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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead doesn't mind claims that only 30 people made the French JRPG, says it might be "the first" to prove you can "make a game that looks bigger than the size of the team"
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Ashley Bardhan
2025-10-21
Other developers like Balatro's LocalThunk shudder at the narrative that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was a success made by a surprisingly "small team," since 33-person studio Sandfall Interactive also had the means to employ plenty of outsourcing developers. But Sandfall CEO and Clair Obscur director Guillaume Broche doesn't mind anyone's hesitation – he thinks Expedition 33 and its skinny little team might be the first example of a new way to make games. He tells PCGamesN in a new interview, "I think we're the first in a new wave of how [the industry] makes games. With the tech that's accessible now, it's much easier; it's still a shit ton of work, don't get me wrong, but it's easier to make a game that looks bigger than the size of the team." Broche references a recent tour of Asia that had Sandfall meet with several major studios, including Kojima Productions and Square Enix. During that trip, Broche says he got to see many in-development projects "made by smaller teams that are crazy ambitious, and they look and play well; I think they are going to be amazing games." Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 studio is "just the right size" for a "full-priced turn-based RPG," so don't expect its success to lead to AAA ambitions: "I'd prefer working as a small team" Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director says AAA-sized "scope and budget" might have made it worse, actually, because "not artificially padding out the game time excessively" was key to the RPG's success Sandfall says Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 winning GOTY "isn't something we aim for," and even though it would be a "nice little bonus," it's rooting for Megabonk "I think the fact that it impresses so much is because we are probably the first ones – or among the first ones – to do it," Broche continues to say about Expedition 33, possibly forgetting the fact that mega-zany-bonkers hits like 2016's Stardew Valley or goddamn Tetris were made by one person. These games don't have the same fantastical grandeur of Expedition 33, that's for sure, but they're still historic examples of how even the tiniest dev teams can stoke generations of imagination. Not inaccurately, Broche concludes, "I'm sure that we're just at the beginning of this kind of [development style]." Sandfall says Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 winning GOTY "isn't something we aim for," and even though it would be a "nice little bonus," it's rooting for Megabonk.
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