Despite Overwhelming Success, Clair Obscur Developers Aim to Keep Studio Small

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year candidate, but also a huge sales triumph. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner announced that the game exceeded 5 million units in sales, and that’s even with it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was a surprise to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have a good game that would meet reasonable market performance,” a key executive stated.

The CTO and lead programmer noted the game's critical score, now standing at 93, came as perhaps “maybe the biggest shock to the studio versus “our initial expectations and what the reality turned out to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph has led to Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for players with a new environment, adversaries, plus epic encounters, which they said is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. We've built a great team guided by a visionary director who has a great vision for the project and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that led to our success then develop major titles sequentially,” the executive said.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation when the game came out. Some developers, including renowned designers, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for game development. Although the team is and was indeed a small team next to major studios, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits indicates numerous contributors were involved; Sandfall hired a team in Korea for animation work, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a bit more for sure should there be next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the executive said. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “is more to maintain the successful elements that led to this accomplishment from the start.”

While it may be not the right time to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — the team does know what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” they explained. “It's a bit too early to announce future passions, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe plus innovative play that drives our passion.”

They added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from the visionary pursuing his ideal project. We aspire that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”