Sunderfolk is a two-screen co-op RPG from Dreamhaven and Secret Door

The first project from publisher Dreamhaven and developer Secret Door is inspired by the world of tabletop RPGs.

More than four years have passed since Blizzard co-founder and former CEO Mike Morhaime announced his newest venture in the gaming world. Joining forces with other industry creatives, Morhaime helped put together Dreamhaven, a new publisher dedicated to introducing new gaming experiences. One of those experiences will come from developer Secret Door, which on Thursday unveiled its first project. It's a tabletop RPG-inspired adventure called Sunderfolk.

Sunderfolk at first glance looks like a standard RPG with a tabletop-style presentation. Up to four players will come together in the world of Arden. It's a fantasy land of anthropomorphic animal creatures all co-existing in a village, trying to stave off a growing evil from the wicked Orcs. It's a world with many stories to tell, many of them coming from side quests that unfold like a pen-and-paper RPG. However, Secret Door's project has something that helps it stand out from its contemporaries.

While Sunderfolk will be on PC and consoles, it's not a game that's played with a traditional controller. It instead takes the Jackbox Games approach and has players use their personal mobile devices for a second screen experience. This helps further emulate the feeling of being at a tabletop where each individual player can manage their characters, attacks, inventory items, movements, and actions on their own. They can even explore the hub village and its various shops using their mobile device.

Secret Door didn't set out so much to make a standard RPG, but the team wanted to make a digital version of a Dungeons and Dragons-like game night. It's not unlike what games like Slay the Spire have done, but this is designed mainly with co-op play in mind. Ideally, everyone will come together locally to play on the same setup, but Sunderfolk can still work if one party shares their screen through an app like Discord. It's possible to play solo with an individual controlling up to four characters, but Secret Door wants Sunderfolk to be a social activity. The game even emulates the pen-and-paper RPG experience by having a single narrator provide both exposition and all of the character voices.

In terms of combat, Sunderfolk works like a standard RPG with six different classes to choose from. Players can pick between the Arcanist, Bard, Berserker, Pyromancer, Ranger, and Rogue with all of these classes having their own distinct abilities. The Pyromancer, for example, is good for area-of-effect attacks, all of which can grow more powerful after stepping onto an ignited tile. The Berserker is good for melee strikes and absorbing damage with its high defensive stats. The Bard is good for healing characters while also enchanting allies and enemies in different ways.

This was the composition for my party during my time with the game and we were able to take down hives of spiders, rampaging orcs, and rescue villagers by combining skills, communicating effectively, and using cooperative strategy. Some quests had objectives like leading a friendly beetle to safety or collecting a key guarded by skeletons. Winning would require mixing togehter party skills, like having the Berserker absorb damage while using the Bard's enchant ability to move a teammate closer to the objective without costing them any of their moves.

Of course, it wouldn't be a tabletop game if there wasn't a little bit of luck involved. Each player will receive a Fate deck comprising a mix of cards with positive, neutral, and negative effects. Before each attack, players will roll their die to draw from the deck. The result could be increased or decreased damage, an extra tile effect, or nothing at all. It's all a luck of the draw and bad RNG can lead to some brutal losses. Fortunately, players can pick up in-game currency to beef up their Fate deck over time. The effects of any new cards can vary, but players must always have a set number of positive effect, neutral effect, and negative effect cards.

Sunderfolk is meant to be an activity that endures for the long haul. Secret Door is shying away from questions like "How long is the game?" instead noting that Sunderfolk is a game best played in sessions. Progress can carry over from session to session with the development team, hoping the game can become a tradition for any group of friends that experience it.

Dreamhaven and Secret Door's first project has the potential to be something special, especially with the way their game embraces the fun and quirks of the tabletop experience. It's also great to see a developer look at what companies like Jackbox Games have done with phones as a second screen and apply that to a totally different genre. Look forward to embarking on a new quest when Sunderfolk comes to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch sometime in 2025. The Sunderfolk app can then be downloaded on iOS and Android.

This preview is based on an early PC build of the game and an early iOS build of the accompanying app played on-site at a closed press event in Santa Monica, CA. The final product is subject to change.