One of last year's best surprises was Mintrocket and Nexon's Dave the Diver, a deeply charming and funny adventure that oscillates between deep sea exploration and being a sushi chef. The game proved a hit with critics and players alike: It scored a whopping 91% in our review, with Chris Livingston saying "I'm routinely up playing until 2 am, even after 30 hours it's still throwing fun and creative new systems at me, and every time I play I'm delighted, surprised, and utterly charmed."
One of the main forces behind the game is creator and director Jaeho Hwang, who following the game's commercial success was made CEO of Mintrocket by Nexon (which also decided to spin-off the studio into an independent division). Hwang said Mintrocket’s new independence would allow it to focus more on game development—specifically the Dave the Diver IP—rather than pitching ideas and business plans to its parent.
"I want to expand Dave the Diver IP itself," Hwang told VGC at Gamescom Asia. "I think that’s every director’s dream, since we have a relatable character. But actually, we didn’t go really deep into the personal stories in Dave the Diver, because we wanted to keep the game very casual.
"So as a director, besides the story DLC that we’re working on right now, I also want to make separate games about each character to show how they met, what they did before coming to the Blue Hole."
Hwang jokes about a "Dave cinematic universe". See, one of the game's charms is the rich ensemble cast that assembles around Dave's business, providing the game's grab-bag of genres. Hwang reckons that, if they do start exploring the wider world around Dave, this means "the games’ genres can be different."
And it turns out that Dave the Diver itself is part of an extended universe anyway. "Cobra, one of our main characters, he’s from my previous project, Evil Factory," says Hwang. "He was an arms dealer who had his license revoked, and after that, he retired and enjoyed his life, and something happened, and he decided to come into the Blue Hole. So I really want to tell this kind of story in other games."
Hwang says even if Mintrocket expands into publishing or other projects, the size of the teams working on each thing will stay relatively small: "I think the 20 to 30 people team is the idea."
Dave the Diver recently received a Godzilla DLC, as well as tie-ins with other titles like Dredge and Balatro—even Geralt's turned up in it now. With that said the DLCs released thus far have tended towards minigames and one-offs, so the news of a story-focused DLC is more than welcome. And as for the spinoffs, Mintrocket should make a little game about finding cat food for Momo and Mochi, and then they can take all my money.
