In spite of Runaway Success, Expedition 33 Developers Intend to Keep Team Small

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top Game of the Year candidate, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive revealed that this title surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a shock to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title garnering some average sales results,” a senior team member commented.

The CTO and lead programmer remarked that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” to the team relative to what we anticipated and what the reality of the field was. Once it was published everybody in the studio were cheering loudly. It felt absolutely wild.”

That success has led to work on new free content for the title featuring fresh areas, foes, plus epic encounters, which they said will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. We've built a great team guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for our work and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the close-knit size that worked for this game then develop one big game after another,” the producer noted.

The studio's scale drummed up significant conversation when the game came out. A few well-known creators, like Hideo Kojima, looked at this studio as the model for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team next to major studios, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits indicates numerous contributors worked on it; the French studio hired a team in Korea handling movement and effects, for example.

“We will hire a little more definitely if we have next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” they commented. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio with a small number of really talented people that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a studio “is more to maintain the key advantages that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Despite being not the right time to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — and trust me, efforts were made — the team does know their essential identity. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” they said. “It's a bit too early to specify our next interests, but it's important also to adhere to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that inspires the team.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. We aspire this approach we can continue in coming projects.”