PAX East Plays Sunderfolk: The Awesome New Couch Co-op RPG

Sunderfolk is the brand-new couch co-op RPG from Dreamhaven and was exhibited in the Albatross Theatre at PAX East 2025. Released on 23rd April 2025, the game is performing with solid brilliance, scoring 83% on Metacritic and 9/10 on Steam, so it’s no wonder it earned a spot to run a showcase game with professional nerds at PAX East this year.

The panel opens with Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade and Acq Inc turning up fashionably late, and already there is a casual air of fun about the proceedings that mimics the bright friendliness of Sunderfolk as a whole. The other panelists then introduce themselves: Anna Prosser of Missclick, Dice Camera Action, and Acq Inc., Ify Nwadiwe of Um, Actually, and Kris Straub of Acq Inc., LOCAL58TV, and Broodhollow, and the game begins.

How Sunderfolk Feels

The first thing that becomes apparent is that this game is smooth. The controls are easy to pick up, the deck system is easy to understand, and it becomes apparent early on that there is an emphasis on teamwork. The mission that our intrepid explorers played, Lost in the Swamp, had our heroes meeting a small blue anthropomorphized button mushroom that was quickly renamed Satan by the players. It was nice to see that this sort of tomfoolery was heavily encouraged. The Dreamhaven host, Kim, was quick to confirm that Sunderfolk is about letting its players have fun. This sentiment was backed up in the way the game responded to the player’s needs.

One of the cool elements of Sunderfolk, which was picked up on by several panelists, was the way the game doesn’t set out to nerf the players. Anna, playing the Berserker polar bear, wished to move to pick up treasure during a crucial turn but didn’t want to waste the turn she should use decimating enemies to save Satan and preserve the nine circles of myseliac Hell. The game did not penalise her for this split decision, allowing her to move up and grab the loot and still sautee the fungi enemies in one swift strike.

Sunderfolk also offers large rewards for parties that like to take advantage of that co-op aspect. Any buffs that are given to allies are very clearly felt when their turn comes around. Several times during the showcase, Ify was able to give Haste to his teammates, and they were able to pull off more complex moves within shorter time scales. This encouragement and focus on playing together really lends a sense of positivity to this experience and helps to build up that sense of community between players. Once all the panelists had gotten used to the game, watching them communicate and work with each other to maximise their spatial advantages was a delight.

Agents of Chaos

Sunderfolk is also a game that rewards unconventional thinking, as in the case of Ify, who chose to use his character’s special fire-generating ability to create walls to keep enemies away from his allies. As the game progressed, Ify was able to use those walls to boost his own attacks and to place himself by the enemy that would fall to those attacks, making his turns incredibly efficient. Later in the game, Kris was able to fire arrows through multiple enemies to maximise the effectiveness of his ranged abilities.

The game does a brilliant job of supporting the player in whatever they choose to do, thriving on that wonderful element of chaos. Dreamhaven has really taken the DnD Dungeon Master principle of ‘say yes to everything’ and tried to make that as accessible as possible. To put it bluntly, this game really is fun, and it damn well knows it.

To amp up that element of entertainment, right when Sunderfolk felt like it could be getting predictable, the game threw its players a curveball and completely randomized their locations, switching them all around so that they had to reassess their situations and completely adjust their strategies. This is an awesome mechanic because it means different players will get to work together, and the different strengths of the Sunderfolk characters will get to shine as the missions progress.

You have to applaud the devs for the attention they have obviously paid to their target audiences to make this game. Sunderfolk takes every last boon it can possibly make for itself and amps it up to 11 in the most accessible way possible for its players.

A Game for The People

Kudos where kudos is due, it really feels like Dreamhaven have engineered Sunderfolk to be a really nice, playable, and co-operative centric experience. As the panel got to grips with their characters and the controls of the game, they all started to enjoy themselves more, and that was evident in the comments they were dropping, in the tone of their voices, and in the more complex plays they were starting to make.

It is also incredibly telling that the panel overran, and the live feed was cut short to accommodate the next scheduled event. None of the panelists wanted to stop playing at all, and quite probably, going forward, a lot more people are going to have the same problem if they choose to pick up Sunderfolk.