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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY contender, it’s also a massive commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner revealed that this title surpassed five million copies in sales, and that’s even with it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement came as quite a surprise for the team. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a good game that would meet some average market performance,” the COO and producer stated.

Another leading developer noted the game's critical score, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” for everyone relative to “our initial expectations and the final result proved to be. Because when it dropped all staff members celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

This triumph prompted work on a complimentary expansion for the title with a new environment, adversaries, plus epic encounters, as announced would be out sometime soon.

However, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate the studio to grow. Our team includes an excellent group guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for our work and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the human scale that worked for this game then develop one big game after another,” the executive said.

Their team size sparked significant conversation when the game came out. Some developers, such as the famed director, considered this studio as the “ideal” for a studio. Despite being relatively lean next to major studios, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits reveals dozens of people were involved; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We will hire slightly more certainly if we have a future production surge down the line,” they commented. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few exceptionally gifted creators that create a work of art together.” He noted that their core belief as developers “aims to keep the strengths that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Although it's premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans what’s next — rest assured, I tried to get them to — they are certain what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of this project,” a developer said. “It's a bit too early to specify our next interests, yet we must to adhere to our creative core through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer noted how this game started with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something we will be able to do as well for future productions.”