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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is not only an impressive GOTY contender, but also an enormous sales triumph. Studio the development team and publisher their publishing partner revealed that this title surpassed five million copies sold, and that’s despite it being a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as quite a surprise to the developers. “I was strongly believing that we'd create a solid title that would meet some average market performance,” the COO and producer explained.

Another leading developer noted the game's critical score, rated 93 by critics, came as “maybe the biggest shock to the studio versus our early predictions and the actual outcome turned out to be. Once it was published the entire team was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception prompted the studio creating new free content for players featuring fresh areas, foes, plus epic encounters, which they said is coming in the next few months.

However, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate they'll hire extensively. Our team includes a talented crew guided by a visionary director with a clear direction for this game and future concepts. Our goal is to maintain the small-team dynamic that worked for this game and perhaps create major titles sequentially,” they noted.

Their team size sparked a storm of discussion following launch. Certain industry figures, like Hideo Kojima, viewed this studio as the “ideal” for a studio. Despite being truly compact next to major studios, a quick look at Expedition 33’s credits indicates many individuals worked on it; the French studio contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, as an instance.

“Some hiring will occur slightly more certainly when facing an increase in development in the coming years,” the executive commented. “But I would see essentially a craft studio comprising a handful really talented people that create a work of art together.” It was stated that their core belief as a company “is more to maintain the key advantages that enabled this success in the first place.”

While it may be premature for the studio to reveal exact details regarding upcoming titles — believe me, I attempted to learn more — the team does know their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of this project,” the lead programmer explained. “It's a bit too early to announce our next interests, but it's important also to remain faithful to our creative core featuring rich storytelling and engaging mechanics that excites us.”

They added that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began with the visionary “work[ing] on his dream game. And hopefully that philosophy we can continue as well for future productions.”