Summary
Dave the Diverdeveloper MintRocket has revealed its next game, a PVP team-based arena battler calledWakerunners.The studio’s first project,released in mid-2023, is a whimsical pixel-based adventure game. Its appealing gameplay loop sucked players in, leadingDave the Diverto be an unexpected viral success, surprising even the developer.
That success, however, also led to an unforeseen controversy at the end of 2023. MintRocket, despite its indie vibe, is actually a subsidiary of Nexon, a large South Korean video game publisher with offices in multiple countries. Despite this,Dave the Diverwas nominated for Best Independent Game at The Game Awards 2023, which many people considered to be unfair for the “true” indie games that it was competing with. In the end, however, it didn’t matter as Sabotage Studio’sSea of Starsended up taking home the award.
MintRocket seems to have already moved on to two new projects, both of which greatly differ fromDive the Diver.A trailer for one of these games,Wakerunners, was recently released, showcasing some gameplay for the top-down team-based PVP arena battler. Set in adystopian sci-fi world,Wakerunnerslooks nothing like what fans ofDave the Divermight expect, and that’s because it’s being developed by a different internal team at MintRocket. However, players won’t have to go in blind because a demo forWakerunnerswill be made available during Steam Next Fest in early February.
MintRocket’s Waverunners Details
According to aPC Gamer interviewwithMintRocket, the demo will feature seven playable characters and five game modes. The number of players on each team will either be 4 or 5, depending on the game mode, and matches can be expected to last about 10 minutes. However, althoughWakerunnersis a team-based battler, director ChaeHyun Lim has stated that the game focuses less on cooperation and more on just having fun with each character. As such, players will be able to change characters on the fly, adjusting for their current opponent. And as expected, there will also be cosmetics that can be earned or purchased with a battle pass.
Developer MintRocket, which launched in 2022, seems to be trying its hand at a variety of genres. It’s second upcoming project is asurvival extraction game calledNakwon: Lost Paradise. Set during a zombie apocalypse, the 16-player third-person PvPvE experience will have gamers vying with other survivors for resources while also battling the living dead. Guns will be a rare find as players rely on stealth and melee weapons like boards and bricks to come out on top, with permadeath being the reward for failure.
