🔗 Share this article

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive GOTY candidate, but also a massive commercial success. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title surpassed five million copies sold, this is in spite of its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

Its success was a surprise to the developers. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game that would meet some average commercial success,” a key executive explained.

Another leading developer pointed out the game's critical score, now standing at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” for everyone versus our early predictions and what the reality turned out to be. Once it was published everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

This triumph resulted in work on new free content for the title including novel settings, foes, and boss fights, which they said would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. We've built a great team under clear creative leadership who has a great vision for this game and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that led to our success and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the executive added.

Their team size generated plenty of debate following launch. Some developers, including renowned designers, considered the development group as the model for a studio. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean versus large developers, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits shows that numerous contributors participated; the French studio partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more certainly when facing a future production surge in upcoming years,” the executive stated. “But I would see more of a workshop comprising a handful really talented people capable of producing collective masterpieces.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a studio “focuses on preserving the key advantages that made this achievement possible from the start.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically what’s next — believe me, efforts were made — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” a developer said. “It's still premature to specify our next interests, yet we must to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that inspires the team.”

They noted how this game began with their director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire that philosophy we can continue in coming projects.”