🔗 Share this article

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY candidate, but also a massive sales triumph. Developer the development team and publisher their publishing partner announced that the game surpassed 5 million units sold, this is despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience that would meet moderate market performance,” a senior team member commented.

Another leading developer noted this title's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, was the greatest surprise” for everyone relative to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome proved to be. When the score released everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. The energy was electric.”

This triumph resulted in work on a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, foes, and boss fights, reportedly will release in the next few months.

However, as the title expands, it's unlikely the team will expand. We've built a talented crew with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for our work and future concepts. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that led to our success and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” they noted.

The studio's scale generated plenty of debate following launch. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, looked at the development group as a perfect example for game development. Although the team is and was indeed a small team next to major studios, checking the title's staff list indicates dozens of people participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, for example.

“We plan to recruit a bit more definitely when facing an increase in development in upcoming years,” the producer said. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier of a few highly skilled individuals that create a work of art together.” He noted that the studio's philosophy as a studio “is more to maintain the strengths that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

While it may be premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans about future projects — and trust me, I tried to get them to — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of our creations,” a developer explained. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell future passions, however, it's crucial to remain faithful to the DNA of studio through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

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