale that made this possible and do maybe major titles sequentially,” they added.

The studio's scale sparked significant conversation following launch. Some developers, such as the famed director, considered this studio as the model for a studio. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list indicates numerous contributors were involved; the French studio partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“We will hire slightly more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” they stated. “Yet I picture more of a workshop comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that can make collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as a company “focuses on preserving the key advantages that enabled this success in the first place.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to reveal exact details what’s next — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they said. “It's a bit too early to announce our next interests, however, it's crucial to stay true to our studio's essence through compelling worlds plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”