A lot goes into making a board game. From design to development, marketing and of course manufacture. In the past I wrote about the distribution pipeline (see our article: Supply Chain A-Z), and decided that it might be helpful to dig a little deeper into the actual process of manufacturing a board game.
There are plenty of great medieval RPGs out there right now, from fresh releases like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 to stalwarts such as Skyrim, and there are plenty more on the horizon as well. Adding to that list is Valorborn, which isn’t lacking in ambition, despite its tiny team of just three developers. With an old-school feel of games like Gothic and even a dash of Runescape, and embracing party-based gameplay, it’s certainly worth checking out.
Given its scope, and its general vibe, I half expected Valorborn to be a multiplayer, MMO-style affair at first. However, it’s aiming to deliver a lot of the depth and many of the features you’d expect from larger experiences into a single-player, open-world RPG. Its medieval fantasy world is home to everything you’d expect. It’s got several varied biomes, including an intriguing looking grayscale location or realm. You’ll face enemies such as reanimated skeleton soldiers, wolves, and trolls. You’ll encounter a swathe of NPCs. Every single building, castle, and cave can be entered and explored.
As you progress through Valorborn, you can take your custom character down one of two paths – assemble a party of companions to aid you in battle, or become a lone ranger taking everything on solo. Should you choose to bring other characters along for the ride, you’ll not only unravel your own story but theirs as well. I do love a good companion questline.
As all good RPGs should, you’ve got the freedom to level up in whichever disciplines and skills you feel fit. Become an all-rounder, or specialize in certain areas to become a super strong warrior, a master hunter, or a sneaky assassin.
Acquiring resources, building, and crafting are also core components of Valorborn. As well as renting houses in villages that you can then customize to your heart’s content, you can also construct bases out in the field when exploring. Weapons, armor, and tools can all be crafted from your home or a base. The resources you’ll need for all this can be looted, harvested, or hunted from the world around you.
I wouldn’t say there’s anything massively groundbreaking or surprising about Valorborn in comparison to other third-person RPGs out there already, but what is commendable is how a world this big and systems this deep are being made by Laps Games, a team of just three developers.
Valorborn is aiming to launch in early access in Q3 of 2025. If you want to learn more about it, or add it to your Steam wishlist, head to its store page here.
For experiences like Valorborn that you don’t have to wait for, head to our lists of the best fantasy games and best medieval games.
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The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells’ popular series of darkly comedic science-fiction books, are coming to Apple TV+ in the form of a new series starring Alexander Skarsgård and created/written/directed by Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz. As with any adaptation, however, some pretty big changes are being made, and after watching the series, I wanted to know why. So when I got the chance to ask the creators, I did just that.
For anyone who has read the first Murderbot novella, All Systems Red, you know that the book is both short and yet somehow packed full of wonderful story moments and character traits. The story of Murderbot, a hacked rogue security bot who just wants to be left alone to watch TV shows but ends up being a hero, should fit perfectly into the length for a TV series or film, leading to the idea that the Weitz brothers had the opposite challenge of most adaptations. Whereas most require changes by cutting down the storyline, Murderbot needed fleshing out. Of course, any of those changes went through Wells first, and it was important to respect the source material.
“I think everything that’s in the book is in the show basically,” explained Paul Weitz. “We early on got in touch with Martha Wells kind of as fans and, so there are things that are added to the story, sort of like filling in the cracks, but anytime that we had an idea like that, we would call up Martha and say, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re thinking of, what do you think?’ And she’d either say, ‘Oh, that’s a cool idea’ or ‘Well, maybe think about this instead. That was a huge, huge relief.
“I think that part of the thing for us was never feeling like we were like we were padding stuff,” he continued as he explained why they made the changes they did.
To be clear, the series follows the first book’s story as a whole and does an incredible job adapting the tone and themes of the first novella, but there are a few major key moments that are different. This includes a very sudden and violent moment that’s a major change from the story. The Weitzs said they made such a big, impactful change to help maintain the tone of the books.
“Well, one thing that Alexander was very conscious of, even more so in a way than we were, was that you don’t want things to thaw completely,” Chris Weitz said when discussing the change. “Possibly ever, but even to appear to thaw until the very end. So I think at the very point at which everybody’s thinking, ‘Oh, it might not want to look at us or give us a hug, but it’s part of the team.’ Murderbot does something which reminds everyone that it’s a being that has done violence and that that’s part of their experience and their DNA.”
It wasn’t just the storyline of Murderbot that needed to be tweaked, however. The directors felt they should dive deeper into the lives of the rest of the characters, with particular attention given to fleshing out Garathin, who is played by David Dastmalchian.
“Part of it, in a way, was looking at the characters in the book, which might not have much said about them, and being like, ‘OK, these people exist, so why are they behaving this way? Why are they doing this?’” explained Paul Weitz.
“Doing a lot of work on that,” Chris Weitz commented. “Like, Garathin has a backstory in this, but we checked with Martha whether that was cool, and we also checked with David (Dastmalchian) whether that was cool because it’s trading on a little of his personal, you know, his personal experience. Just playing with the characters with utter respect and belief that they actually exist. (The characters) act in worthy ways, but they have neuroses, they have idiosyncrasies, and that was part of the interest (making changes).”
Murderbot will premiere on Apple TV+ on May 16.