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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive GOTY candidate, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title topped 5 million units sold, this is even with its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

Its success came as a shock to the developers. I was convinced that we'd create a solid title achieving reasonable commercial success,” the COO and producer explained.

A technical director noted the game's critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” to the studio relative to what we anticipated and what the reality of the field was. Once it was published all staff members was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph has led to the studio creating a free update for players featuring fresh areas, foes, along with challenging bosses, reportedly will release sometime soon.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the studio to grow. Our team includes a talented crew with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for the project and future concepts. We'd like to keep the human scale that worked for this game then develop one big game after another,” they said.

The size of Sandfall drummed up plenty of debate following launch. Some developers, including renowned designers, looked at Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for game development. Despite being relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list indicates dozens of people worked on it; the French studio contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, for example.

“We will hire slightly more definitely if we have an increase in development in upcoming years,” the executive stated. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that their core belief as developers “aims to keep the successful elements that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

While it may be premature for the studio to say specifically about future projects — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, forms the foundation of this project,” a developer remarked. “It's still premature to specify future passions, but it's important also to adhere to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with the visionary developing his passion title. And hopefully this approach we can continue in coming projects.”