Michael McWhertor, Polygon:

Sunderfolk is inspired by tabletop games like Gloomhaven and Dungeons & Dragons, said head of Secret Door (and hardcore tabletop game enthusiast) Chris Sigaty at a recent hands-on event in New York. The developers behind Sunderfolk were inspired by the depth and inclusiveness of those games, while also recognizing their shortcomings.

“We’ve worked on games like StarCraft, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone,” Sigaty said, “and one of the things we realized upfront was that we didn’t want to start with a competitive game. Even though we love and have a lot of knowledge in that space, we wanted to focus on something that was connective or collaborative. We found that we were having the most connective moments actually around a board game table, playing things like Dungeons & Dragons and board games of all sorts, and that our passion was in this space of tabletop gaming.”

But, Sigaty acknowledged, many tabletop games require reading through thick manuals paired with lengthy setup and breakdown times. In a strategic card-based tabletop game like Gloomhaven or Frosthaven, new players may spend hours unpacking the box, learning the rules, and cleaning up, instead of spending that time actually playing.

With Sunderfolk, Secret Door hopes to address those obstacles to fun.

What a promising sounding game and experience. The pedigree alone sells it, but the idea of a full RPG experience with limited setup time and an ease of gameplay for newbies sounds like a massive win, speaking as someone who got into tabletop during COVID.

An aside though, what timing of this being revealed the same week as the release of Jason Schreier’s Play Nice: The Rise, Fall and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, which I’ve been reading this week and is fantastic.