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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive Game of the Year candidate, but also a massive financial hit. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner revealed that this title topped 5 million units sold, and that’s in spite of it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as quite a surprise to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving moderate commercial success,” the COO and producer commented.

A technical director remarked the game's critical score, which currently sits at 93, came as the most surprising moment to the studio relative to what we anticipated and the actual outcome of the field was. Once it was published everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph prompted the studio creating a complimentary expansion for the title with a new environment, foes, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming sometime soon.

However, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. “We have a great team under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for this game and also for new ideas. We'd like to keep the human scale that worked for this game and perhaps create one big game after another,” they noted.

The studio's scale drummed up significant conversation when the game came out. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, considered this studio as the “ideal” for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list shows that dozens of people participated; Sandfall hired a team in Korea for animation work, for example.

“We plan to recruit slightly more for sure if we have a future production surge in the coming years,” they stated. “But I would see essentially a craft studio comprising a handful really talented people that can make artistic collaborations.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “is more to maintain the strengths that made this achievement possible from the start.”

While it may be too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of what we built,” they said. “It's still premature to specify future passions, yet we must to stay true to our studio's essence featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The developer mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully this approach we can continue with upcoming games.”