Thunderful Group's latest interim report is out now (which you can read here), and while it reveals the company had a bit of a weak first few months of 2022, things are looking up for it. Most notably, the future of one of its biggest IPs — the SteamWorld series — is looking very bright.
Last year, we found out about a brand new third-person co-op sequel to SteamWorld Dig — SteamWorld Headhunter — at the Thunderful Games showcase. We've got to wait until 2023 to get our hands on that, which is a little bit of a wait, but we'll be rewarded for our patience with three other SteamWorld games, all releasing in 2023 or 2024.
These three games don't currently have names or platforms confirmed yet, but they do have some very fun project names; "Strawberry", a puzzle game; "Coffee", a citybuilder; and "Caramel", a turn-based tactical shooter strategy game. They all sound delicious — and no, we're not just talking about the names, here.
The SteamWorld series has always dabbled in a number of different genres, from Metroidvania to deck-builder, and these upcoming entries look to branch the franchise out even more. We have a while to wait until we find out what these will bring, but we're never going to say no to more SteamWorld. The last entry in the series — SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech — came out in 2019, and we gave it a solid 8/10 in our review.
Are you excited for more SteamWorld? Let us know down below!
[source mb.cision.com, via ign.com]
Comments (27)
Steamworld is great. I’ll have to put these out of mind though so I don’t get all wound up about them. It’s a long wait. Sentence fragments.
Fingers crossed that "caramel" is a SteamWorld Heist sequel, or at least in the same vein. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed that game. "Strawberry" and "Coffee" both sound interesting too.
I still need to try SteamWorld Quest at some point despite the fact that it's on discount every few months.
Doesn’t Caramel ‘Turnbased Tacticsl Shooter Strategy Game’ sound like a Heist 2?
@Tyranexx just beat me to it about Caramel haha
I'm sure there'll be some complications and delays along the way for some of them so I have no expectations about seeing any of them for a while but I look forward to seeing what they are when they do eventually show up. All the games so far have been really good.
Come on SteamWorld Dig 3. The spinoffs are neat, but Dig 1 is a perfect game to burn through in one sitting and 2 is one of my favorite metroidvanias.
I own all the games Image & Form have released on Switch. They're one of those companies I'm surprised Nintendo haven't purchased and brought in-house. I feel I&F are Nintendo loyalists through and through.
Steamworld Heist was awesome, I'd love to see a sequel to it.
In addition to the 3D game they had already been talking about? Or is that one of these tasty-sounding games?
Heist is my favorite of the lot so I'd be happy with a sequel. A puzzle game could be great.
Caramel is the only one that sounds remotely interesting.
Still need to finish Heist but the swarms of enemies at the end of every level gets very meh. Dig was alright, but not good enough to persuade me to get the 2nd.
Since they are working on a 3D game, I hope the other two are Steamworld Dig 3 and Heist “
A SteamWorld citybuilder sounds right up my alley. Excited for that one a lot
@Magician As Image and Form, they were half-acquired by Bergsala, the distributor for Nintendo products in Scandinavian countries. Now as Thunderful, they own Bergsala and are continuing their deal with Nintendo. I think Thunderful's interests lie in being the one to make acquisitions now, but I hope their ties to Nintendo manifest in a game eventually (like that Ice Climber revival idea that they expressed interest in doing)
@SteamEngenius Dig 2 is much better than the first game, which didn't really hook me
Steamworld Heist is amazing and glorious
This dev team pretty much seems to do no wrong!! They are WONDERFUL!!!!
That's cool, but where's our enhanced port of Steamworld Tower Defense?
In all honesty, this is actually really cool. Depending on how closely Coffee sticks to the Simcity/Cites: Skylines model, it'll either be something I might get eventually, or something I'll be really excited for. I just want a bit more out of my city builder, and outside of Actraiser, its sequel, and Little King's Story, that's just not really a thing that I've ever seen exist outside of the city builder being relegated to a insignificant side mode, or the game being stuck in free to play/microtransaction hell. So please, Coffee, give me SOMETHING to do outside of just city building, and I'll buy it in a heartbeat. Otherwise, it's something that I'll probably eventually buy, but not anytime soon.
As for the others, while my interest in Strawberry depends on whether its a true puzzle game or an "action puzzle" (my personal term for Tetris, Puyo Puyo, and the like), but Caramel does at least seem like it'll be a lot of fun regardless of what direction it takes.
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Sounds like SteamWorld Heist 2 is in development, with a helping of lovely caramel, but I’d love to see a proper SteamWorld Dig 3, too. I’ve played through the first one multiple times, usually in a single sitting each time, and the second game was even better in pretty much every department. Bring on the inevitable third.
@MarioBrickLayer I couldn’t have said it better.
Would love to see a Heist sequel that is in 3D ala XCOM et al.
@Tyranexx I was very disappointed by Steamworld Quest. It misses on almost every area for me. It doesn't continue or expand to main plot of the franchise, it doesn't tell a compelling story within itself, the gameplay gets dry quickly, and it doesn't introduce enough new characters or mechanics. I loved Heist and the Dig games, btw.
This is so so exciting. Only game from them I haven't tried yet (it's waiting on my Steam backlog) is Quest, I've even played The Gunk and I think this team is one of a very small handful of studios in which I have high hopes without having even seen the games or knowing much about them. I had forgotten about Headhunter. There are just too many games coming out.
I'm especially intrigued by the puzzle game, as that's one of my favourite genres. What I would really love to see however would be a SteamWorld Dig 3.
I would love Dig 3. Just bought 2 on 3DS so playing through that again, reminded me how much I love those games!
Great news all around.
@Tristan_Misten I've heard mixed things about SteamWorld Quest: some really seem to like it, while others aren't big fans. Card battlers can be hit or miss for me, hence why I'm waiting for one of the sales to roll around before buying. I really like both SteamWorld Dig games and Heist, haven't played Tower Defense though.
Image and Form haven’t put a bad foot forward yet so I can’t wait for whatever these games end up being. Even their “worst” game in my eyes (The Gunk) was solid IMO.
A SteamWorld Quest 2 would be nice.
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