Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept the Golden Joystick Awards last week with seven wins, including Ultimate Game of the Year.

But instead of talking sequels or studio expansion, creative director Guillaume Broche used the spotlight to emphasize something else entirely: Sandfall Interactive won’t be changing just because the industry expects them to.

The French studio’s breakout turn-based RPG dominated nearly every category it was nominated in, but when speaking with GamesRadar+, Broche’s first reaction was to reassure fans rather than to announce expansion plans:

I feel like dramatic changes don’t necessarily mean that we have to change dramatically as human beings.

That kind of response says a lot about how the 30-person team sees its unexpected rise as 2025’s biggest success story. Broche expanded on what staying grounded means to them:

What we want to do is exactly what we wanted to do when we started the game. It’s just [to] make games that are really honest and true, and write stories that move people and really connect people emotionally, and that’s what we are going to keep doing moving forward.

It’s a mindset that runs counter to how most studios handle breakout hits. The usual next step is rapid hiring, roadmap talk, and franchise planning. Sandfall clearly isn’t playing by that script.

Sandfall Interactive Refuses to Play by Industry Rules

Expedition 33 launched on April 24 and immediately connected with players burned out on live service loops and monetization bloat. It sold 3.3 million copies in its first 33 days—a milestone the community couldn’t help but latch onto given the studio’s fondness for the number—and passed 5 million by early October, despite launching Day One on Xbox Game Pass.

Critics awarded it a 92 on Metacritic, but the real shock came from players: it now holds a 9.6 user score, making it the platform’s highest-rated game to date, topping even The Witcher 3’s long-standing 9.3.

Much of that praise centers on its reactive turn-based combat, which blends real-time inputs with classic RPG design. But it’s the twisted Belle Époque setting and moving story about grief and memory that left the deeper mark.

All of it was achieved by a team of around 30 full-time staff, with animation and QA support outsourced. Most studios would treat that kind of breakout success as a cue to scale up. Broche, instead, offered this:

We don’t want to grow too much as a company. We work well as we are now, as a small team, and we want to stay like that, because we are very happy, and why change?

Holding that position in the middle of a multi-award-winning launch feels almost radical, especially in an industry where expansion is usually the next logical move.

What Actually Matters to the Expedition 33 Team

Awards are nice, but hearts matter. | Image Credit: Sandfall Interactive

Golden Joystick voting results gave a sense of just how strongly the game resonated. Expedition 33 won Ultimate Game of the Year with 30.71% of the vote, nearly double what runner-up Kingdom Come: Deliverance II received:

pic.twitter.com/YipUmcLP3A— Golden Joysticks (@GoldenJoysticks) November 26, 2025

That kind of margin doesn’t happen unless people connect with more than just gameplay. As Broche put it:

But the most striking thing, for us, and the real reward in our hearts, is the emotional response to the characters, to the story, how much people embrace the characters and they helped them get through tough moments in life

Across social platforms, players have shared how much the narrative meant to them personally. And that emotional weight seems to matter more to Sandfall than revenue charts or awards tallies. For them, development remains an act of expression rather than commerce:

And I think that’s why art exists in general, to create an emotional response and be something that moves people, and that’s what we want to keep on doing.

Whether that mindset holds up under the weight of sequel pressure and rising expectations is hard to predict. Expedition 33 leads this year’s Game Awards with a record-setting 12 nominations, and after everything’s said and done, that kind of spotlight can change how studios operate—whether they intend to or not.

Can Sandfall stick to its principles if the demand for more keeps growing? Or is change inevitable once the game becomes a franchise? Let us know in the comments below!
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