From a secret office at university to help from Square Enix: BetaDwarf takes giant leap with new investment

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Yesterday, we reported on how Danish BetaDwarf has got a major investment from Square Enix. The investment will help promote and fund the release of the studio's current project Vaultbreakers - a top-down action RPG that can be played alone or with friends.

When the news was announced, we had a chat with BetaDwarf's CEO Steffen Kabbelgaard, who was naturally happy about the new collaboration. Not only in terms of the increased financial muscle, but also in terms of the knowledge Square Enix can contribute.

"It provides some opportunities in terms of having more money. But they also help with advice and ideas on how to work with console owners, break into the Japanese market, and things like that, which they specialise in," said Kabbelgaard.

Hide and seek at university

The investment from Square Enix is in many ways the culmination of a journey that began quite humbly. Of course, there's nothing abnormal about that. Yes, it's almost a cliché that IT companies and game developers begin in their parents' basement or the neighbourhood coffee shop. But BetaDwarf's first "office" is a bit special.

When the studio was set up back in 2010, the budding developers needed an office. When a few of them had just finished their university degrees, the solution was obvious.

"We found a classroom that wasn't really being used. We tried to move in there for a week to see if someone would come and throw us out. They didn't. After that, it happened a bit quickly that someone lost his flat and instead of finding a new one, he moved in there instead. Then a lot of us did it to save on rent. We ended up living there for 9-10 months," says Steffen Kabbelgaard, who co-founded the developer.

Their initial development phase was therefore a kind of involuntary stealth game, where it was all about not sticking out too much on the Aalborg University campus in Ballerup. When a lecturer eventually realised that a room was full of furniture and computers, they had to move out, but the idea of living in the workplace stuck. BetaDwarf moved to a shared house in Karlslunde before heading back to Copenhagen. Now in a real office, they released their debut game Forced - a top down action role-playing game that received many positive reviews and earned the studio an award.

The challenges of online gaming

The studio's current project Vaultbreakers is in many ways a return to its roots, as after a detour to the more strategy-based Minion Masters (which combined tower defence and card games), it has once again taken on an action RPG. However, this does not mean that the game has been easy to develop, explains Steffen Kabbelgaard.

"We've never made a competitive action game before, nor a big adventure game like this. There's probably 50 hours-plus of campaign, you can play co-op or solo - either on competitive servers where you can meet other players or on servers where you can't meet other players. The unique thing we want to bring is this feeling of playing on an intense WoW server where you can constantly meet other players who can either help you or attack you."

The more technical elements of an online game have been particularly difficult to get right, says the studio founder.

"There's a lot of online infrastructure when you do PvP games. It's much harder than when you do multiplayer co-op. It has to be even more solid, so it's taken a lot of time. At the same time, you have to spend time making anticheat systems and we have to set up servers in many places around the world as it has to be more responsive than Minion Masters."

No Web3, but plenty of feedback

With games like the successful MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, Square Enix has shown that it can make great online games, and if nothing else, failures like Babylon's Fall have given them useful knowledge on what NOT to do. The Japanese gaming giant will therefore be able to share a lot of useful experience with BetaDwarf, and as part of the investment, Hide Uehara from Square Enix Holdings has joined the company's board.

Uehara is also a board member of the Blockchain Game Alliance and as a former Director of Business Development at Square Enix, he has co-invested in Web3 companies utilising cryptocurrency and NFT. However, Steffen Kabbelgaard assures us that this is not something that we should fear will become a part of Vaultbreakers.

"No, it's not something that's coming to our games. It's just been in the interest of Sqaure Enix to keep an eye on that as well. But it's nothing to do with us."

Instead, Square Enix will contribute valuable knowledge, and according to Steffen Kabbelgaard, more than 20 people from their publishing team have already tried their hand at Vaultbreakers.

However, the most important feedback comes from the players themselves. Over the past week, BetaDwarf has organised a large playtest, which has provided important insights.

"We've had over 30,000 players in already and they've given us a lot of useful feedback, especially in relation to the difficulty level. A lot of people think it's a bit too hard to play solo. They miss a way to learn the game where you don't play competitively, which is actually very fitting, because that's coming in our next update."

aultbreakers does not yet have a launch window, but you can follow the game's development on its Steam page.