Despite Runaway Success, Expedition 33 Developers Plan to Keep Team Small

The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong Game of the Year contender, but also an enormous sales triumph. Developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that the game surpassed 5 million units in sales, this is even with it being a day-one release through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a surprise to Sandfall. I firmly believed that we would have a good game garnering some average sales results,” a key executive explained.

The CTO and lead programmer noted that Clair Obscur’s review aggregate, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the most surprising moment to the studio versus our early predictions and the final result turned out to be. Because when it dropped everybody in the studio was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

That success prompted work on new free content for the game featuring fresh areas, foes, plus epic encounters, as announced will release within the “upcoming month[s]”.

However, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the studio to grow. We've built an excellent group under clear creative leadership possessing strong ideas for this game and future concepts. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and do maybe large projects one by one,” they added.

Their team size generated a storm of discussion following launch. Certain industry figures, including renowned designers, viewed this studio 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 title's staff list indicates numerous contributors were involved; Sandfall partnered with overseas animators to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more certainly when facing next an upcoming production peak down the line,” the executive said. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators that create a work of art together.” He noted that their core belief as developers “is more to maintain the strengths that made this achievement possible in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to reveal exact details what’s next — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their essential identity. “Turn-based gameplay, forms the foundation of our creations,” the lead programmer said. “The timing isn't right to specify what will interest us, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio with [a] strong narrative universe and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

The lead programmer noted how this game began with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. It is hoped this approach we will be able to do in coming projects.”