Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall says expansion isn’t “tempting”

The developer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Sandfall Interactive, is not going to be expanding despite the game’s massive success.

Speaking to Edge – via Future’s Knowledge newsletter – the studio’s co-founder, creative director and CEO Guillaume Broche said that the notion of growing the company was not “tempting”, adding that making games is more interesting to him than managing other people.

“I think it’s good to have limitations when you are creative,” Broche said.

“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.”

Broche was also asked what the secret to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s massive success was; the developer said that it’s a case of looking at the team the studio had and going from there.

“Every team is very different and we built our processes on the way we work, depending on the talents we had at our disposal,” he said.

“So I think the secret is to adapt the game to the team you have, and not the other way around. And mostly, it’s not about processes, it’s making a game that you want to play. It’s contradictory, but [try to] not care too much about the players, because if you care about your game, it means you care about the players ultimately. The best way for me to care about people is to make something that is sincere. If it feels human, [even] if there are little flaws here and there, it’s forgivable. It just has to have a strong soul and identity.”

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launched in April. The RPG has shifted over 5 million units to date and has won critical acclaim, including a record nine wins at The Game Awards. The title was also recently disqualified from The Indie Game Awards due to the fact that some content made with generative AI is present in the game, which goes against the show’s rules.