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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive GOTY candidate, but also a massive sales triumph. Studio the development team along with publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that the game topped 5 million units in sales, and that’s despite its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving reasonable commercial success,” a senior team member stated.

Another leading developer remarked this title's critical score, now standing at 93, came as the most surprising moment to the studio compared to what we anticipated and what the reality of the field was. When the score released everybody in the studio celebrated excitedly. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception prompted Sandfall developing new free content for players including novel settings, foes, along with challenging bosses, as announced would be out sometime soon.

Nevertheless, as the title expands, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a great team with a strong creative director with a clear direction for the project plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the human scale that made this possible then develop one big game after another,” they said.

The size of Sandfall drummed up plenty of debate upon the title's release. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed Sandfall’s team as the “ideal” for a studio. Although the team is and was indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the game's credits indicates numerous contributors worked on it; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators handling movement and effects, for example.

“We plan to recruit slightly more for sure should there be an increase in development in the coming years,” they stated. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio with a small number of highly skilled individuals that create collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that their core belief as developers “focuses on preserving the strengths that led to this accomplishment originally.”

While it may be premature for the studio to disclose concrete plans what’s next — believe me, efforts were made — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of our creations,” the lead programmer said. “It's still premature to announce future passions, but it's important also to stay true to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

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