In spite of Massive Success, Clair Obscur Creators Intend to Keep Team Compact

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only a strong GOTY contender, it’s also a massive financial hit. Developer Sandfall Interactive along with publisher their publishing partner disclosed that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, this is despite it being a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement came as quite a shock to Sandfall. “I was strongly believing that we would have a solid title garnering reasonable sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer remarked this title's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, was the greatest surprise” to the studio versus our early predictions and the actual outcome proved to be. When the score released all staff members was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

This triumph resulted in work on a complimentary expansion for the title with a new environment, enemies, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming in the next few months.

That said, as the title expands, don’t expect the team will expand. “We have a great team with a strong creative director who has a great vision for this game and future concepts. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that led to our success and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the producer noted.

Their team size drummed up significant conversation when the game came out. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, considered the development group as a perfect example for game development. Although the team is and was indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, checking Expedition 33’s credits indicates numerous contributors participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, for example.

“We will hire a bit more for sure if we have an increase in development in upcoming years,” the producer said. “However, I envision more of a workshop of a few highly skilled individuals capable of producing collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that their core belief as a company “is more to maintain the successful elements that made this achievement possible originally.”

Despite being premature for the studio to say specifically what’s next — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their essential identity. “Strategic combat, is integral to our identity of our creations,” they explained. “It's still premature to announce what will interest us, but it's important also to adhere to our studio's essence with [a] strong narrative universe and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The developer added how this game originated from the creative director “work[ing] on his dream game. We aspire that's something will be repeated as well for future productions.”