In spite of Overwhelming Success, Expedition 33 Creators Plan to Maintain Studio Lean

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just an impressive Game of the Year contender, it’s also a massive commercial success. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that the game topped 5 million units sold, this is despite its status as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as a shock to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we'd create an enjoyable experience achieving reasonable market performance,” a key executive commented.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out the game's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, was the most surprising moment to the studio versus “our initial expectations and the final result turned out to be. Once it was published all staff members was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success resulted in work on new free content for the title including novel settings, foes, along with challenging bosses, which they said would be out sometime soon.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the team will expand. We've built a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the human scale that made this possible and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the producer noted.

The size of Sandfall generated significant conversation when the game came out. A few well-known creators, including renowned designers, considered this studio as the model for a studio. While Sandfall was and is truly compact versus large developers, one glance at the title's staff list shows that many individuals were involved; Sandfall contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, for example.

“We will hire a little more definitely should there be a future production surge down the line,” they commented. “Yet I picture more of a workshop comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that create collective masterpieces.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a studio “is more to maintain the successful elements that enabled this success from the start.”

While it may be not the right time to say specifically what’s next — believe me, efforts were made — the team does know what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” a developer remarked. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell future passions, but it's important also to stay true to our creative core with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with their director developing his passion title. It is hoped that philosophy will be repeated as well for future productions.”