Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a fantastic game in its own right, as exemplified by the review scores and the prizes it's starting to win now that the award season is in full swing, but it's all the more impressive because of Sandfall Interactive's small size. The French studio famously only has around 33 (yes, like the game) developers, and we also recently learned that they made this gem with a budget of under $10 million.
As one of the biggest game releases of 2025 (according to the final 2025 Alinea Analytics report, the game reached 8.6 million players, almost a million more than Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered), Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 certainly gives the studio the opportunity to scale up in size. However, in an interview with Knowledge, EDGE's free newsletter dedicated to the games industry, Sandfall Interactive founder, CEO, and Creative Director Guillaume Broche said there's no such plan despite the game performing 'a hundred times better' than they had anticipated, and he also explained why.
No, I think it's good to have limitations when you are creative. It's the best way to be the best version of yourself. We could scale up now we have a lot more money, but I would say it's not tempting for us, because even the management team and myself, we'd have to be hands-on and doing things for ourselves. We love making games more than we love managing, so we want to keep doing that. These past five years were some of the best of my life, and I want to be happy like that again.
It is definitely rare to see a game development studio getting the chance to expand and not take it. It may seem like an unusual choice at first, but it could prove extremely wise in the long run. By staying small, Sandfall won't be forced to follow the 'bigger is better' mentality, and it could also more easily cope with unsuccessful projects if need be. History shows that studios that double or even triple their size after a successful game can get into a lot of trouble if their next project goes wrong for whatever reason.
Sandfall Interactive has just released a substantial free update as a thank-you to the community, adding a new playable environment, new Luminas and weapons, a photo mode, and AMD FSR 4 support on PC, among other things.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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