Despite Overwhelming Success, Clair Obscur Creators Aim to Keep Studio Small

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Studio Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner announced that the game surpassed 5 million units sold, this is even with it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance came as quite a shock to Sandfall. I was convinced that we would have a good game that would meet reasonable commercial success,” a senior team member stated.

A technical director noted the game's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, came as the most surprising moment to the studio 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 felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception has led to Sandfall developing a free update for the game with a new environment, enemies, and boss fights, as announced will release in the next few months.

However, as the title expands, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. “We have a great team with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for our work and also for new ideas. Our goal is to maintain the close-knit size that led to our success and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” the producer noted.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion upon the title's release. Some developers, including renowned designers, looked at Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for a studio. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean versus large developers, checking the title's staff list indicates numerous contributors were involved; the French studio partnered with overseas animators for animation work, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more certainly should there be next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” the producer commented. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio comprising a handful really talented people that can make artistic collaborations.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as a company “is more to maintain the key advantages that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Despite being premature for the studio to reveal exact details what’s next — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they said. “The timing isn't right to announce future passions, yet we must to adhere to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that inspires the team.”

The lead programmer mentioned that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 started with the creative director developing his passion title. And hopefully this approach will be repeated with upcoming games.”