monoco getting ready to attack against a fiery backdrop in clair obscur expedition 33. In the weeks since its launch, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has deservedly received high praise. It’s currently the best-reviewed game of 2025 on both Opencritic and Metacritic, has sold millions of copies, and beat the entire Final Fantasy series with its stellar user reviews on Steam.

While you might expect such acclaim from a big-budget blockbuster, Sandfall Interactive’s team was much smaller, and Clair Obscur’s budget was far more modest. While we’ll never know exactly how much the game cost to make, the team has given us an indication, sharing that it cost less than some double-A titles released almost 20 years ago.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Was Developed On A Shoe-String Budget Compared To Today’s Standards

gustave, maelle, scielle, and lune walking through a field in clair obscur.

Speaking in a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Sandfall Interactive COO and producer François Meurisse suggested that estimations of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s budget had, so far, been well wide of the mark.

“I would say that I’ve seen a lot of budget estimations that are all higher than the real budget,” he said. “Everybody’s desperate to know what the budget is, and I won’t tell them, but I would guarantee that if you got 10 people to guess, I think all 10 wouldn’t guess the actual figure. I’m sure Mirror’s Edge and Vanquish cost more, put it that way.”

With modern development budgets ballooning and these games being 17 and 14 years old, respectively, this is no small feat.

I’m sure Mirror’s Edge and Vanquish cost more, put it that way.

Much has been made of and debated about the size of the Sandfall Interactive development team. While claims that it was made by 30 people are disputed, Meurisse says that figure isn’t too far from the truth.

“I think that the creative engine of the game was that group of 30. […] In terms of what the game is – the vision of it and the way in which it’s executed – [that] does come from that nucleus of staff that is at Sandfall,” he told GamesIndustry.biz.

“In terms of main credits over the four years of production, we were on average about 30 people. We started with less than 10 people, scaled up until 30, and close to 40, and then scaled a little bit down. You mentioned Korean animators, but it’s important to mention that none of them were full-time. They were doing some extras besides some other jobs of animation. So the core team was on average 30 people in the home studio, plus privileged contractors like the lead writer or the composer, for example: I include them in that core team.”

It’s another fascinating insight into what is ultimately going to be one of this year’s Game of the Year contenders.