Balita
How Sunderfolk got rebuilt for PC ahead of its Epic Games Store launch
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Dave Tach
Sigaty and the developers at Secret Door have spent the last few months building Sunderfolk 2.0. It brings over everything from the game’s launch last year, plus an entirely new way to play that's designed to feel like experiencing a tabletop RPG (think Dungeons & Dragons) on a screen, with additional touches that make it perfect for PC players.
We spoke to Sigaty about building a new studio, creating Sunderfolk, and then making Sunderfolk 2.0 by creating a game on top of a game.
From Blizzard to Dreamhaven
Chris Sigaty thought he was signing up for a summer job. Instead, he found a career.
In April of 1996, Sigaty joined Blizzard Entertainment as a tester for Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. He was already a fan of the company, already a devotee of real-time strategy games, and he said he was stoked to discover that he was surrounded by “people that were totally nerds” and loved things like Dungeons & Dragons and Star Wars—the same kinds of things he loved growing up.
At Blizzard, his career expanded as the company did. At various times, Sigaty served as a producer, a project manager, and (by the time he left) executive producer and senior vice president. He looks back on his Blizzard years fondly.
“I was very fortunate to be in a place where the company was growing and continuing to see success after success,” Sigaty told the Epic Games Store. “My career there kept stepping up as a result of the needs of the company. Bigger things were happening, and they needed help doing those things.”
After more than two decades, it felt like it was time to try something new—and in fact, build something new.
“At the end of my journey there, several people had left,” he said. “That sort of climate that I had grown up with, that was changing. I learned maybe the most I’d learned at the end of that journey. And there were several folks that I really respected—were good friends as well—that were going off to start something new. And we talked about me being a part of that, and that's Dreamhaven.”
Sigaty is a co-founder of Dreamhaven. So is Mike Morhaime, a co-founder and former CEO of Blizzard. When Morhaime announced Dreamhaven’s formation in September 2020, he also announced two development studios: Moonshot and Secret Door. Morhaime said that all were united around “a common goal to empower creators, help bring their ideas to life, and create original gaming experiences that foster meaningful connections between players.”
Figuring out exactly how to do that was a big part of Sigaty’s job.
TV D&D
After Sigaty took the reins at Secret Door, it was time to make a game. But what would that game be?
“It was the first time in my career where it was really, completely a blank slate,” he said. “‘What do you guys want to do? What do you think would be effective?’ And with bringing people together in positive ways as Dreamhaven's focus, we really started talking about, ‘Well, what is that for us? How do we find those moments in our own lives?’”
It was at that point in the interview that Sigaty looked behind him to what he called a “board game table,” a place where friends have gathered nearly every week dating back to his time at Blizzard.
“We really focused on this idea of togetherness as a studio,” he said. “That was driving what we wanted to create. From that, we had a number of different ideas and pitches that we were exploring.”
Those explorations coalesced around his tabletop group and the Jackbox series of games, cooperative experiences that people play using their smartphones as controllers. He was impressed by the inherent accessibility.
“So we focused on this idea of a phone and what we called ‘main screen,’ but that would be your TV, or it could be a computer monitor,” he said. “That's where Sunderfolk started. And gamers who play board games understand what we’re trying to do with it. They get it. They're immediately like, ‘Yes. I see what you're trying to do, and I’m playing with my kids in a way I haven’t before.’”
And that’s where Sunderfolk really began: at the intersection of Jackbox-like accessibility and Sigaty's lifelong love of RPGs.
Sunderfolk is the digital equivalent of buying a tabletop role-playing game and bringing it over to your friend’s house so that everyone can play together. Players choose between multiple classes of heroes, from magic users to ranged fighters to straight-up brawlers, and then their heroes journey together through story-based missions.
Solving problems
Sigaty hoped that what he called the “TV D&D interaction model” would solve some of the problems inherent to tabletop RPGs. With so much history and so much depth, getting started can be intimidating. Sunderfolk was created to break down the barriers to entry.
“The Sunderfolk team did an amazing job creating a game that has the accessibility we're looking for,” Sigaty said. “Some of these games, especially the more intricate (but also awesome) board games—they just take a lot of time to learn. They can be intimidating to get people into. And so we were trying to directly address that.”
Sunderfolk was designed to be welcoming, while sharing what the developers love about the medium.
“In the greater scheme of things, how could we transform the tabletop space and make it more accessible to as many people as possible, so they could see themselves doing it? That would be winning in the ultimate sense, from my perspective.”
Since its release in April 2025, Sigaty said he’s heard what he hoped to hear from players, who’ve gotten spouses and kids into a deep RPG.
But he also heard some other desires—particularly from the core RPG fans.
And that brings us to Sunderfolk 2.0.
Sunderfolk 2.0
Some players wanted more from Sunderfolk after its release—something akin to a traditional turn-based RPG. And Dreamhaven was listening.
“That was the biggest thing that people talked about: Why do I have to pull out a phone to play this game? And the real answer is time. We focused first on the in-person couch co-op experience, and that meant that we had head-scratching from PC players.”
Sunderfolk 2.0 is, in large part, the result of hearing and acting. In fact, that’s been a huge part of Sigaty’s career. He’s not just a developer. He’s a fan of the games and the genres that he works on, and he values player feedback.
“If you don't have a deep relationship with your players, how do you know if you're going in the right direction?” he asked.
Sunderfolk 2.0 is about adding things that are important to certain players. The original phone-centric concept remains, but you can now play Sunderfolk on PC with full mouse-and-keyboard controls—and without the smartphone requirement.
That’s been a “huge undertaking,” Sigaty said, in part because elements that were once offloaded to a smartphone screen now have to appear on the one-and-only screen.
Sunderfolk 2.0 also brings with it more traditional multiplayer, again without the phone requirement. Buy Sunderfolk in the Epic Games Store, and you can start an online multiplayer game lobby or join other multiplayer sessions.
A new hero, the Vanguard, joins Sunderfolk 2.0 as well.
“It's a melee class, a different form of tank,” Sigaty said. “I think the biggest replay factor for people is, ‘Oh, I want to try it again, but I want to do it this way, at a harder difficulty, with a different character, so adding that character is a big deal for us.”
Sunderfolk 2.0 also includes two new scenarios.
“We added two new scenarios that play through One-Shot mode,” he said. “One is our arena, which adds three very challenging missions that players can play together, that are connected. And then we have the Sacred Sand scenario, a set of four missions that tell a little story that we think is really fun.”
Listening to players
Sigaty’s desire to bring people together through games is clear the moment he begins talking.
“I literally get so much joy,” Sigaty said about playing tabletop RPGs. “It's my hobby. A D&D campaign or a nice rich board game with a lot of cool, chunky things that I get to explore and play through—it always feels so rewarding to me.
“How can other people get access to that? People self-select out. They go, ‘Yeah, that’s just not for me.’ I’ve watched this with my brother. My wife is not into them in the same way I am. What if we could help with that and make it a little better?”
Check out Sunderfolk 2.0 in the Epic Games Store.