Despite Massive Achievement, Clair Obscur Developers Intend to Keep Studio Small
The game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a top GOTY contender, but also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team along with publisher their publishing partner announced that the game exceeded five million copies sold, this is even with its status as 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 solid title achieving moderate sales results,” a senior team member commented.
Another leading developer noted this title's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, came as perhaps the greatest surprise” to the team compared to “our initial expectations and what the reality proved to be. Once it was published the entire team celebrated excitedly. It was really frantic.”
The positive reception prompted the studio creating a complimentary expansion for the title with a new environment, adversaries, plus epic encounters, as announced is coming in the next few months.
However, as the title expands, don’t expect the studio to grow. Our team includes an excellent group with a strong creative director who has a great vision for this game and future concepts. We intend to preserve the human scale that led to our success and do maybe large projects one by one,” they added.
Their team size drummed up plenty of debate when the game came out. Some developers, such as the famed director, looked at this studio as the model for game development. While Sandfall was and is relatively lean next to major studios, a quick look at the game's credits reveals numerous contributors participated; Sandfall contracted a Korean team for animation work, as an instance.
“We will hire a bit more certainly should there be a future production surge in the coming years,” the producer commented. “However, I envision essentially a craft studio of a few exceptionally gifted creators that create collective masterpieces.” It was stated that the studio's philosophy as a studio “focuses on preserving the successful elements that made this achievement possible in the first place.”
Although it's not the right time to reveal exact details what’s next — believe me, efforts were made — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of what we built,” the lead programmer explained. “The timing isn't right to be able to tell our next interests, yet we must to remain faithful to the DNA of studio featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that drives our passion.”
The developer mentioned that the project originated from the creative director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire that's something will be repeated with upcoming games.”