Hideo Kojima says Clair Obscur team size is ideal: ‘They have 33 team members and a dog’
Kojima Productions “ballooned” to over 200 developers during the pandemic
Hideo Kojima has praised Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall Interactive, saying the French studio’s smaller team size is “ideal.”
Speaking during a group Q&A attended by Dexerto, Kojima explained that his Kojima Productions team has “ballooned” in recent years to over 200 developers.
Kojima went on to say that he prefers to work in smaller teams, and praised Sandfall Interactive for its small team size and the success of Expedition 33.
“They only have like 33 team members and a dog. That’s my ideal when I create something with a team,” Kojima said.
“Creation has now become much bigger. It’s kind of a war between how efficient you could [be] with the small team, but you have to make it so grand.”
It should be noted that there’s been some debate as to what ‘counts’ as the total size of Clair Obscur’s development team. While the game’s credits do list around 30-40 staff working at Sandfall, it also lists numerous other outsourced animation, QA and performance capture staff that bring the total number of people involved in the game well into the hundreds.
As such, some have argued that while the game was made with a smaller team than most triple-A titles, the claim that a hugely praised game was only made by a small team of 30-40 people isn’t an entirely accurate one.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was released on April 24, and has enjoyed widespread critical acclaim with a Metacritic score currently standing at 93 on PS5, 91 on Xbox Series X/S and 91 on PC.
The game was also praised by French president Emmanuel Macron, who commended Sandfall for hitting 1 million sales in its first three days.
“One million copies sold and currently one of the highest-rated games in history, and yes, it’s French,” Macron wrote. “Congratulations to Sandfall Interactive and all the creators of Expedition 33. You are a shining example of French audacity and creativity.”
Just over a month after the game’s release, developer Sandfall announced that the game had sold 3.3 million copies in 33 days.
Kojima’s next game, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, will be released on June 26, exclusively for PlayStation 5.
