Despite Runaway Success, Clair Obscur Creators Plan to Maintain Team Lean

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn't just a strong Game of the Year candidate, it’s also an enormous financial hit. Developer the development team and publisher Kepler Interactive announced that this title exceeded 5 million units sold, and that’s in spite of its status as a launch-day addition through the Game Pass service.

This achievement came as a shock for the team. I firmly believed that we'd create a good game that would meet some average market performance,” a key executive commented.

A technical director noted the game's Metacritic rating, which currently sits at 93, was the most surprising moment to the studio versus “our initial expectations and what the reality of the field was. Because when it dropped the entire team was screaming and jumping. It was really frantic.”

The positive reception resulted in the studio creating a complimentary expansion for the game including novel settings, adversaries, along with challenging bosses, which they said would be out within the “upcoming month[s]”.

That said, despite the game's evolution, fans shouldn't anticipate the team will expand. Our team includes a great team with a strong creative director with a clear direction for this game and also for new ideas. We intend to preserve the small-team dynamic that led to our success then develop large projects one by one,” the executive added.

The studio's scale drummed up plenty of debate following launch. A few well-known creators, such as the famed director, viewed this studio as a perfect example for creative teams. Despite being indeed a small team compared to its AAA counterparts, one glance at Expedition 33’s credits reveals dozens of people were involved; Sandfall contracted a Korean team handling movement and effects, for example.

“We will hire slightly more definitely when facing an increase in development in the coming years,” the producer said. “But I would see more of a workshop comprising a handful exceptionally gifted creators that can make a work of art together.” They emphasized that the studio's philosophy as developers “is more to maintain the successful elements that led to this accomplishment in the first place.”

Although it's premature for the studio to reveal exact details what’s next — rest assured, I attempted to learn more — the developers understand their fundamental principles. “Turn-based gameplay, I think it's in the DNA of our creations,” the lead programmer explained. “It's a bit too early to be able to tell what will interest us, yet we must to adhere to our studio's essence through compelling worlds and the interesting gameplay that drives our passion.”

They noted that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 originated from the creative director pursuing his ideal project. We aspire that's something we will be able to do in coming projects.”