Summary
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33is undoubtedly the breakout hit of the year. Reachinga million copies sold on day-one, becoming thehighest rated game in 2025, and even becoming thehighest player rated game in Metacritic historyis no small task. EvenFrench president Emmanuel Macron congratulated the studioon its success.
But how did Sandfall Interactive gain this unprecedented success with its debut game? We know that the studio took its time and the game saw multiple iterations before launch and looked wildly different from the final product. But, in director Guillaume Broche’s own words, the devs weren’t afraid to think of stupid ideas.
Sandfall Interactive Embraced Stupidity For Clair Obscur: Expedition
Just think about the first time you met Fracois. A literal rock whose only attack is called ‘World’s Strongest Ice Attack’. That sounds like a stupid idea on paper, but it’s exactly the kind of thinking that the devs strived for. “Our best way of making cool content is just, we think about stupid ideas,” explained Broche in a conversation withPirate Software(viaGamesRadar).
“And we have a ton of stupid ideas. Every lunch, we just imagine stupid stuff that makes no sense and [is] very silly, and the thing is, we don’t have any very big corporate meetings on the validation pass and everything, so very often it’s like, just try something.”
“If this person who has this idea just tries something and it’s fun, it’s like, hey Guillaume, come here, look at this. And I’m like, oh, this is fun, and then we just build it in the game, and if it needs more polish we’ll polish it a bit more,” he continued. “But in general, the ideas, we are super open to everybody’s ideas. I think that’s our key strength, that we leave enough creativity for everyone to just put their own soul in the game. But also, the creative vision itself is very, very clear. We know where we want to go.”
As for the team itself, Broche revealed that the story of Sandfall Interactive is akin to the formation of an RPG party. “It’s really a team just assembled together in very random ways, but somehow the synergy worked out.” It did work out indeed. This rag-tag group of developers may have just put out 2025’s Game of The Year.
