bonfire studioan independent video game developer founded in 2016 by Rob Pardo and other gaming veterans, has finally come out of stealth mode and announced their debut project. Archelon.
Founded by industry veterans responsible for iconic series such as Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo, Overwatch, StarCraft, and World of Warcraft, the Bonfire team leverages the expertise and design principles honed in these titles to innovate. We are creating a new player vs player (PvP) game. Rob Pardo, CEO of Irvine, California-based Bonfire Studios, said in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat.
A private playtest for Arkheron is already underway and we plan to expand with a gradual invitation launch in the coming months. Players who enjoy fast-paced player-versus-player (PvP) combat should sign up now for a chance to be among the first to play Arkheron and help shape its later stages of development.
I asked Pardo if the team had spent eight years making the game so far, and he said it took about a year and a half to build the studio and prototype to find the fun. Ta. Actual work on Archeron itself began in 2018, but even back then there was a lot of ongoing gameplay testing to get it working correctly. So this game took about 6 years to develop.
“We’ve been getting curveballs thrown at us,” Pardo said. “We never expected to be in the middle of development when a global pandemic hit.”
As an example of a curveball, the team had to spend about nine months creating the backend architecture of the network to support the type of combat they wanted.
We don’t yet know what that means, as Bonfire is slowly revealing the game.
The company has been playing and iterating on Arkheron behind the scenes for years, starting private playtest sessions with a small community in 2024. Players will find familiar ideas and concepts in Arkheron, but it’s not about combining genres, it’s about creating. Something completely new. A dynamic, fast-paced PvP gameplay experience set in a dark and spooky world. Pardo said the game will be played from a top-down perspective, rather than a first- or third-person game.
The game lacks a deep story, making it no different from games like League of Legends or Overwatch. But it has its own world and its own lore that makes it a better PvP game. This game is also played as a live service game.
The team at Bonfire playtests games every day, and we believe this aspect of the development process helps us create fun and unique games that we think will resonate with players. It’s built on the Unity game engine, with modifications made by Bonfire itself.
“At the heart of our development philosophy is a simple truth,” says Pardo. “If we don’t like our game, our players won’t either. We believe the best games come from a genuine love of playing. That’s why we We have put years of passion into developing it, constantly iterating and refining it to deliver something truly unique and exciting.”
He added: “We’ve been playing this game every day as a team for years. I haven’t figured out exactly how to describe it yet, but we often say, ‘You have to play to get it. “I have to.” We hope to start sharing the fun we’re finding in Arkheron with the wider community soon, and hope our players love it as much as we do. ”
Bonfire’s design philosophy is centered around fun and challenging gameplay, imaginary worlds that inspire self-expression, a welcoming and long-lasting community, and experiences that become a meaningful part of players’ lives.
Players who sign up through the website can private playtestbut the easiest way is to find a friend who’s already playing — because Arkheron is best when played with friends, the company said. Access is currently limited to North America, but Bonfire plans to continue to expand playtesting to other regions throughout the year.
New funding completed
When the company was founded in 2018, Bonfire Studios raised $25 million from Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) and Riot Games. He noted that investors have supported him along the way.
Building on last week’s announcement of a partnership with Hybe IM to publish Arkheron in Korea and Japan, Bonfire has also secured new investment from A16z, Founders Fund, Altos Ventures, and more. This will help accelerate the rest of Arkheron’s development, which the team is gearing up to do. For global release.
Pardo said he believes the company has what it needs now to launch the game. However, he declined to disclose the total amount of the latest funding round.
As Bonfire continues to work at Arkheron, the studio is growing, with flexible roles being given to the engineering, art, audio, and publishing teams. Interested candidates can learn more and apply on the Bonfire website.
Game description?
Arkheron is set in a dark fantasy world with what the team likes to call a “haunting and beautiful” art style. However, he pointed out that it’s still different from the style of games like Souls or Diablo.
Regarding the art style and gameplay, Pardo says: “We haven’t found a good way to describe the game that accurately depicts it for investors, publishers, or potential players. That’s one of the reasons we’re doing private playtesting. ”
He said, “The only way to really know and understand the game is to play the game.”
However, it is a team-based multiplayer game with what Pardo calls an “innovative and different style of combat.” This isn’t a shooter or anything like any other genre, he said. And that’s one of the things you have to see to understand it.
“We have this great place where there are a lot of well-known concepts from other genres, but the core of the game is really unique, and the combat is really unique. It’s a lot of work for us to actually explain that well to people. It created a challenge because people always get the wrong impression. They get the wrong image of the game,” Pardo said.
When asked about gameplay, Pardo said it hasn’t been revealed yet. The team is only releasing high-level information, but said that knowing Pardo’s history, there will be the same kinds of design principles and philosophies that are well known.
“It’s very fast-paced, it’s not turn-based or anything. It has its own combat style. It’s not really shooters. It’s not point-and-click like Diablo,” he said. “If possible, we’d like to be able to play with a controller right from the start. So it’s very suitable for playing with a controller. We plan to release it on current-gen consoles as well as PC.”
Asked about the roadmap, Pardo said the company has been doing a lot of testing within its circle of friends and family. From now on, it will also happen to real players who have no connection to the company. That testing will likely begin within the next month or so.
“From that point on, we’re going to continue to really evolve the game based on what we learn from playtesting,” Pardo said.
make a game
Bonfire Studios has now grown to 70 people. Production began about a year ago, and the art department has grown to 40 people.
As far as the process goes, Pardo said the team worked to make sure everyone in the company, from engineers to businessmen to game designers, was comfortable with the game’s proposition. The team then had to add more structure to its approach, limiting game decks to perhaps five slides. With dozens of pitches made, the team had to decide which one to pursue.
Pardo said they started prototyping with seven different ideas and “grew the seeds into saplings.”
The team created a “mood board” and each worked on their ideas for several weeks. Then they decided which one to build.
“Honestly, I never thought it would take me more than five years to make a game, but the development style that I’ve always used, and that we use at Bonfire, has always been very iterative. “It’s an interesting model because it was, but it’s not a straight line,” he said. “There are happy coincidences and discoveries, right? If you go down the wrong path, you have to start in a different direction. It’s starting to gain momentum.”
In that sense, the game production process was very similar to what happened at Blizzard. He said that every time you play a game, you learn a lot, make mistakes and find wisdom moving forward. Blizzard will conduct a postmortem after the game ends. However, he noted that different challenges will appear in the creative process next time. Technology has changed and art styles may need to be rebooted as well.
“What I learned more than anything is to try to make sure you build confidence in the game as you go through it,” he said.
