Sunderfolk Lowers Its Biggest Barrier To New Players In Its First Major Update

Whether you’re playing digital or tabletop multiplayer games, one of the hardest parts is just figuring out when everyone is free. The longer the game gets (take Baldur’s Gate 3’s incredible but extremely long multiplayer campaign, for example), the more likely it is that someone will drop out before you reach the end. When the RPG Sunderfolk from former Blizzard developers launched earlier this year, the need to gather a table full of players — in person or otherwise — was a big barrier, but it’s one that a new update is aimed at tearing down.

Originally, Sunderfolk could only be played as a full campaign. The turn-based RPG uses a unique setup where players share one central screen that displays the game’s maps, while controlling their own character’s movement via their phones. That setup encourages collaboration, since players need to make an effort to coordinate turns with one another, but it means it’s best when a full group is able to take part. Sunderfolk is about the length of a typical singleplayer RPG — around 30 hours — so getting a consistent group together can be pretty difficult.

Sunderfolk’s first major content update, Patch 1.5, introduces a new way to play. Launching October 22, it adds One Shot Mode, which lets groups of players take on single missions rather than committing themselves to a full campaign. One Shot Mode is entirely separate from the campaign, offering quick access to missions from the game’s menu, without the need to engage with the campaign’s story at all. Getting the ability to dive in for a mission or two without locking in for a whole campaign or needing to visit the story mode’s hub means it will be much quicker to try out Sunderfolk.

One Shot Mode makes some changes to Sunderfolk’s progression to keep players at an appropriate level no matter where they’re jumping in. The missions available are pulled directly from campaign mode, with the addition of four new missions just for the new mode. In the campaign, you gain new abilities as you level up and get the chance to buy new equipment in a hub town between missions. Since the new mode does away with that progression, you’ll start at a level fit for whichever mission you select. You’ll also get a pool of equipment to choose from, selected from the gear you would have at the point in the campaign where that mission takes place. It still might not be a great idea to jump straight into late-game missions right away, but doing so is at least possible, and at the very least, One Shot Mode makes it easy to skip through the early tutorial missions.

The new single-mission mode also adds a new scoring system, meaning there’s a reason to replay levels you particularly like with your group. At the end of each level, you’ll be graded based on how much gold you collected (meaning there’s still a reason to collect gold even without being able to access the shop), how many foes you defeated, how many lives you have left, and how well you completed the mission’s unique objectives. At least in this update, there’s no reward for getting a high score, so it’s there more for groups who want to replay One Shot Mode often rather than those just dabbling with it.

All in all, One Shot Mode looks like a good reason to dip back into Sunderfolk. Despite fairly successfully trying to emulate the feeling of playing a tabletop RPG, Sunderfolk’s campaign suffers from the way it breaks up the flow of play for a less-than-stellar story and the demand to invest a lot of time to get to its best missions. In One Shot Mode, neither of those concerns apply, letting the game’s inventive turn-based combat shine while players are free to choose at what pace they proceed through its missions. Despite my critiques of Sunderfolk, it’s a game I had a lot of fun playing, and One Shot Mode could be the second chance it deserves.

Sunderfolk is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.