Brandon Sanderson Says Moonbreaker Collab Isn’t Like George R. R. Martin and Elden Ring
Just ask Game of Thrones author George RR Martin, who famously partnered with FromSoftware on Elden Ring. But writer Brandon Sanderson is doing something a little different than Martin and Fromm when it comes to partnering with the unknown in the upcoming Moonbreaker.
In an interview with IGN, we asked Sanderson, creator of the Mistborn and the Cosmere fictional universe, how he got involved with the creators of Subnautica on the digital miniatures game.
According to Sanderson, Uncharted Worlds will help build an “optimistic” science-fantasy world for the game, which he prototyped entirely mechanically using placeholder art from the studio’s past games. I approached him with an offer. Sanderson he came back with two pitches. Both had already been independently developed on their own, but the existing he thought they were not suitable for the world of Cosmere. Unknown Worlds chose his Moonbreaker, the more ambitious of the two pitches, and a new partnership was born.
From there, Sanderson and Unknown Worlds stayed in touch every week to grow the world of Moonbreaker together, forming a true “hand in hand” partnership. Alongside gameplay development, Sanderson created things like world lore and an initial cast of his ten captains, with the two halves influencing each other. This constant contact is a little different from the previous fantasy writer-game studio pairing.
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“I wonder what George read about [R.R. Martin] We did it with Elden Ring, and it was like he sent something into the void and the game finally came back,” jokes Sanderson. “Here it wasn’t. It was a weekly exchange, about Charlie. [Cleveland] What was changing in the game was changing what I was building, the story, and the needs of the game. ”
“This was my mantra,” says Sanderson. “As a gamer and a lover of stories, I told Charlie from the beginning that gameplay beats story. I have to.”
“No writer would say that,” jokes Moonbreaker game director Charlie Cleveland of Unknown Worlds.
Sanderson believes story is still very important, but said, “A game with a terrible story but great gameplay is still a great game,” adding, “A great story but a miserable game.” A game with play would be a terrible game.” .”
This partnership does more than just set the stage for Moonbreaker’s launch. According to Cleveland, “We have a long-form story. So we want a lot of characters, a lot of throughlines, a lot of overlap between them.”
Cleveland and Sanderson likened the narrative structure of Moonbreaker to The Canterbury Tales, a giant book of intersecting narratives and perspectives seen from the perspective of 30 pilgrims. In this case, it’s his Moonbreaker captain, with individual stories told through audio play his podcast his episodes before the larger plot is introduced. Sanderson says it could take a year for them to start hinting at that big arc, but he says he’s already planning an ending further down the road.
Given the collaboration, Moonbreaker is certainly poised to be an ambitious game. For more on Unknown Worlds’ turn-based digital miniatures game, check out his hands-on preview from Gamescom and our full interview with Sanderson and Cleveland coming out later this week.
