CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPEDITION 33 Devs Say Next Game Will Stick to “What We Think Is Cool” and Won't Try to Please Fans
When Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 landed, it didn’t just arrive quietly and find an audience over time. It exploded. The debut RPG from Sandfall Interactive became one of 2025’s biggest surprise hits, racking up awards, glowing praise, and a fast growing fanbase that now hangs on every word from the studio.
With that kind of success comes high expectations, but the team already knows how they’re handling the next project, and making everyone happy isn’t the goal.
Speaking with Edge magazine, François Meurisse, the studio’s chief operating officer and production director, acknowledged that the attention does create some pressure. But it isn’t driving their creative decisions.
“I feel there is a bit of pressure,” Meurisse said. “But it’s not so important to us.”
For Sandfall, the focus is on momentum, experience, and excitement rather than reacting to outside noise. Meurisse explained that the studio finally has the breathing room to dig deep into what comes next, armed with lessons learned from their breakout success.
“We’ll have time to get really focused into the next game. We have some great ideas we’re so excited to explore, and we don’t start from the same point. The team already has five more years of experience. So maybe we can do some great stuff.”
Lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, goes on to admit she’s very aware of the expectations surrounding the next game. Fans connected with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and that connection can weigh heavily on any creative team.
She said, “I’m a bit of a people pleaser, so it’s always in the back of my mind that we have a lot of fans now, and they have certain expectations and certain feelings towards the game.”
Still, she’s clear that chasing approval is a fast way to lose what made the game special in the first place. Even though fan reactions are impossible to completely ignore, Sandfall’s creative compass hasn’t changed.
“Even though I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t think about that at all,” she continued, “Creatively, we’ve always let our North Star be our own personal taste in terms of what we think is cool, what it is we enjoy and want to see.
“I’ve seen too many TV shows and books be swayed trying to please a lot of people, and in the process you end up losing the heart of what’s there. So [we] feel like we need to trust our instincts and continue to trust the vision behind the studio.”
That philosophy clearly paid off the first time. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept major awards, including big wins at the Golden Joystick Awards 2025 and The Game Awards. Looking back on the game’s launch, creative director Guillaume Broche revealed just how modest the team’s expectations were before release.
Before launch, the internal mindset was that “‘it’s not going to be big, it’s going to be cool,’” Broche said. “It’s a weird feeling, when you put your heart out into the world and the world embraces it and gives you so much love back.”
Now, Sandfall Interactive finds itself with a bigger spotlight and a much larger audience waiting to see what comes next. But if the studio sticks to the same instincts that guided their debut, there’s a good chance that spark fans fell in love with is still very much alive.
If their next game is built around what they genuinely think is cool, that might be exactly why it works again.
