Campfire Cabal and THQ Nordic have announced Expeditions: Samurai, a historical role-playing game set in Japan during the year 1600, a period marked by warring factions, shifting alliances, and the contest to become Shogun. The game continues a series built around branching narratives, with a story that adapts according to the choices players make along the way. The developer behind the project is Campfire Cabal, a Copenhagen studio established in 2022. Its team includes people who previously worked on Expeditions: Conquistador, Expeditions: Viking, and Expeditions: Rome.
The premise reworks a piece of real history. Rather than the navigator William Adams becoming Japan’s first European samurai, that role falls to the player. The story opens with the player’s arrival on the Dutch frigate “De Albatros” as the newly elected leader of a crew of privateers, who are pulled into the closing stages of a civil war. From there, decisions are framed as having consequences for both the crew and the wider course of events in Japan.
Companions form a central part of the experience. The game features eight crewmates, each with a personal storyline that only opens up once the player earns their trust. Depending on how those relationships develop, they can turn into friendships, rivalries, or romances.
On the combat side, Expeditions: Samurai keeps the turn-based structure of the series while aiming for a quicker pace. Encounters combine simultaneous actions, stealth, gadgets, ambushes, and a mix of pirate and Japanese weaponry. The title also introduces drop-in and drop-out cooperative play, a first for the franchise, allowing the campaign to be tackled with another player rather than solo.
