The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a top Game of the Year contender, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that the game exceeded 5 million units in sales, this is in spite of its status as a day-one release through the Game Pass service.
Its success came as an unexpected turn to Sandfall. I was convinced that we'd create an enjoyable experience garnering moderate market performance,” the COO and producer commented.
Another leading developer pointed out the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the team versus “our initial expectations and the actual outcome of the field was. When the score released the entire team was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”
The positive reception resulted in the studio creating a free update for the title including novel settings, adversaries, plus epic encounters, reportedly will release sometime soon.
However, despite the game's evolution, it's unlikely they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a talented crew guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for the project plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the human scale that worked for this game then develop major titles sequentially,” the producer said.
Their team size drummed up a storm of discussion following launch. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, looked at the development group as the model for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team next to major studios, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits shows that dozens of people participated; Sandfall hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.
“Some hiring will occur slightly more definitely should there be a future production surge down the line,” the executive said. “Yet I picture essentially a craft studio with a small number of exceptionally gifted creators capable of producing a work of art together.” He noted that Sandfall’s vision as developers “focuses on preserving the successful elements that enabled this success in the first place.”
Despite being premature for the studio to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — rest assured, efforts were made — the team does know what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” they remarked. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell our next interests, however, it's crucial to adhere to our creative core through compelling worlds plus innovative play that excites us.”
They mentioned that the project began with the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”
