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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong Game of the Year contender, but also an enormous financial hit. Studio the development team and publisher their publishing partner announced that the game surpassed 5 million units sold, this is in spite of its status as a launch-day addition on Xbox Game Pass.

This achievement was a shock for the team. I was convinced that we would have a good game achieving some average sales results,” the COO and producer explained.

A technical director remarked the game's review aggregate, now standing at 93, was “maybe the biggest shock to the team relative to “our initial expectations and the actual outcome proved to be. Once it was published all staff members was screaming and jumping. It felt absolutely wild.”

The positive reception prompted work on new free content for the title featuring fresh areas, adversaries, and boss fights, reportedly is coming in the next few months.

That said, as the title expands, don’t expect they'll hire extensively. “We have an excellent group guided by a visionary director possessing strong ideas for this game plus upcoming innovations. We'd like to keep the small-team dynamic that led to our success and do maybe one big game after another,” the executive added.

The studio's scale sparked a storm of discussion following launch. Certain industry figures, such as the famed director, considered this studio as the “ideal” for a studio. Although the team is and was truly compact compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at the title's staff list shows that numerous contributors were involved; the French studio contracted a Korean team for animation work, to illustrate.

“Some hiring will occur a bit more definitely should there be an increase in development down the line,” the producer stated. “However, I envision rather a creative atelier with a small number of highly skilled individuals that can make artistic collaborations.” It was stated that their core belief as a studio “focuses on preserving the successful elements that enabled this success in the first place.”

Although it's not the right time to say specifically regarding upcoming titles — believe me, I tried to get them to — they are certain what’s at its core. “Strategic combat, is integral to our identity of this project,” the lead programmer said. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell future passions, yet we must to adhere to our creative core featuring rich storytelling plus innovative play that excites us.”

They added that the project began with the visionary pursuing his ideal project. And hopefully that philosophy we will be able to do as well for future productions.”