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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Developer the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that the game topped five million copies in sales, and that’s even with its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as an unexpected turn for the team. I was convinced that we would have a good game garnering some average commercial success,” the COO and producer stated.

A technical director remarked the game's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” for everyone compared to “our initial expectations and the final result of the field was. When the score released everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph resulted in work on a complimentary expansion for players including novel settings, foes, and boss fights, as announced would be out in the next few months.

That said, as the title expands, don’t expect the team will expand. We've built a great team under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for our work and future concepts. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that led to our success and perhaps create one big game after another,” the executive noted.

The size of Sandfall generated plenty of debate when the game came out. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the model for a studio. Despite being relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits indicates numerous contributors participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, for example.

“We plan to recruit a bit more certainly when facing a future production surge in upcoming years,” the producer said. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier with a small number of really talented people capable of producing a work of art together.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as developers “focuses on preserving the successful elements that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

While it may be premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans what’s next — believe me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of this project,” the lead programmer said. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell what will interest us, but it's important also to adhere to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

They noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from the creative director pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”