Despite Runaway Success, Expedition 33 Creators Aim to Maintain Team Lean

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong GOTY candidate, it’s also an enormous sales triumph. Studio Sandfall Interactive and publisher their publishing partner revealed that the game topped 5 million units in sales, and that’s despite it being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Its success was a shock to the developers. I was convinced that we'd create a good game garnering reasonable commercial success,” a key executive commented.

A technical director noted this title's Metacritic rating, rated 93 by critics, was the most surprising moment to the studio versus our early predictions and the final result of the field was. Once it was published the entire team was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

That success has led to Sandfall developing a complimentary expansion for the game with a new environment, enemies, along with challenging bosses, reportedly will release in the next few months.

Nevertheless, while the game is growing, it's unlikely the studio to grow. Our team includes an excellent group under clear creative leadership with a clear direction for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the close-knit size that made this possible and perhaps create large projects one by one,” the executive said.

Their team size sparked plenty of debate following launch. Some developers, like Hideo Kojima, looked at Sandfall’s team as a perfect example for creative teams. Although the team is and was relatively lean compared to its AAA counterparts, checking Expedition 33’s credits shows that many individuals were involved; Sandfall hired a team in Korea to work on gameplay animations, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more for sure when facing next an upcoming production peak in upcoming years,” they stated. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier of a few highly skilled individuals capable of producing artistic collaborations.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a studio “focuses on preserving the key advantages that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Despite being too early for Sandfall to disclose concrete plans what’s next — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — they are certain their fundamental principles. “The turn-based aspect, is integral to our identity of this project,” they explained. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell future passions, yet we must to adhere to our studio's essence through compelling worlds and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

The developer noted that the project began with their director developing his passion title. And hopefully this approach will be repeated as well for future productions.”