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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top GOTY candidate, but also a massive commercial success. Developer the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that the game exceeded five million copies sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance was a surprise for the team. I was convinced that we would have a good game garnering some average market performance,” a key executive commented.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out that Clair Obscur’s Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as the greatest surprise” to the studio versus our early predictions and the actual outcome proved to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph prompted work on new free content for the title with a new environment, enemies, plus epic encounters, as announced will release sometime soon.

However, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the studio to grow. “We have a great team guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for the project plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that led to our success and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer noted.

The size of Sandfall generated a storm of discussion upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, viewed the development group as the model for game development. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean versus large developers, one glance at the game's credits shows that numerous contributors were involved; the French studio contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a bit more for sure should there be an increase in development in upcoming years,” the executive commented. “But I would see rather a creative atelier with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing artistic collaborations.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a company “is more to maintain the key advantages that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” they explained. “It's a bit too early to specify what will interest us, but it's important also to stay true to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that excites us.”

They added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the creative director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire this approach we will be able to do in coming projects.”