InSunderfolk, players will step into the shoes of one of six classes (Berserker, Bard, Pyromancer, Arcanist, Ranger, and Rogue). While the cooperative storytelling approach will keep players immersed in the world of the Sunderlands, it is the gameplay that will feed the complex tactical choices players make. Within that is a selection ofSunderfolkbuilds based on Fate decks, weapons, trinkets, and so forth, with a little customization sprinkled in to make each character really feel like the player’s.
Not only did we speak to theSunderfolkdevs about its gameplayand equipment, but we also talked about what classes they would add (if they could), how they intend to celebrate launch, and their current plans are for post-launch. We spoke with several devs, including Secret Door studio head Chris Sigaty, game director Erin Marek, senior technical game designer Jerrick Flores, character designer Xavier Gordon, narrative designer Neo Zhang, art director Daren Bader, and campaign designer Kara Centell-Dunk.The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How Equipment and Modifiers Work in Sunderfolk
Fate Decks
Q: Can you talk a little about the design approach behind the standard Fate Deck selections?
Flores:Any good adventure has its upsanddowns; the unpredictability of exactly when those moments happen is what makes the journey all the more fun.
At its core, the Fate Deck is our opportunity to inject some chance into the gameplay during a critical moment: an attack and its damage. As part of an attack, you pull a Fate Card from your deck to modify the damage of an attack and even add additional effects. The randomness the Fate Deck provides guarantees that missions can never be “truly” solved: there is always a sense of risk —and hope— in your choices. Best-laid plans going awry and last-ditch efforts succeeding are some of the stories the Fate Deck helps create. To that end, we designed the Fate Deck to enforce a strict ratio of positive, negative, and neutral effects to provide those highs and lows in your quests throughoutthe Sunderlands.
As you progress through the campaign, however, we provide opportunities for you to customize and twist the rules of Fate. New Fate Cards with additional effects or drawbacks will challenge perceptions around what lower or higher damage numbers are really worth to you. Even more, you might unlock the ability to tweak the ratio and size of the Fate Deck yourself, giving you the choice to hone in on consistency or keep it wide for versatility. These options allow you to more thoroughly synergize the whims of Fate with your build, and I hope players have fun with it!
Q: What about the Ultimates for each class? What was the approach there?
Gordon: The approach behind determining the Ultimates was based on the class’ gameplay niche and fantasy. What does the character most want to do, and what does their team most want them to do?
For the Pyromancer, the answer is simple — fire, fire, and more fire! The Ranger is also straightforward — snipe an enemy out of existence. Forthe Berserker, they want to tank for their team, and also make their team more tanky. The Arcanist wants to control the battlefield and prevent their team from being attacked, and the Rogue, well… they want to attack again, and again, until no one’s left standing. I hope these fantasies come across in the gameplay for maximum effect!
Trinkets and Weapons
Q: Can you speak to the role that Trinkets play in Sunderfolk? What’s your favorite trinket?
Zhang: Trinkets are items that let players add an extra action at any point after declaring their spell during an encounter. They open up new layers of strategy, either by synergizing with the player’s existing kit or acting as a clutch lifeline when health is low or things get intense.
My favorite trinket has to be Chirp’s Whistle — it summons Chirp, the ever-determined Guard Bug, who jumps into the fight and battles alongside you.
Q: Sunderfolk characters can also equip weapons that act out of turn order. Once players unlock them, how game-changing would you say they are?
Gordon: Weapons definitely add a new layer of strategy to battles, allowing players to combo their abilities in new and interesting ways, or even react to enemies' abilities, changing the tide of battle, but only when the weapon activates. Weapons can activate from all kinds of things in battle, like taking damage or pushing enemies. Players will have to balance the weapon’s activation conditions with the weapon’s effect; a weapon that activates regularly won’t be as powerful as a weapon that only activates once or twice a battle. Select weapons that round outyour team compto beat tough battles and grant effects unavailable anywhere else.
My favorite weapon is the Splatterspore, which allows me to gift my allies with Shrooms when they get walloped. Can I offer you a Shroom in this trying time?
Q: Can you talk about any favorite builds you’ve played during your time with Sunderfolk?
Marek:One of my favorite goofy builds is playing Berserker, and then grabbing the Apple Pepper Bombs meal, which makes it so when you step into fire, it deals two damage to all adjacent monsters. Then take every fire-spawning thing that’s ever existed, like the Fire Bug Trinket, any fire-spawning Fate Cards, etc. The last step is to go into an encounter, spawn a bunch of fire next to enemies, and then step onto the first fire to gain Rage. Then step on all the remaining fires, dealing damage to adjacent monsters without taking any damage yourself thanks to Rage! Works even better if you have a Pyromancer in your party. It’s very fun and lets you leverage your extra movement to deal damage.
Flores:Ever wanted to be a mob boss and send out your minions to take care of the dirty work? Oozewax Chandelier is a trinket you can get at the end of one of the Workshop upgrade trees that, in addition to a bunch of other effects, also spawns an allied Oozling ineveryempty space adjacent to you. Take two of them and you can create an Oozling army.Then, you also take the Stonevalor weapon, which typically energizes more often when there are more characters on the board, and you can create a bunch of blocking barriers to lock off enemy escape routes. Now the enemies are trapped in there withyou.
Customization in Sunderfolk
Q: Sunderfolk features “light customization” through dyes and dialogue choices. Can you speak to how varied these choices are? If a buddy and I are playing two separate Berserkers in different games and we talk about it, if we’re really into the “character building” of our characters, how different can they be from a roleplay/visual standpoint?
Zhang:InSunderfolk, there’s a wide range of narrative choices and outcomes for our players. From your background to your relationships with NPCs, what you choose and how you interact with others will shape your experience in surprising (and sometimes hilarious) ways. Let’s say you’re playing a Berserker with the Retired Guard background, while your friend rolls as a Honey Farmer. You’ll each unlock unique dialogue and NPC interactions based on your decision and interest!
you’re able to also build (or totally tank) your Affinity with NPCs. Be charming, and you might get bonus loot, exclusive convos, or even spark alittle NPC romance— we’re not saying you have to, but yes, you totally can.
So whether you’re soloing the campaign or playing alongside friends, yourstory inSunderfolkwill be uniquely yours — full of choices, consequences, and potentially questionable life decisions.
Q: For the available customization options, what would you say the overall design ethos is?
Zhang:Our design ethos for customization in conversations and narrative centers on crafting experiences that are immersive, meaningful, and emotionally resonant — all while maintaining narrative coherence and allowing for open-ended creativity. Every background, dialogue choice, and relationship path is designed to feel personal, reactive, and rewarding.
Whether you’re making a heartfelt decision or embracing delightful chaos, our goal is to support a wide range of playstyles and personalities — while keeping the experience fresh and fun!
What’s Next?
Q: From playing with the team, are there any fun stories or moments you’d like to share?
Sigaty:One of my favorite development moments was during our Friends & Family testing back in early 2024. I was playtesting with Alan, our Technical Director, and Daren, our Art Director, and we got to the Smuggler’s Run mission. The designers had recently added several new ad-lib naming moments to the build. Unbeknownst to Alan and I, Daren had been prompted to name something that we didn’t notice until a few minutes later. When we finally did, we all burst out laughing to the point, for me at least, of being in tears. It was completely unexpected, helped reinforce the vision of the game we’re trying to build, and was a great memory that still stands out to me.
Bader:Yeah, that was funny!
Centell-Dunk:We were playtesting the Brightstone Cleanup side mission, which uses a board that I specifically, personally, and lovingly added Pit terrain to… which is sadly relevant to what comes next. We were playing on Challenging mode, so we each only had two lives. In the first Monster Phase, we had already lost one life. Our turn comes up, and I proudly announce I have a way of knocking the monsters into a nearby slew of pits by using a Leap Bard skill that pushes characters I land adjacent to. Without waiting for any feedback from my team, I immediately executed the card as one of my coworkers audibly goes, “Wait! Wait! Wait!,” then I accidentally shovehis hero into a pitinstead of any of the monsters I meant to target. And that’s the story of how I lost us the game on round two to the pitsI specifically had put there in the first place.My coworker was a great sport about his untimely demise, and I did a much better job communicating with my team after.
Flores:So full caveat, I wasn’t in the group, but it is a downloaded memory I have. During one of our multi-day playtest sessions, there was a group with Michael (one of our engineers), who I can definitively say is the mythical Midas incarnate in the modern age. He rushed to get the Hoardheart weapon, which helps generate gold, and utilized it toawe-inspiringeffect. I remember checking in throughout the playtest and just seeing his gold go up… and up… and UP… AND UP. It wassickandsickening. He wasn’t just the bank, nor the treasury, my mans was the whole ECONOMY. His exploits are an inspiration, reminder, and warning for maintaining well-balanced income methods.
Q: Are there any “dream classes” or characters you’d personally want to see added in the future, if possible?
Sigaty:While classes outside the Berserker are also pretty excellent tanks and damage mitigators—think Rogue with Evasion and Arcanist with Mirror Image—another frontrunner would be great to add to the lineup in the future.
Gordon:I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m DYING for a badass Wolf Warrior to get in there and rough ‘em up. As aFighter main, I need this viscerally.
Bader:For me, it almost doesn’t matter what class we bring into the fold because I’m just excited by the opportunity of further exploring the animal kingdom to flesh out whatever class we add. By leaning into the animal world, we really afforded ourselves lots of wonderful options for the expansion of the Sunderlands.
Marek:I’m a forever Game Master…so I’ve played every class under the sun outside of our game and don’t have a strong class identity personally. BUT I do really desperately want a lizard animal in our game! So something that pairs well with a lizard…
Centell-Dunk:Round. I want to play a round character. Like a sheep, or a hippo, or a big frog, or a particularly fluffy bird. As for a class? I love magic users, so I’d love to see more of those, maybe an alchemist with witchy vibes? Oooh, a Frog Alchemist! Or a Bog Witch Sheep!
Flores:I LOVE the aesthetic of fortune and chance, so a class that falls into aGambler archetypewould be awesome. There are a lot of animals that are perceived as auspicious or lucky, such as elephants and rabbits, that we could lean into. Imagine an elephant in sleek attire and a felt hat holding a comically small dice cup… now THAT’s a vibe.
Q: How does the team intend to celebrate come launch day?
Sigaty:On April 23, launch day itself, we’ll pay close attention tothe game’s release on each of the launch platforms— Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch — ensuring everything is running smoothly. This will, of course, include some special thanks and shout-outs to the team and company for getting us here.
The following week, we have our remote team members flying in for a company launch celebration, a studio dinner, and some fun activities throughout the week.
Q: What are your post-launch plans as they stand?
Sigaty: Getting to launch has been our primary goal for quite some time. Now that it’s finally here, I think we’re all excited to engage with the community, see the response, listen to player feedback, and begin making adjustments and improvements based on what we hear.
We want, and intend, to build more content forSunderfolk, but don’t have anything specific to announce just yet!
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