This New Tabletop-Inspired Video Game IP Has Advantage
Tabletop games, specifically Dungeons and Dragons, have had a profound impact on the video game industry, whether games directly adopt similar mechanics or not. Classic games like Dragon Age: Origins, beloved titles like Disco Elysium, and even modern masterpieces like Baldur’s Gate 3 are all inspired by or adapted tabletop mechanics, but even these titles cannot recreate the social experience shared around a table. No game, to date, has been able to recreate those exact, intimate, party-oriented moments and feelings where players become attached to a random NPC, where running gags develop naturally at play, where someone becomes the butt of bad roll jokes, and where everyone shares the terror of a plan not exactly going to plan. That might be about to change with Secret Door and Dreamhaven’s 2025 title, Sunderfolk.
I recently played Sunderfolk for about 2-to-3 hours at a Secret Door event in New York City, and it shot to the top of my most anticipated games list. I’ve played video games my entire life and I’ve played Dungeons and Dragons practically weekly since high school (with only a handful of extended breaks), and no experience has ever combined my love for both this way before. Sunderfolk taps into the social experiences of a tabletop game night and delivers that experience with truly innovative gameplay interactions because, while you play Sunderfolk on the platform of your choice, your mobile device is your controller. Jackbox Games meets Dungeons and Dragons feels like a fair comparison, but even then, it feels a bit reductive when trying to capture exactly what Sunderfolk is.

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In short, Sunderfolk is a tactical RPG where players choose one of six tabletop-inspired classes (at launch) and seek to defend the underground town of Arden, where every character is an anthropomorphic animal. The game supports couch co-op for up to 4 players. Remote play is possible, but Sunderfolk will definitely feel best when players sit on a couch, a table in front of them, and experience the game together. What little we played of it saw Arden under siege by a horde of Orcs, but there were hints throughout that some dark mastermind was behind the Orc attacks, resulting in the Tree of Life in Arden starting to decay. Should it die, we all would – and thus our party assembled from the classic beginnings of a bar room brawl to heroes willing to answer that call. What’s more, every NPC and narration in the game is voiced by a single actor who gives a slightly different voice to each character as a bonafide DM. That actor players will recognize from Overwatch, Symmetra’s actor Anjali Bhimani, who delivers that dungeon master experience perfectly.
Sunderfolk Classes Tap into the Best of Tabletop Design
Players will be able to choose from six classes: a bear Berserker, a bat Bard, a weasel Rogue, a Salamander Pyromancer, a Crow Arcanist, and a Goat Ranger. Each class has a total of 9 abilities unlocked through leveling up, and throughout my play, I saw four and an Ultimate. In addition to these abilities, every character has a Fate Deck, the ability to equip weapons, and the ability to equip trinkets.
I played the Bear Berserker, who is pretty much a classic Dungeons and Dragons Barbarian, whose abilities included a simple run up and attack (which provokes enemies to focus on me), a Whirlwind attack, the ability to grab and Fling enemies, and an ability focused on moving and provoking as many enemies as possible. My Ultimate let loose an almighty roar that provided me a lot of movement speed, dealt some good damage in a wide radius, provoked a lot of enemies, and provided Shields to myself and my allies. There is also a Rage mechanic at play, as one would expect.
Of course, Sunderfolk is a social game experience, so Screen Rant (SR) joined in as the Pyromancer and game director Erin Marek joined in as the Bard. The Pyromancer dealt with various multi-target attacks, had some unique movement abilities, and powered up its abilities by walking through environmental fire hazards. Meanwhile, the Bard created magical notes around the field that would supply heals, shields, or other buffs, could deal a little damage, and otherwise charm enemies and allies.
When asked, the Secret Door developers seemed open to the idea of DLC, but each made a point that they were focused on making sure the game was content complete at launch. I have my fingers crossed for a Lion Paladin.
The Fate Deck is Your D20
Whenever players activate an ability, they draw from their Fate Deck (which is a simple swipe). The Fate Deck is customizable but ultimately adds the randomness Dungeons and Dragons players will be familiar with from their D20s. The Fate Deck is composed of ten cards, with there being a distinction between positive cards (high rolls), neutral cards (middling rolls), and negative rolls (bad rolls). A very basic example of each is that positive cards could add up to +2 to damage, neutral cards would add +0, and negative rolls could go down to -2. As players progress through Sunderfolk, they can replace these cards with others, although they must always have a certain number of each. These new cards can add different bonuses or penalties, in addition to trade-offs like the ability to Root enemies or activate a minor shield.
How Sunderfolk’s Weapons and Trinkets Work
Trinkets add little abilities to a Sunderfolk build, like throwing items, retaliating to damage dealt, or creating vines in a certain space. These represent minor abilities or reactions like in Dungeons and Dragons. Unfortunately, we did not get to experience weapons, but studio head Chris Sigaty explained that these add the ability to perform certain actions outside of turn order.
How Sunderfolk Gameplay Works
When Secret Door first mentioned that my controller would be a mobile device, I was skeptical. It makes sense in Jackbox’s case, but I wasn’t quite sure how it would feel and how it would be better than just a simple controller. There were a few times when it felt a bit awkward, as I suspected, but my primary concerns were erased after playing the game. Using a mobile device instead of a controller goes a long way in recreating that tabletop social experience, and the best way to describe it is if the D&D Beyond app was directly interfacing with your game board and wasn’t mostly a facsimile of one.
Sunderfolk will work with either Android or iOS devices.
When in combat, it allows the party to talk about and figure out what they want to do about the enemies and objectives. There is no initiative or anything like that, instead letting players make a plan and execute it to good or ill results (or rushing to take your turn to cut off another player—in good spirits, of course). It creates this collaborative sense of play only experienced in tabletop games, while players can then take their turn by selecting an ability and swiping up. The screen then turns into essentially a tracking pad that lets you move across the board and select targets. This felt the most awkward, but it’s something Secret Door is continually working to improve. As a whole, if that’s the worst part of using the mobile device, that’s promising for the game.
Two other roleplaying elements cropped up during combat on our mobile devices. The first was the equivalent of perception checks, where our character would specifically notice something about the enemies or the environment that maybe others wouldn’t. We could choose to share this or not. Another was the ability to name enemies and NPCs, endearing them a little more to the party. The game randomly chooses players to name these, allowing players to tap into their sense of humor. For example, I was chosen to name what Ogres with bows and arrows would be called, so I named them Bowgres. Later on, we all got to choose names for a family of caterpillars. Marek and I named two of them Burp and Hurp because the main caterpillar was named Chirp.
Back in Arden, the town and social hub of Sunderfolk, we used our phones to level up, select our abilities for upcoming encounters, customize our characters, interact with town NPCs, choose dialogue options, and otherwise engage in the world of Sunderfolk. As players progress, they will unlock new buildings and NPCs in Arden, the ability to upgrade those buildings, and otherwise contribute to the world.
This is a lot about how Sunderfolk mechanically works, but because the mobile device limits you to what you have to know or can know at any time, it’s not as overwhelming as digging through Dungeons and Dragons player manuals. It streamlines the process, removes necessary set-up (and the cleaning of the table afterward), and ensures that everything a player needs is at their fingertips when they need it. And all of this is packaged neatly, with fun gameplay encounters to boot.
Sunderfolk Gameplay Taps into the Best of a D&D Table
A bear, a bat, and a salamander walk into a bar. The bartender asks us to remove an unruly patron, introducing us to how turn orders and actions work. I pushed him forward to get him out from behind a table, and one of the others pushed him forward and out. Then, two ogres attacked! Why are there Ogres in Arden? We fought them off, claimed some treasure, and proceeded outside. We also learned that loot is not shared among the Sunderfolk players (but also later learned that players can send each other gold in Arden’s post office).
This will be important later: the art for the Bear makes him look serious, if somewhat traumatized; the Bat seems to operate off of pure vibes, pun obviously intended; and the Salamander had a “Head Empty, Only Fire” expression.
Outside, our goal was to clear a nearby bridge of enemies and explosives. We were able to throw or push these into nearby holes, and as a front-liner with the most HP, I put myself at the front in front of my squishier Bard and Pyromancer companions. I actually went down at one point because all the enemies focused on me (fittingly), but they also have Fate Decks. Each would draw really good effects against me, which proved to be a recurring thing for the entire gameplay session.
However, the most important aspect of this combat encounter isn’t what the enemies did to me—but what my own teammates did to me. At the end of the encounter, we needed to move toward the exit to wrap everything up. SR had already taken their turn, meaning Marek and I just needed to move forward, and we’d all have one more turn before it was said and done. I couldn’t get all the way to the end, so I set my bear up where I could get to the exit and claim two piles of gold on my next turn. He was a happy bear, perhaps even for the very first time in his life. On her turn, Marek swooped in and stole a pile of gold. Oh, okay. Well. Fair enough. There was still one pile for me to claim, and as the next turn began, SR swiped first and went out of their way to claim my gold pile. I died for them and they robbed me blind. Anyway, this is why the Bear, the Berserker class, is canonically traumatized.
The beauty of it is how quickly it became a recurring joke, just like similar things happen with roleplay in Dungeons and Dragons. I didn’t let it go the entire session, and we constantly laughed at the fact that my bear was broke. It really went a long way in us working together (ironically!) and helped us project these roleplaying elements onto our characters. We eventually cleared the enemies out of Arden, meeting a disgustingly cute little caterpillar bug named Chirp in the process. We also met this wise Grove Tender who told us that the Tree of Life was dying, and the Pyromancer’s response was its now iconic blank stare. Head Empty.
Exploring Arden
In between missions, players are able to explore the town of Arden. There were buildings we didn’t unlock during our gameplay, but there was a place to get food for buffs, to buy new cards for our Fate Deck, to shop for Trinkets, to buy cosmetics, to share money via the post office, and more. It operates as a good break if someone needs a snack or to go to the bathroom, but it also lets players interact with the NPCs. Every player can have 4 NPC conversations each time they are in Arden, and this lets them add to the roleplay of their character by making small, likely unimportant dialogue choices. Furthermore, there are bonuses gained through repeated conversations with these NPCs, such as a trinket that lets you summon them in battle.
Beetles, Caterpillars, and Rampagers, Oh My!
We played through three more missions before our session came to an end.
- A Beetle Rescue
- Supply Hunting
- Caterpillar Tower Defense
In the first one, we had to save a Giant Beetle from enemies. The beetle, notably, did not flee for the exit like previously encountered rescuees. We fought through enemies, freed the beetle from its cage, and it would proceed in a straight line until it hit something before turning to head another way. If the respawning enemies killed it, it was mission over. There’s definitely a class comp in Sunderfolk where this is difficult to deal with, but luckily, I could Fling it and Marek could lure it in the right direction, easily clearing the encounter.
The next mission saw us going through a spider cave in hunt for supplies. We needed to clear piles of webs out of the way in search of them, although they also had a chance to spawn another spider. A perception check hinted at its location after we fought through about half of them, but there was an Elite Spider in similar range. I kept it and other spiders provoked and really wanted to fight it, but around the same time, Marek ended up trapped and surrounded by another plethora of spiders. She grabbed the supplies and I provoked the enemies away since she was a squishy Bard, and as we fled, she used her lure ability to keep pulling me from behind. In true Berserker fashion though, I was prepared to fight them to the death and kept to the backline, fighting them off as we moved toward the exit. It was a great roleplay opportunity and actual gameplay strategy. In my bear’s mind, though…she denied me GOLD and now GLORY?!
The final mission we played was a little further in the game, and we had Ultimates unlocked for this combat. In it, we had to defend the Gates of Arden, assisted by an army of caterpillars led by Chirp. This is where Hurp and Burp came into play, but there was also a yellow bug named Ol Yelly and a firebug. If the gates fell, we lost – and the caterpillars were assembled like towers to provide various bonuses. This combat introduced us to the powerful enemy Rampager, so I provoked it and basically kept it locked down while Marek and SR took out the various other enemies. SR’s Pyromancer was also living its best life because one of the bugs sprayed fire all over the field.
Somehow, somewhere along the way (as in all good Dungeons and Dragons adventures), we had all become attached to Ol Yelly. It got to the point that enemies were attacking it despite my best efforts to keep them provoked, we focused on enemies near Ol Yelly instead of the Gate, and Marek was dumping shields upon shields onto Ol Yelly. Every time Ol Yelly was attacked, we were yelling at the game, wholeheartedly demanding Ol Yelly’s survival. Unfortunately, despite doing our best to keep them alive, Ol Yelly fell when we had one turn left. I was going to kill its attackers, full stop, raging berserker style, but the mission finished once we survived the last turn, denying me my revenge.
Arden stood. But at what cost?
Sunderfolk is Already One of My Most Anticipated Games of 2025
2025 is already stacked with major game releases. February alone has Civ 7, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Avowed, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, and Monster Hunter Worlds, while games like Tales of the Shire, Borderlands 4, Death Stranding 2, Doom: The Dark Ages, Fable, Ghost of Yotei, Metroid Prime 4, and Pokemon Legends: Z-A are also lined up for next year. That’s all before probably the most anticipated game ever, Grand Theft Auto 6, gets factored in too. All of this is to say that Sunderfolk may be a brand new IP, but it has carved out its own niche and found its way to stand out among all of these titles.
If what I experienced in this preview remains as strong throughout its entire playtime, it’ll be the perfect intro into tabletop gaming. The entire time felt more like a tabletop game than a video game, but in ways that brought out the best of both mediums. It has all the merits to stand on its own as an IP and new gameplay experience, it’ll be great to boot up when a DM is not prepared or players cannot make it (due to scheduling), and it could easily bring new folks and even children into the tabletop world. It might even free me, to some degree, of the forever DM curse. In D&D terms, it seems Sunderfolk has Advantage going into 2025.
Sunderfolk releases for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X in 2025. Game Rant was provided travel and lodging for the purposes of this preview.