Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was arguably 2025's biggest surprise hit, with Sandfall Interactive's debut J'RPG sweeping awards shows and quickly building an enormous fan base. No pressure for the next game, right? Well, even if some pressure is unavoidable, the devs say they're still going to be guided by "what we think is cool" rather than focusing on fan expectations going forward.
Speaking in an interview with Edge magazine for issue 419, Sandfall Interactive chief operating officer and production director François Meurisse explains that while "I feel there is a bit of pressure" from fans and critics when it comes to the team's next game, "it's not so important to us."
He continues: "We'll have time to get really focused into the next game. We have some great ideas we're so excited to explore, and we don't start from the same point. The team already has five more years of experience. So maybe we can do some great stuff."
This sentiment is shared by lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, who admits she's "a bit of a people pleaser, so it's always in the back of my mind that we have a lot of fans now, and they have certain expectations and certain feelings towards the game."
Even though she'd "be lying if I said that I didn't think about that at all," however, she adds: "Creatively, we've always let our North Star be our own personal taste in terms of what we think is cool, what it is we enjoy and want to see. I've seen too many TV shows and books be swayed trying to please a lot of people, and in the process you end up losing the heart of what's there. So [we] feel like we need to trust our instincts and continue to trust the vision behind the studio."
No one can deny that that approach worked with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, anyway. After its plethora of wins at the Golden Joystick Awards 2025 and The Game Awards, creative director Guillaume Broche revealed that before launch, the team all thought that "'it's not going to be big, it's going to be cool,'" saying "it's a weird feeling, when you put your heart out into the world and the world embraces it and gives you so much love back."
There may now be more eyes on the studio and its work going forward, but hopefully the devs are able to maintain the spark that made Clair Obscur special.
Before Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept The Game Awards, Sandfall was betting it might scrape an 80 Metacritic score.
