It’s a small team, but they’ve proven themselves with a game that will win tons of awards this year.

Much has been said about the incredible quality that Sandfall Interactive has achieved in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, despite having a budget of less than $10 million and a core team of around thirty people. In an interview with GamesIndustry, another veteran developer expressed his disbelief at what the Montpellier-based studio achieved with this game. Adrian Chmielarz, the founder and CEO of the Polish indie studio The Astronauts (creators of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Witchfire), previously worked on games such as Painkiller, Gears of War: Judgment, and Bulletstorm at People Can Fly, which he founded in 2002. He has always been outspoken about his opinions. In December, he shared his thoughts on why PC gamers prefer Steam to the Epic Games Store. In a new interview, he discussed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 the biggest mystery in the gaming industry right now.

“Last week, I learned that the people behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hired a lot of newbies—people who hadn’t made a game before. Now my worldview is ruined, and I don’t know what to do. This game looks AAA to me. It’s phenomenal in every aspect. It has a deep story, a deep method of work, good gameplay, and great visuals and sound. It’s a very coherent product. Then you hear that the core team was only 30 people, half of whom were first-timers. I’m like, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

The head of the studio held a two-hour conference in France to discuss the process of making this game. I haven’t watched it yet, but I downloaded it and transcribed and translated the audio into English. This video is waiting for me because I need to know the secret — it’s absolutely crazy! Obviously, we didn’t make Witchfire with only 26 people because we outsourced a lot of the work, as did Sandfall Interactive with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the credits are 10 or 15 minutes long. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that the core team responsible for most of the game’s ideas and execution is around 30 people, half of whom are new. It’s the biggest mystery in gaming right now,” said Chmielarz.

From a designer’s perspective, he highlights a few things. For one thing, the game’s enemies have no faces, which reduces animation work. Furthermore, the high-quality scenes resemble theatrical plays because the characters never interact with their environment. In his experience, that is one of the most difficult tasks when creating cutscenes. Clearly, Sandfall used similar tricks, but the end result is undeniable.

Source: WCCFTech, Gamesindustry