"Designing a game as complex as an RPG with a strong narrative that works in co-op is very difficult" - Expeditions Samurai Creative Director Jonas Waever on the Japanese setting, early access, and more

RPG Site: Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do on Expeditions Samurai?

Jonas Waever: As the creative director and studio head of Campfire Cabal, and as the originator of the Expeditions series, I am primarily the lead designer of the game. I define the creative vision, design specific features and content in collaboration with our game designer, and because we’re a very small team working on a very large game, I’ve also helped our narrative designer out with a lot of the writing.

RPG Site: Can you go into a bit of detail on the timeline of events that happened with Campire Cabal, Logic Artists, Embracer shutting down things, THQ acquiring the IP, and where things are right now? Many people are confused about who is working on this and what happened after the "closure". 

Jonas Waever: Sure! Pardon me as I get a few quick PTSD flashbacks out of the way… *laughs*

I used to be co-owner of Logic Artists, which was an independent game studio in Copenhagen that I helped found in 2012. In 2018, we sold our Expeditions IP to THQ Nordic as part of a publishing agreement that would see THQ fully funding the development of Expeditions: Rome.

Around 2020, my partners in Logic Artists got tired of the grind of making niche indie games and decided to take the company in a different direction, exploring games as a service and blockchain technology. I couldn’t see myself in that project, so I decided to leave the studio’s ownership, but stayed on the team to finish Expeditions: Rome. Rome was released in 2022, at which point THQ Nordic approached me and offered me an opportunity to start a new studio in Copenhagen to continue working on the Expeditions series.

Throughout 2022, I built my new team, joined by some of my colleagues from Logic Artists but also by veterans from other Danish game studios that were looking for new opportunities. In June of 2023 we had a really lovely so-called vertical slice ready of Expeditions: Samurai when unfortunately Embracer experienced a little trouble and it was decided to close down Campfire Cabal as we were a fairly small investment to write off.

After many attempts to find a new owner for the company, we were unfortunately forced to let most of the team go, but our friends at THQ Nordic found a way to keep a small core team around to continue working on the game in a sort of extended pre-production for a year and a half. At last, in 2025, we were able to reform the team and invite our former colleagues back to begin full-scale production. Not everyone was able to rejoin, but many were, and we have added some great new colleagues to replace those who had found greener pastures elsewhere.

RPG Site: Is the entire core team that worked on Expeditions Rome on Samurai?

Jonas Waever: No, far from everyone is still around, but some of the most crucial positions are still filled by people who worked on Rome, such as myself, our game designer, and our technical director.

RPG Site: During the presentation I attended, you mentioned player requests for the Japanese setting. When did you start planning the setting for Expeditions Samurai?

Jonas Waever: We’re always idly thinking about where and when we might set the next Expeditions game, even as we’re still working on the current one, so we started considering our options during the development of Rome. However, the decision was made in 2022 before we had even started Campfire Cabal. The setting of feudal Japan is so overwhelmingly the most commonly requested among the fans that it was a bit of a no-brainer.

RPG Site: We've had quite a few games set in this period over the years. Did you worry about that when deciding on the Sengoku Period? 

Jonas Waever: On the contrary. Sengoku Japan is such a rich and exciting setting that it could easily support ten times the games that have been set there, in my view. The setting is far from overdone, and we’ve had a lot of fun digging into the history of the period and drawing out exciting plot points and characters to incorporate into our story.

RPG Site: What challenges did you run into with the full campaign co-op mode?

Jonas Waever: The challenges are innumerable! Designing a game as complex as an RPG with a strong narrative that works in co-op is very difficult, which perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise. One of our greatest challenges is how to ensure that everything happens correctly if players split up and start doing very different things, such as one player starting dialogue with a character while another player sneaks around and ends up in combat. It’s been quite a tricky balance to strike, to give players plenty of freedom without compromising the integrity of the story.

RPG Site: Will each player keep their progress or will it only save for the host?

Jonas Waever: When playing Expeditions: Samurai in co-op, the host player essentially owns the playthrough, and the save game belongs to them as well.

RPG Site: I'm very happy to see controller support prioritized here. Can players seamlessly swap between mouse and a controller?

Jonas Waever: You certainly can, and I recommend you don’t leave your wireless mouse turned on on the couch while you play, because it’s very annoying when all the UI glyphs change to mouse/keyboard for a second because you shift your weight slightly and move the mouse.

RPG Site: What sort of work are you doing for PC handhelds like the Steam Deck?

Jonas Waever: The main thing of course is to ensure that the game runs well on the sort of hardware specs you find in a handheld device. Since the game was already designed from the ground up with controllers in mind, it already plays perfectly well on handheld platforms.

RPG Site: Are there any plans to bring Expeditions Samurai to consoles like the Switch 2 with mouse controls?

Jonas Waever: As I’ve mentioned, we will focus on our PC release first and foremost, and then we’ll see what our options are for bringing the game out on other platforms.

RPG Site: You showcased the roadmap and said Expeditions Samurai will mostly be feature-complete in its early access launch. That is quite a milestone for early access. What sort of challenges did you run into on that front leading into launch in a few months? 

Jonas Waever: All the groundwork for this was laid during the development of our vertical slice in 2022 and 2023, where we started with the foundation of Expeditions: Rome, updated it to Unreal 5, and upgraded it with a full stealth system and co-op. Since all the core game systems and the updated art direction were already complete by the time we scaled the team back up last year, our effort since has been spent writing the quests and adding all the extra features and content that make up an RPG.

The main challenge has been to head straight into full production even as we were still rebuilding the team. We had no time to settle into each other’s rhythms and gently onboard new arrivals, as we needed to get off to a running start. Fortunately everyone on our team is very experienced and the creative vision has always been well defined, so we’re on course for a great Early Access release.

RPG Site: For potential paid DLC, should we expect Death or Glory-style DLC or would you want to do larger scale expansions?

Jonas Waever: We aren’t ready to think about DLC just yet. We’ll see how the game is received, and whether there’s interest among the fans in some expansions or whether it would be more popular to move straight on to the next game.

RPG Site: Will Expeditions Samurai also be available on GOG in addition to Steam from its early access launch? 

Jonas Waever: I’m not certain the game will be available on GOG at the Early Access stage, but once we hit the final release, we will definitely be on GOG as well.

RPG Site: How do you like your coffee? go into as much detail as possible.

Jonas Waever: Personally I have a little semi-automatic espresso maker at home with a steam wand and everything. The ritual of grinding and brewing a double espresso, steaming the milk just so for a cappuccino, and making a little heart or flower of latte art to top it off before squirting in some vanilla syrup and ruining the latte art by stirring it is my twice-a-day moment of zen when I work from home.

Our much more expensive and automatic espresso machine at work mostly spews out Americanos, and about half the team uses oat milk judging from how often I have to replenish the oat milk relative to the cow milk (me, I’m all about the 3.5% organic whole milk). 

And then we have a few absolute irredeemables who prefer decaf instant coffee, but who am I to judge when I have my coffee with so much vanilla syrup it might be more accurately categorized as dessert?