Clair Obscur's famously small (but not that small) developer isn't interested in becoming less not-that-small: 'I think it's good to have limitations when you are creative'

Sandfall Interactive, developer of this year's megahit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, is a famously small developer. So small, in fact, that there was a whole discourse earlier this year about how miniscule the studio is. That lasted right up until another discourse (possibly part of the same discourse) that Sandfall Interactive is actually not that small at all.

It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most annoying debate the industry engaged in this year. Yet regardless of how small or large Sandfall Interactive is, CEO Guillaume Broche isn't interested in making the studio any bigger. Speaking to Edge (via GamesIndustry) Broche explained that he's more interested in making games than bulking out the team.

"I think it's good to have limitations when you're creative," Broche told Edge. "We could scale up now we have a lot more money, but I would say it's not tempting for us, because even the management team and myself, we'd have to be hands-on and doing things for ourselves."

Broche added that expanding the studio would mean more time spent managing it, which isn't what interests him about game development. "We love making games more than we love managing, so we want to keep doing that. These past five years were some of the best of my life, and I want to be happy like that again."

Broche was also asked to spill the secrets behind Expedition 33's success, which led it to sell over five million copies and win a whopping nine Game Awards—more than Baldur's Gate 3. After qualifying that every developer is "very different", Broche explained that Sandfall built its internal processes around its team, rather than vice-versa.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - Launch Trailer | PS5 Games - YouTube

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"I think the secret is to adapt the game to the team you have and not the other way around," he said. "And mostly, it's not about processes, it's making a game that you want to play. It's contradictory, but [try to] not care too much about the players, because if you care about your game, it means you care about the players ultimately. \

"The best way for me to care about people is to make something that is sincere. If it feels human, [even] if there are little flaws here and there, it's forgivable. It just has to have a strong soul and identity."

One thing Broche didn't mention regarding Expedition 33's success or its team-size was generative AI. Shortly after the game's release in April, fans spotted numerous cases of apparent AI generated textures in the game. These were quickly removed by Sandfall in a patch, with the patch notes claiming they were a "placeholder texture."

Sandfall's cofounder, François Meurisse, copped to using generative AI in Expedition 33's development in June, admitting the studio used "some AI, but not much" (Google translated). That article has since been updated to state that "there is no element made with generative AI in the game."

This hasn't stopped the Indie Game Awards from pulling two gongs it handed out to Sandfall's J-coded RPG. The awards body takes a "hard stance" against generative AI use in game development, as explained in its FAQs. According to committee member Mike Towndrow, Sandfall had stated that no gen AI was used in the making of the game in its submission for the awards. However, "on the day of the premiere, Sandfall Interactive did, in fact, confirm that gen AI was used in the making of Expedition 33."

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