Six months after its record-breaking launch in April 2025, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is set to receive a major free update. Titled the “Thank you Update,” it comes as a gesture of appreciation from developer Sandfall Interactive to its fans, bringing new costumes, boss battles, environments, and some extra surprises. Ahead of the announcement, AUTOMATON Japan sat down with creative director Guillaume Broche to reflect on the game’s development and launch, and to discuss what lies ahead for the studio.
──As it’s been about half a year since the game’s release, I’m wondering if you have any data on players’ clear rates? The game has quite a lot of volume, so even a rough figure would be interesting to hear.
Guillaume Broche (hereafter Broche):
We don’t collect any player data, so really the best evidence might be looking at how many people have collected the Achievements or Trophies on Steam/Xbox/PlayStation and using that as an estimate for clear rates and completion. For example, Steam notes that around 40% of players got the ‘The End’ achievement, so that might be a good estimate for how many of our players reached the end of the story on that platform – but it’s not an exact number!
──That’s quite high! Come to think of it, the game offers quite a lot of extra content right before the ending too, with plenty of gimmicks and challenges. What made you decide to pack in so much to do?
Broche:
Part of the nostalgia I have for some RPGs I grew up with was that feeling of discovery and finding new surprises: completely optional zones, super bosses, powerful new gear, and more. I think that’s what caused us to really push for that added variety and challenge throughout the game, which really opens up in Act 3 once the party can freely move around the world with Esquie.
──I especially enjoyed the OnlyUp!-style climbing challenge. Why did you decide to include something so different in tone from the rest of the game?
Broche:
Because it’s unexpected, right? That was a really fun one the team decided to include, and I think that kind of crazy surprise of it is what makes it so interesting to discover. Like, who would have expected a challenging platforming section in the middle of this big turn-based RPG? That fun sense of humor is something we really wanted to inject into the game where it made sense.
──By the way, at what timing was the climbing challenge added to the game? Was it planned from the start or something you added on the fly later on?
Broche:
That minigame was added within the last year of development as the full game was really taking shape and some of our team’s efforts became adding rewarding and fun side content to round out the experience for players alongside the core story path we had in place.
──Were the other optional challenges and activities also added after the main game was more or less complete?
Broche:
Not so much – they all became a reality at different times within the production. Also, for the most part, I’d say there weren’t many examples of specific ideas left out either. And who knows, maybe some of these things that didn’t make it might even come back in a future update for the game too…
──Were ideas for side content like the OnlyUp!-style challenge decided within the core development team?
Broche:
Absolutely – we’re a pretty small team working together, and we intentionally give opportunities for the group to come up with ideas or suggestions throughout development. Everyone at Sandfall is super enthusiastic and passionate about their craft and our game, so it’s something really important for us to keep as a value within the studio.
──With your core team only counting about 30 people, what’s your secret to pulling off so much optional content with such a small team?
Broche:
In recent years, the technology available (like with Unreal Engine 5, for example) has really been vital for letting small development teams like ours achieve visual results that look like those of much bigger teams. Being able to adapt quickly to new ways of working is really key to our own development story, and I think that is something other studios will experience in the years ahead as so much technology becomes more accessible, and smaller teams are able to deliver games that feel much larger than what would’ve been possible a few years ago.
──Since you worked alongside external studios, I imagine the scope of development ended up expanding beyond what you initially planned, with some content being added, or conversely, removed. If you had known from the very start what scale of development resources you’d have available, is there anything you would have done differently, or any part of the game you would have expanded?
Broche:
I don’t think so – where we worked with external studios and partners were often with things that enhanced the game, rather than radically changed it. For example, working with localization partners helped us translate the game into many more languages than we could have ever achieved in-house, or working with an orchestra to record the game’s soundtrack helped us create a grander sound for the game than we could’ve ever achieved otherwise. Even without these things, I think our core development process, the story we wanted to tell, the systems we wanted to make for the game etc. would’ve all been the same regardless of the team size.
──This might be a bit off-the-wall, but if you had unlimited development resources, what are some ideas you would have liked to implement and why?
Broche:
That’s an interesting question! I don’t think we would have wanted to radically add unnecessary content or change the overall scope of our game though – I think part of the reason some fans enjoyed their time with our game was how we tried to respect the players’ time by not artificially padding out the game time excessively. In some ways, having a limited budget and resources is helpful to narrow down the scope of a title and distil the vision to the core elements that make it great, and maybe having unlimited scope and budget would’ve made it a less engaging game for our players. It’s hard to know!
──Expedition 33 will be getting a major update, but was this something you’ve had in mind since before release? Where did the idea come from?
Broche:
We were overwhelmed with the support from players since the game released, and we decided early on that we wanted to think of a way to thank them for their support. That was one of our first considerations once we’d seen the game resonate with fans – how can we celebrate this new community that formed and give them something new? So, we wanted to work on a free update since then, something that introduces new content that fans should enjoy – new costumes, challenging new boss battles, a new playable environment, and more.
──Is there anything that didn’t make it into the initial release but will be incorporated into this update?
Broche:
I think we want to keep some surprises for players so I won’t say too much at this stage… I think we’re just really happy to deliver on some things that have been requested a lot from fans!
──Looking back on the past year, what’s one thing that turned out just as you expected, and something that caught you completely off guard?
Broche: I think the way our game has been embraced by the community is something truly wonderful, and something we couldn’t really have ever predicted. Seeing so much cosplay at different events is maybe the easiest visual reference for it – striped shirts, red berets, and baguettes filling up community meetups or panels is so great to see. It’s funny that something that started as a funny joke for a ‘French’ costume to announce the French voice cast has been so embraced as cosplay for the community, but it really encapsulates our sense of humor perfectly.
──Finally, tell me about your future plans and outlook.
Broche:
Alongside the ‘Thank You Update,’ we’re hard at work on a number of other things that fans are really looking forward to. For example, in October we’re hosting some concerts for the game’s soundtrack here in France that we know fans are really excited for, and we’re hopeful we can extend this out internationally in the future and deliver performances our fans will love.
We are also working on a behind-the-scenes documentary for the future, with some footage of the development and new interviews in the team. We hope that’s also an extra thing our fans can look forward to and learn more about us, our studio, and how we made our debut game. We’re very fortunate to be in this position and have so many opportunities ahead of us, and it’s largely thanks to the support from our fans and gamers who embraced us and the story we wanted to tell. Here’s hoping that the rest of the year and 2026 are just as exciting as the year so far!
── Thank you for your time!
