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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY candidate, but also an enormous commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner revealed that the game exceeded five million copies in sales, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a shock to the developers. I was convinced that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving some average commercial success,” a key executive stated.

A technical director noted the game's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as the most surprising moment to the team versus “our initial expectations and the final result proved to be. When the score released all staff members celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

That success resulted in work on new free content for the game including novel settings, foes, plus epic encounters, which they said would be out sometime soon.

That said, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the team will expand. We've built a great team guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for the project and future concepts. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that worked for this game then develop major titles sequentially,” the executive added.

The size of Sandfall drummed up significant conversation upon the title's release. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for creative teams. While Sandfall was and is indeed a small team next to major studios, checking the game's credits indicates many individuals worked on it; Sandfall contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit a little more certainly when facing a future production surge in upcoming years,” the producer commented. “However, I envision more of a workshop comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as developers “aims to keep the key advantages that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Although it's not the right time to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” the lead programmer remarked. “The timing isn't right to announce future passions, however, it's crucial to adhere to our studio's essence through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

They noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that philosophy we can continue in coming projects.”