Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Developer Sandfall Interactive won't be chasing fans' expectations with its next game. A company official said as much in a recent interview, while acknowledging that the upcoming project will benefit from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in more ways than one.
Released last April, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 turned into one of 2025's defining hits, sweeping multiple awards and reaching 5 million sales in its first six months on the market. French developer Sandfall Interactive recently confirmed that they have begun preliminary work on their next title.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 players spend over 8 hours and 10,000 pairs fighting just one boss
Parrying in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a precise art, but one player has apparently mastered it during an eight-hour boss battle.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Dev wants to continue 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 huge success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. However, he called it “not that important”, stressing that the team is adamant about continuing to do things as they have been doing so far, taking the time to explore ideas that excite them. Lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen echoed that sentiment, saying that Sandfall will continue to be governed by “our own personal taste”, symbolically calling it the developer's “North Star”.
Elaborating on this sentiment, Svedberg-Yen described herself as “a bit of a crowd pleaser”, hinting that it may not always be easy to follow her own advice now that Sandfall has millions of fans and therefore faces significant 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 trust the vision behind the studio,” concluded Svedberg-Yen.
Meurisse frames Sandfall's next project as building from a stronger starting line, with a more experienced and confident team. Both his and Svedberg-Yen's comments are largely consistent with what Sandfall CEO Guillaume Broche recently said about the upcoming project, stating that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 the developer wants to make another “artistic” game. While not much is known about the project itself, Sandfall has previously signaled that it wants to make a sequel still set in the same universe. As Broche explained it, Clair Obscur 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 tell and how they will relate to Expedition 33 is still up in the air. Based on what little Sandfall has shared so far, it's possible that Clair Obscur will be an anthology series, not unlike Final Fantasyone of its main sources of inspiration.
We have to trust our instincts and continue to trust the vision behind the studio.
The Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 the developer recently signaled that it doesn't plan to get much bigger anytime soon. While the game's massive success allowed it a level of financial security that would make significant expansion possible, co-founder and lead programmer Tom Guillermin sees Sandfall's current team as “just the right size” to make an ambitious turn-based RPG, having said as much in an interview in August 2025. Given that plan and the fact that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took five to six years to develop, Sandfall's next title could follow a similar timeline, potentially releasing around 2030 or 2031, well into the next console generation.
As a thank you to the fans, Sandfall released a large free DLC too Expedition 33 in December 2025, featuring a new playable area called Versos Drafts, a photo mode, additional costumes, new music, and several incredibly challenging boss fights. There is currently no official word on whether more content is planned for the game, or if the studio will now focus fully on its next project.
- Released
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April 24, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer
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Sandfall Interactive
- Publisher
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Kepler Interactive
Source: GamesRadar+
