This article was originally published on July 25, 2025 - read the full issue here

By Marie Dealessandri

In the 15 years since its inception, Failbetter has only ever made games in the Fallen London universe. The continued success of the 2009 interactive narrative title has fuelled 2014's Sunless Sea, 2019's Sunless Skies and 2023's Mask Of The Rose.

But the studio is now stepping out of Fallen London's shadow, revealing Mandrake last month as part of the PC Gaming Show. Inspired by British folklore, the rural life sim is rooted in the storytelling strengths that Failbetter is known for, all while representing a meaningful leap of faith.

"We've been in the Fallen London cavern for 15 years and we were excited to dream up something else," Hannah Flynn, communications director at Failbetter, says.

"Incrementalism is really the watchword and the lesson from our development as a studio, over 15 years. We still run Fallen London, but we were really feeling ready to add another string to our bow. Fallen London is in large part about intimate stories, and then Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies are more about a world. We wanted to be able to tell stories about community and interpersonal relationships."

She adds: "Fallen London is huge; 4.5 million words. We can tell the whole world of stories in this setting. And we're looking into ways of expanding that, like the tabletop game, but also feeling liberated on a new idea is something we were really hungry for."

On achieving sustainability and freedom

Failbetter has been tinkering with Mandrake for five years and started development more seriously over the past year, on top of supporting its existing games. No small task for a team of 15 people (Failbetter has never had more than 19 staff).

"We've always leaned into our strengths and we're set up in what would look like, to another studio, an uneven way. We don't have a lot of programming resources but we have five writers. But that's what we do. Words are our business. So we have grown very carefully. We are very [mindful] about where that resource goes, doing the most precise work that we can, and not over-extending ourselves."

She mentions that Failbetter has in-house PR and QA, has always self-published, and doesn't rely on a lot of external partners. So "the whole ship is together".

"We're not really beholden to other people's dates, and that's a tremendous freedom. And a freedom that is paid for by Fallen London subscribers. That reliable, predictable income enabled us to, at a small size, make all the kinds of mistakes that we needed to make to stay sustainable for this long."

Overcoming cognitive fatigue

Failbetter's writers are, for the most part, historians as well. Mandrake's narrative director Chris Gardiner has a degree in Welsh history.

"There is a sort of cognitive fatigue, or a deadening effect," Flynn says as we chat about sources of inspirations seemingly all coming from similar sources across games, setting Failbetter apart. "Things [can be] too recognisably gamey. They wash over you. [In Mandrake], we have a whole system of powers and beings that are taken from very specific historical and folkloric sources. That means that they seem really fresh.

"Our approach to Victorian alternative history [in Fallen London titles] was really specific, deep and weird. And it sticks in people's brains because they have to think about it. So what we're doing with Mandrake is similar. Memorable, meaningful, granular stuff is our strength."

"Demo culture is back"

Mandrake will go through Steam Early Access (like Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies before it) and Playtest, with Flynn saying the team is really focused on polishing its demo.

"Demos have become more important," she says. "It's that point again about doing things incrementally. We can do playtesting on what will become a demo, and make the demo really good because people are happy to pick something up for free and give feedback on it. And then maybe they'll remember and come back.

"That's obviously the point of a demo. It's not just about Steam Next Fest. But it's an access point for so many digital events, [such as] LudoNarraCon. It's very much filling a gap and it's a much larger concern than it would be to go and do a bunch of physical events. You can reach a lot more people digitally than you could in a show one weekend. And you get a different kind of feedback when you are not standing next to those people. You get the reach. I just feel like demo culture is back."

Uncool tips

Before we part ways, we ask Flynn for words of advice for other studios and she mentions with a laugh that things that Failbetter has done that have "meant the most" have been "really uncool". At the top of that list is collecting players' email addresses.

"It sounds really stupid, but people overlook email as a marketing tool," she says. "Own your platforms and your means of communication as much as possible, and then have a point of view and a reason to say things to people."

This article was originally published on July 25, 2025 - read the full issue here