🔗 Share this article

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive Game of the Year candidate, but also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team and publisher their publishing partner announced that the game topped five million copies sold, this is despite its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as a surprise for the team. “I was strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience garnering some average sales results,” a key executive explained.

Another leading developer noted that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, now standing at 93, came as “maybe the biggest shock for everyone versus what we anticipated and what the reality turned out to be. Because when it dropped the entire team were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

That success prompted the studio creating new free content for the title featuring fresh areas, enemies, and boss fights, which they said is coming sometime soon.

However, while the game is growing, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that made this possible and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the producer noted.

The size of Sandfall drummed up a storm of discussion when the game came out. Some developers, such as the famed director, viewed the development group as the model for game development. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the game's credits reveals dozens of people were involved; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, for example.

“We will hire a little more certainly should there be next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” they commented. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few highly skilled individuals that create collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as a company “focuses on preserving the successful elements that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

While it may be premature for the studio to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — believe me, I tried to get them to — the team does know what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, is integral to our identity of what we built,” a developer said. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell our next interests, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer noted how this game began with their director pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that philosophy we can continue with upcoming games.”