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You’d expect that one of the best games of 2025 came to be due to carefully laid-out plans years in advance. Well, you’d be wrong, as the devs reveal that the origin story of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is just a series of fortunate events and being at the right place at the right time.
Sandfall Interactive was created in 2020, and after five years, they released their first game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Now, basically everyone has at least heard of this game as it is a smash hit, getting words of praise ever since its release and having an almost-perfect rating (also being the top-rated original game on PlayStation Store). The demand for it was so high that even Amazon failed to keep up. Now, for this level of success, surely it took some considerable planning and the best people available at the time, right? Well, the story is actually quite different.
Clair Obscur Expedition 33 Devs Reveal That the Origin Story is Crazier Than Expected
Quite recently, the BBC talked with Guillaume Broche, the head of Sandfall Interactive, about how Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 came to be.
He said that basically it was due to the COVID pandemic – everyone in 2020 was “Bored in their job and wanting to do something different.” He was working for the French branch of Ubisoft at the time and had the idea of making a game of his own, inspired by Final Fantasy games.
To begin his passion project, he started asking for people left and right, via Reddit and online forums. In a twist of fate, Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, who will become Sandfall’s Lead Writer, saw Broche’s post asking for voice actors and said: “I was like: ‘I’ve never done that, it sounds kinda cool’, so I sent him an audition.” She was originally supposed to be one of the main characters, but then switched roles and was made the company’s Lead Writer. Talk about having the right set of skills!
Eventually, Guillaume Broche left Ubisoft so he could fully dedicate himself to his project and opened up Sandfall Interactive in Montpellier, France. “After securing funding from publisher Kepler Interactive, the core team grew to about 30 people.”
“You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take”
It is revealed that a large part of the team was found in the same manner as Jennifer. He found Lorien Testard, who would become the Composer for the game, via Soundcloud. Guillaume admits that he always targets people who share the same vision as himself. As for the Composer, he said: “Lorien, when we discussed the game for the first time, we had exactly the same references. We loved the same thing. We watched the same things. The discussion was so fluid.” It is always easier for smaller teams to share the same vision than it would be in larger companies, and it looks like it had a considerable impact on the game. The results speak for themselves.
Speaking of larger companies, Clair Obscur is praised for its production values, and Guillaume was asked how the team managed to pull it off with such a small team. He says that the success was due to the current technology and the advances in the world of video game development.
Lastly, the funding provided by Kepler Interactive allowed the team to “splurge” and secure some big names in voice acting, such as Charlie Cox, Andy Serkis, Jennifer English, and Ben Starr.
Guillaume also admits that he, Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, and other “heads” of the company had to “wear a lot of different hats”. Jennifer, who was also in charge of translating the game into different languages, said: “And so we all pitch in and do different parts, things that may be outside of our traditional role”.
In the end, it turns out that even a team made up of Juniors can do wonders with the right mindset and vision. “We have, I think, an amazing team mostly of junior people but they are so incredibly invested in the project and talented,” says Guillaume. “Somehow it worked, which still makes no sense to me after all these years.” Turns out, you don’t need a massive studio to make a high-quality game. Something that “massive studios” could learn from.
Once more, kudos to Sandfall Interactive for their first game, and we wish them many more in the future. Some would even say that a DLC is coming…