🔗 Share this article

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY candidate, but also a huge sales triumph. Studio the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title topped 5 million units in sales, and that’s in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

The game's performance came as quite an unexpected turn to the developers. I was convinced that we'd create a good game achieving some average sales results,” the COO and producer commented.

Another leading developer noted that Clair Obscur’s critical score, now standing at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the team compared to what we anticipated and the actual outcome of the field was. Once it was published everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception resulted in work on a free update for players including novel settings, enemies, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

Nevertheless, despite the game's evolution, it's unlikely the team will expand. “We have an excellent group under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for this game and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that led to our success and do maybe one big game after another,” they said.

The size of Sandfall sparked a storm of discussion when the game came out. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for a studio. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean versus large developers, a quick look at the title's staff list shows that dozens of people were involved; the French studio contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We will hire a little more definitely when facing an increase in development down the line,” the executive commented. “But I would see rather a creative atelier of a few really talented people capable of producing collective masterpieces.” He noted that their core belief as a studio “focuses on preserving the successful elements that enabled this success in the first place.”

While it may be not the right time to reveal exact details about future projects — and trust me, efforts were made — the team does know their essential identity. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer explained. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell our next interests, but it's important also to adhere to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The developer noted how this game started with their director “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that philosophy will be repeated as well for future productions.”