Who made Clair Obscur Expedition 33? All you need to know about the developers who sold 1 million copies with their debut game

At a time when many recent games have struggled to leave a lasting impression on gamers, the developers of Clair Obscur Expedition 33 have set a remarkable example by introducing a high-graphic RPG title with a team of just 30 people. Clair Obscur Expedition 33, which has captivated the hearts of many, has already sold one million copies within just three days of its launch, setting a new benchmark for upcoming games in this genre.

Read on to learn more about the developer of Clair Obscur Expedition 33.

Everything you need to know about the developers behind Clair Obscur Expedition 33

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 was developed by Sandfall Interactive, a French game development studio founded in 2020. Aiming to create high-quality games for PC and consoles, a team of just 30 started working on their debut title.

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A still of a cutscene from the game (Image via Kepler Interactive)

Over the past five years, the team’s unique and clear vision has always been to offer something to the RPG genre that will keep players engaged. Despite being a small team, they created a high graphics-intensive JRPG in just a few years, utilizing Unreal Engine 5 to implement futuristic elements and to enhance the game’s visual quality.

Check out: Clair Obscur Expedition 33: Collector's Edition content, pricing, and is it worth getting?

The team took inspiration from the Belle Époque era to create an engaging storyline – one that played an important role in French history. The stunning architecture and art of this era – also featured in the game – add a unique and realistic feel to the title.

The development team behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Image via X@expedition33)

In an interview, Tom Guillermin, Co-Founder and Lead Programmer of Sandfall Interactive, explained the journey and how it created such a huge, graphics-intensive game with a small team. He said that the team of 30 is split across their office space in Montpellier and a smaller one in Paris. He said:

"We’re a core team of less than 30 people, split across our office space in Montpellier (around 25 people) and a smaller space in Paris (five people). Our team is incredibly talented, even though this is the first production for many people here at Sandfall, and Unreal Engine has empowered us to deliver on a vision that would have been impossible to execute a few years back with a team our size."

According to him, Unreal Engine 5 was a game changer that helped them to create such a huge title, something not possible a few years back. The UE helped them render groundbreaking features for the game. He further said that most of the team members were not familiar with C++ programming.

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Before the core programming team expanded to four members, Guillermin was responsible for most of the programming for a few years. During that time, their focus was on utilizing the Blueprint visual scripting as much as possible, allowing non-programmers to learn game logic and suggest changes or improvements to existing features. On this, he said:

"Before the programming team grew to a total of four, I remained the sole programmer for a couple of years. During that time, our mindset was to use Blueprint visual scripting as much as possible, as it gives a lot of freedom to non-programmers to understand game logic, try and suggest changes on their own, or add polish to existing features."

In the same interview, he explained the game's storyline and inspiration behind it within the JRPG genre. He added that the Belle Époque was an important era in France's history, representing the country’s growth and culture. Surprisingly, this period has not been explored in video games, and thus, they were inspired to develop a narrative that players have never encountered.

Currently, the game has reached the second spot of the top-selling games on Steam globally, just behind Counter-Strike 2, which is a free-to-play title. Besides that, it has already surpassed the one million mark in worldwide game copies sold and has received a rating of 92% on Metacritic.

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About the author

Pranoy is an esports journalist at Sportskeeda specializing in FPS games like Valorant, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Commerce, but his lifelong passion for video games drove him to take up gaming professionally, and his articles have garnered 200,000+ reads in just three months at Sportskeeda. Pranoy's research process includes collecting first-hand gameplay knowledge and a ton of cross-referencing.

Pranoy has warm memories of frequent visits to gaming cafes in his childhood, playing FPS titles and open-world games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to his heart's content. He jumps into solo and multiplayer titles with equal gusto. In a Jumanji-type scenario, he would readily drop into the thrilling world of the Temple Run series and embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

Pranoy follows esports tournaments closely as he values the opportunity to witness high-level gameplay and learn from the top players. PaperRex is his favorite organization at the moment, and he looks up to professional players Demon1 and TenZ.

Beyond gaming, Pranoy's interests include chess and sketching.

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Edited by Dinesh Renthlei