Behind the scenes: Bringing The Dragon Prince: Xadia to mobile

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The Dragon Prince is an award-winning series on Netflix with five seasons already under its belt. Multimedia studio Wonderstorm released The Dragon Prince: Xadia on mobile devices on July 30th, 2024, with the game being playable on Netflix Games.

The game was initially developed for PC, with that version still currently in development, but WonderStorm partnered with Blind Squirrel Games in 2022 to help bring the game to mobile. 

With the game now out, we spoke with Wonderstorm’s president, Justin Santistevan, Blind Squirrel Games senior producer Kitty Mach and its marketing and communications manager, Kathrine Clare, to discuss how they brought this game to life on mobile.

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PocketGamer.biz:  First, can you tell us when you first got involved with the development of The Dragon Prince: Xadia? How long was the title in development?

Justin Santistevan: The video game has been an integral part of developing the Dragon Prince world from its earliest days. For example, an engineer influenced the rules for primal magic and dark magic while Season 1 was being written.

Through Netflix’s initial season orders, the animated series got a head start while we built our game development team and started prototyping. After some initial prototyping in Unity with a small team, we migrated to Unreal about four years ago and grew the team to work on this version of the game.

Because we initially developed on PC, when it came time to start migrating to mobile after partnering with Netflix Games, we teamed up with Blind Squirrel Games to augment our team and get those additional platforms up and running. They are a very experienced team that brought tremendous knowledge, particularly of Unreal Engine, to the project.

Katherine Clare: We first started talking with Wonderstorm about the game in March 2022 and officially joined the project in April 2023.

And how big was the team working on the game? 

Justin Santistevan: Over the course of the game’s development cycle, Wonderstorm’s internal dev team grew to about 60, although dozens more contributed, including some amazingly talented outsourced artists.

Katherine Clare: At our peak, we had ten people working on the game’s mobile version.

What is it like working on a game in partnership with Netflix? Does the team work closely with the platform, or do you have more free reign to shape the game as desired?

Justin Santistevan: Netflix has been a large proponent of The Dragon Prince franchise from its earliest days, first with the order for the animated series and then later as the game’s publisher.

In both cases, the various teams at Netflix are there primarily to support and facilitate our creative vision. They provide feedback and insights based on their other titles, but at the end of the day, they aim to enable our team’s vision.

It was our vision from the beginning to create a game and series, and we built Wonderstorm to put equal weight on both. The TV series and the game for The Dragon Prince were built from the ground up together, and this has empowered them to be equally important pillars of the world and provide authentic ways to experience its characters and setting.

Through the transmedia partnership with Netflix, subscribers can experience both the series and the game all on the same platform.

What can you tell us about working with an IP that is both a show and a game? How do you maintain consistency throughout and ensure that fans relate to both?

Justin Santistevan: Our combined team at Wonderstorm works across multiple mediums to build the story and game as equally core, canon, authentic ways to engage with the world of The Dragon Prince.

While we have been creating and launching the first six seasons of The Dragon Prince animated series, our team has been working behind the scenes to bring this video game to life. As the creators and owners of the IP, we hold the lore and characters dear to our hearts and strive to make each new installment worthy of fans’ time.

We also have many people who spread their time across both the game and series, which we think is a unique and critical component of developing great transmedia.

For example, one of our Emmy-winning writers on the series also serves as the game’s lead creative designer and used to be a champion designer on League of Legends.

Justin Richmond, a co-founder at Wondestorm and co-creator of the IP, along with Aaron Ehasz, is the game director. So, developing the game has become an organic part of growing the overall world, from the heroes – who are all voiced by their original cast – to the regions, the writing and humour, and all of the Easter eggs and lore tie-ins noticed by observant fans.

Kitty Mach: Ensuring we stayed true to the material was easy for our team because we had the luxury of working with Wonderstorm. From our standpoint, it couldn’t possibly be more faithful to the show!

For us, working on a beloved IP is always fascinating because we get to contribute as subject matter experts from a development perspective and appreciate the IP in a whole new way as fans.

We had several fans of the show working on the project long before we even knew we would get the opportunity to contribute. On top of that, the team at Wonderstorm was a pleasure to work with and very easy to communicate and collaborate with.

What were some of the biggest challenges in development? How did the teams involved overcome them?

Justin Santistevan: One of the biggest challenges was getting a game of this size and scope to look and feel good on mobile devices.

We wanted to remain true to the style of the series, which uses a hybrid pipeline of 3D models with cel-shading and toonlines alongside painted 2D backgrounds. From the animations to the ability kits, we wanted the heroes to feel like their counterparts in the series. But while everything in the series is pre-rendered on high-end computing farms, you have to do much more in real-time when you give players control of the action.

Unreal Engine is an extremely powerful tool, but finding the right solutions for mobile requires lots of experimentation and optimisation to achieve the desired look, and that optimisation work still continues post-launch.

Kitty Mach: This game was originally designed for PC players. We had to tackle some interesting challenges getting it to run and feel good on mobile devices, from getting the UI/UX to feel native for mobile to getting the content down to fit optimally on mobile devices.

Our team put together many ideas to resolve some of these technical issues so we could provide a good mobile experience. When working on a mobile game, RAM and storage are perennial challenges. We had to break the game apart so that most of the game content could be downloaded when the game started for the first time because Apple and Google don’t allow very large application packages on their app stores.

We had some talented, experienced developers from our team, and Wonderstorm collaborated closely to optimise the game within mobile limitations.

Is there a part of the game you are most proud of?

Justin Santistevan: I love that the game feels like an integral part of the Dragon Prince franchise and true to the IP.

When playing through the game’s story missions and meeting brand-new NPCs, it’s not a retread of what you’ve seen in the show, and yet it feels like a true Dragon Prince experience.

Everyone on this project, including partners like Blind Squirrel, who brought in a prior affinity for the IP, worked hard to make that happen. I’m thrilled when I hear new players say something like, “Rayla fights, and it sounds like Rayla would!”

I also love the freedom of toy boxes like this, where Viren and Callum and Runaan can go on a quest together despite their obvious conflicts in the animated series. My kids are playing and telling their own stories in the game, and it’s delightful to watch.

Kitty Mach: As fans of the series, there are a few things we were proud to be a part of. One of our favourite parts of TDP: Xadia is the art. Many games based on movies or shows recreate original art.

On this project, the characters and creatures used as a starting point the same base models as the show! That was very exciting and delightful for us to work with. Our team helped a lot with the mobile architecture, and as big fans of the show, we’re proud to have helped provide a foundation for the artists and developers of TDP: Xadia to work on.

How has the launch gone so far? 

Justin Santistevan: We’re so excited that everyone, including existing Dragon Prince fans and newcomers alike, can finally play the game!

But launch is not the end when you have a live, online game. We are incredibly grateful for our amazing Discord community that shares feedback with us, including the good, the bad, and the buggy.

Our next update includes dozens of fixes and balance changes that wouldn’t have been possible without input from these engaged players.

You mentioned the launch was just the start. Is there anything you can tell us about updates and any additional support the game will receive? 

Justin Santistthat: We’re working hard on the next set of end-game content, which includes dungeons and new bosses. Our designers want dungeons to test players’ knowledge of game mechanics, mastery of their hero, their build/gear, and how they work as a team.

Some of these encounters are still too difficult even for our development team, so we’ve got some tuning and polish work left. But they’re coming very soon! Of course, we’ll also keep squashing bugs and responding to player feedback, and there are some stunning hero skins and pets in the pipeline that we can’t wait to share.

Finally, is there anything else we should know about the game or about what you’re working on next?

Justin Santistevan: There’s never been a better time to be a Dragon Prince fan. In addition to new game updates, the fourth original graphic novel (“Dreamer’s Nightmare”) releases this fall, and hot on the heels of season 6 of the animated series, the finale season of Mystery of Aaravos arrives on December 19th.

Longer-term, the creators have started laying the groundwork for the third arc of the story.  Still, The Dragon Prince is just our first IP, and Wonderstorm plans to bring our transmedia approach to new projects as well.

Katherine Clare: BSG has quite a few games in progress. We’ve announced our involvement on projects such as State of Decay 3, New World: Aeternum, and Delta Force, but have multiple unannounced projects, encompassing ports and remasters to full development work.

We are always looking to partner on interesting opportunities, whether it’s creating games around a beloved IP such as The Dragon Prince or on exciting brand new concepts.