In spite of Overwhelming Success, Clair Obscur Developers Intend to Maintain Studio Small

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive GOTY candidate, it’s also a huge commercial success. Studio the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive disclosed that the game topped five million copies sold, and that’s despite its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

The game's performance was an unexpected turn to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we would have an enjoyable experience achieving moderate commercial success,” a senior team member stated.

The CTO and lead programmer pointed out this title's Metacritic rating, now standing at 93, was the greatest surprise” to the studio relative to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome turned out to be. Once it was published the entire team was screaming and jumping. The energy was electric.”

That success prompted work on a complimentary expansion for the title with a new environment, adversaries, and boss fights, as announced is coming within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, as the title expands, don’t expect the team will expand. “We have a talented crew with a strong creative director possessing strong ideas for this game and future concepts. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that led to our success and do maybe major titles sequentially,” the executive noted.

Their team size sparked a storm of discussion upon the title's release. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, viewed Sandfall’s team as the model for creative teams. Although the team is and was truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list reveals many individuals participated; the French studio contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, to illustrate.

“We plan to recruit a bit more certainly if we have next an upcoming production peak in the coming years,” they stated. “Yet I picture rather a creative atelier comprising a handful highly skilled individuals that can make collective masterpieces.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as a company “is more to maintain the key advantages that made this achievement possible originally.”

Although it's too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans about future projects — and trust me, I attempted to learn more — they are certain their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” the lead programmer said. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell our next interests, yet we must to adhere to our creative core through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that drives our passion.”

The developer added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with their director pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that philosophy will be repeated in coming projects.”