One of the holy grails in PC gaming has always been to accurately recreate the feeling of playing a tabletop RPG like Dungeons and Dragons. From titles like Baldur's Gate 3 and Planescape Torment to Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and Wildermyth, there have been loads of games that have tilted a lance at the PC gaming TTRPG crown. One newly announced game from some ex-Blizzard veterans, titled Sunderfolk, will be joining their ranks and is looking to take that crown for itself.
Here's how it will work. Sunderfolk is designed to be a couch co-op game where you and several friends work together to explore an adventure filled with tactical class-based combat. While you'll collectively play it on PC or console either together in person or remotely, you won't be using a traditional controller to make decisions or plan your attacks. Instead, you'll use your phone as a controller, allowing you to manage your character and interact with the world much like you would in a TTRPG.
Set in a new universe designed solely for Sunderfolk, players will explore a world populated by talking animals using a small, picturesque village named Arden as their base of operation. It's there that players will rest up between adventures, talk to NPCs, shop, restock, and generally become an inhabitant of the village. Then it's back out to fight the forces of darkness, exploring dungeons, caves, and ruins in the quest to defend Arden from evil.
When it's time to get involved in combat, it promises to be a turn-based, strategic affair where players build card decks to unleash skills on the battlefield. Placement is also of supreme importance, with each player having to be aware of where they are along with the weaknesses and strengths of their foes in order to emerge victorious. If you'd like to get a closer look at how combat works, developer Secret Door has released a gameplay video that should give you a clearer view of the action.
In addition to feeling like a next step in the evolution of PC gaming towards TTRPGs, there's some extremely weighty names behind Sunderfolk. Its developer, Secret Door, is filled with ex-Blizzard veterans such as studio head Chris Sigaty who formerly worked as lead producer on StarCraft 2. Its publisher, Dreamhaven, is also packed, with its CEO and co-founder being one Mike Morhaime, whose name many Warcraft and StarCraft fans will no doubt be extremely familiar with.
"The team at Secret Door, and really all of us at Dreamhaven, are all about bringing players together around fun experiences," Morhaime says. "Sunderfolk is a beautiful game, it's full of personality and charm, and it also creates epic moments where everyone is engaging directly with each other to work out strategies or celebrate victories. There's nothing quite like it, and we're really looking forward to seeing what players think."
There's no Sunderfolk release date just yet but it is scheduled for a 2025 launch. If you'd like to learn more about the title, you can head over to Steam where you can also add it to your wishlist.
Should that prove too long a wait for you, our guides to the best RPGs and the best story games will make the intervening months fly by in the company of some brilliant gaming experiences.
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