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The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous commercial success. Studio the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title surpassed 5 million units sold, and that’s despite it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as a surprise to the developers. I was convinced that we would have a solid title achieving some average commercial success,” the COO and producer explained.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out this title's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the studio compared to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome proved to be. When the score released everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception has led to work on a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, enemies, and boss fights, as announced will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. We've built an excellent group under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the human scale that worked for this game and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the producer noted.

The size of Sandfall sparked significant conversation upon the title's release. Some developers, such as the famed director, looked at the development group as the “ideal” for a studio. Despite being relatively lean versus large developers, a quick look at the title's staff list reveals numerous contributors were involved; Sandfall contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“We will hire slightly more for sure when facing an increase in development down the line,” they commented. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that can make collective masterpieces.” It was stated that their core belief as a studio “is more to maintain the successful elements that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Although it's not the right time to say specifically about future projects — and trust me, efforts were made — the developers understand their essential identity. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of this project,” they remarked. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell our next interests, however, it's crucial to stay true to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The lead programmer noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from their director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something we can continue as well for future productions.”