Draugen rises: a word from the creative director

We first announced Draugen in 2013 — perhaps, in retrospect, a bit premature — with a highly optimistic release date of 2015.

This obviously didn’t pan out quite as expected.

It’s not like the game’s been on ice since then, however. We’ve tinkered with it continuously, and we’ve rebooted the project on several occasions. The current version of Draugen is the best version of Draugen, and I’m personally relieved that we never got around to finishing any of the previous versions. They wouldn’t have been nearly as good.

Draugen is only our second full game, but it will be Red Thread’s seventh or eighth release (depending on whether you count the PS4 and Xbox versions of Dreamfall Chapters as separate releases). We’ve shipped a game, or multiple very long episodes of a game, every year…until 2018. This year has been particularly rocky for us, and we had to say goodbye to some amazing team members, but it also gave us the push we needed to focus on Draugen and make what we hope will be a memorable, beautiful and emotionally satisfying story.

Despite the focus on Draugen, we’re not done with Dreamfall Chapters. Sixteen months after the release of The Final Cut, we’re still working on rewards for our Kickstarter backers, and we will continue to do so until we’ve delivered on everything we promised back in 2013.

The same goes for Draugen: this will be our first completely original title, and it’s a game that’s incredibly important to us for many reasons. We hope to build an active and supportive community around the game, and while we’ve chosen to not crowd-fund Draugen, we still plan on supporting the game and our players for years to come.

When you wish-list (please!) and buy (we hope!) Draugen, you’ll be joining a new community and become part of a new story and a new universe that is only just beginning.

I really hope you’ll join us for this exciting, new journey.

Ragnar Tørnquist
Writer and Creative Director
Red Thread Games