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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY contender, but also a huge commercial success. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that the game topped five million copies in sales, this is despite it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success came as quite an unexpected turn to the developers. I was convinced that we'd create a good game that would meet reasonable market performance,” a key executive stated.

Another leading developer pointed out the game's critical score, now standing at 93, was the greatest surprise” for everyone relative to what we anticipated and the final result of the field was. When the score released the entire team was screaming and jumping. The energy was electric.”

The positive reception prompted work on a free update for players with a new environment, enemies, and boss fights, as announced will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, despite the game's evolution, don’t expect the team will expand. Our team includes a great team guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that made this possible and do maybe large projects one by one,” the producer said.

Their team size generated significant conversation following launch. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, considered this studio as the model for creative teams. Although the team is and was truly compact versus large developers, one glance at the game's credits reveals dozens of people participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team to work on gameplay animations, as an instance.

“We plan to recruit slightly more for sure should there be a future production surge in upcoming years,” the executive stated. “But I would see more of a workshop with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make collective masterpieces.” It was stated that Sandfall’s vision as a studio “aims to keep the key advantages that made this achievement possible originally.”

Despite being not the right time to reveal exact details what’s next — and trust me, I tried to get them to — they are certain what’s at its core. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of what we built,” a developer explained. “The timing isn't right to announce future passions, yet we must to stay true to our creative core through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that excites us.”

The developer noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with the visionary developing his passion title. We aspire that philosophy will be repeated as well for future productions.”