Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall Interactive won't be chasing fan expectations with its next game. A representative of the company said this in a recent interview, while acknowledging that the upcoming project will benefit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in more ways than one.
Released last April, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 became one of the defining hits of 2025, hitting multiple award shows and racking up 5 million sales in its first six months on the market. French developer Sandfall Interactive recently confirmed that it has begun preliminary work on its next title.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Player spends over 8 hours and 10,000 Parries fighting only 1 boss
Parrying in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a precise art, but one player clearly mastered it during an eight-hour boss battle.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Dev wants to keep following his instincts
In a new interview with Edge magazine, Sandfall co-founder and COO François Meurisse admitted that “there's a bit of pressure” the French studio is feeling after the massive success. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. But he called it “not that important” and emphasized that the team is adamant about doing things the way they've been doing and spending time exploring ideas that excite them. Lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen echoed that sentiment, saying that Sandfall will continue to follow “our own personal taste” and symbolically call it the developer's “North Star”.
Svedberg-Yen elaborated on the sentiment as “a bit of a people-lover”, suggesting that following her own advice might not always be easy when Sandfall has millions of fans and thus faces considerable expectations. At the same time, she made it clear that she understands the risks of compromising creative direction, noting that she's seen too many books, TV shows and other media lose their identity by trying to please everyone. “We have to trust our instincts and continue to believe in the vision of the studio,” concluded Svedberg-Yen.
Meurisse is building another Sandfall project to build from a stronger starting line with a more experienced and confident team. Both his and Svedberg-Yen's remarks are largely in line with what Sandfall CEO Guillaume Broche recently said about the upcoming project, stating that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 the developer wants to create another “art” game. While not much is known about the project itself, Sandfall has previously hinted that it wants to make a sequel that still takes place in the same universe. As Broche explained, Clair Obscuro is the planned franchise name and Expedition 33 was just one of the stories the studio wanted to tell. Exactly what form future stories will take and how they will relate to them Expedition 33 it's still up in the air. Based on what Sandfall has shared so far, it's possible Clair Obscuro it will end up as an anthology series, not unlike Final Fantasyone of his main inspirations.
We have to trust our instincts and continue to believe in the vision of the studio.
The Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 the developer recently hinted that it doesn't plan to get much bigger anytime soon. While the game's massive success allowed for a level of financial security that would allow for a significant expansion, co-founder and lead programmer Tom Guillermin sees Sandfall's current team as “just the right size” to create an ambitious turn-based RPG, he said in an August 2025 interview. Given that plan and the fact that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Taking five to six years in development, the next Sandfall title may follow a similar timeline, potentially coming out around 2030 or 2031, the next console generation.
As a thank you to the fans, Sandfall has released a large free DLC Expedition 33 in December 2025, it adds a new playable area called Verso's Drafts, a photo mode, additional costumes, new music, and some extremely challenging boss fights. There is no official word yet on whether more content is planned for the game, or whether the studio is now fully focused on its next project.
- Released
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April 24, 2025
- ESRB
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Older 17+ / Blood and gore, violent language, obscene themes, violence
- Developers
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Sandfall Interactive
- Publishers
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Interactive Kepler
Source: GamesRadar+
