Gato Studio co-founder on The Waylanders expectations from Kickstarter to launch day
Celtic myth mixed with a fun RPG experience.
The Waylanders from indie developer Gato Studio had an interesting development journey from conception to its initial Kickstarter campaign in 2018 to its eventual launch on February 2, 2022.
In one of our more recent interviews, our very own TJ Denzer sat down to talk with Gato Studio co-founder Fernando Prieto about the development of The Waylanders.
“It’s been a long road,” Prieto remarks in regards to the journey leading to the game’s 1.0 launch. “The origin of this game, we were a smaller company at that moment in 2016, [there] were 8 people in the company. And then we realized to be sustainable in the market, to survive in the market, we had to grow.”
To meet the goal of a small company that’s looking to grow and expand, Gato Studio encountered a challenge in the form of hiring local talent to work on the game.
Prieto notes again that it was a long road. When they began working on The Waylanders, most of the new hires were junior developers so they learned the profession and learned how to develop video games through this process.
It’s enlightening to hear about game development from this angle, and it’s heartwarming to hear that many of the game’s developers got their start in the industry with The Waylanders.
For those unfamiliar with the game, The Waylanders is a party-based RPG with a focus on Celtic mythology. After being asked why the studio went with this Celtic theme, Prieto responds by saying, “Because we live in the northwest of Spain in a region called Galicia and we have Celtic origin, so that’s the reason.”
Prieto goes on to explain that, looking back to 2016, there were a lot of medieval and Nordic-themed games on the market but there weren’t many Celtic games.
To lay a foundation for what would become The Waylanders, the team at Gato Studio referenced a book called Lebor Gabála Érenn or The Book of Invasions which contains poems and prose in Irish that details the history of Ireland.
“In that book is told the story of the Celtic people from our region, from the northwest of Spain, that invaded Ireland like six centuries before Christ. So, we thought we could use that to build an epic story,” Prieto explained.
“We wanted to use all that lore and all that myths and legends to build something fresh and new that not many people knew.”
They certainly accomplished this, and more in The Waylanders, and as a whole the interview really highlights the difficult climb towards completion the team experienced, along with how far the final version of the game has come.
For more on The Waylanders from its concept to its Kickstarter, development, and beyond, be sure to check out the full interview with Gato Studio co-founder Fernando Prieto over on GamerHubTV.
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