In spite of Overwhelming Achievement, Clair Obscur Developers Aim to Maintain Studio Compact

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive Game of the Year candidate, it’s also a huge commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, this is even with its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite a surprise to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have a solid title that would meet reasonable market performance,” the COO and producer stated.

A technical director noted the game's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” to the studio compared to what we anticipated and the final result proved to be. Once it was published everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception has led to the studio creating a free update for the game with a new environment, foes, and boss fights, which they said is coming sometime soon.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the studio to grow. We've built an excellent group guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that worked for this game then develop major titles sequentially,” they noted.

The studio's scale drummed up a storm of discussion when the game came out. Some developers, such as the famed director, looked at the development group as the model for creative teams. Despite being relatively lean versus large developers, checking Expedition 33’s credits shows that numerous contributors worked on it; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, for example.

“We plan to recruit slightly more definitely if we have an increase in development in upcoming years,” the producer commented. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier with a small number of really talented people capable of producing artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as a company “focuses on preserving the strengths that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — believe me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand what’s at its core. “The turn-based aspect, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” they remarked. “It's a bit too early to specify future passions, but it's important also to remain faithful to our studio's essence through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

They mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with their director developing his passion title. We aspire that's something we can continue with upcoming games.”