Snowcastle Games

Snowcastle Games is an independent video game developer and publisher founded in Oslo, Norway, in 2009. Its work focuses on character-driven adventures, role-playing games and distinctive art direction, with projects spanning turn-based combat, cooperative exploration, crafting and survival. The studio develops its own intellectual property and publishes games across PC and console platforms, following an early debut on mobile.

Its first commercial release, Hogworld: Gnart’s Adventure, arrived in 2011 as a family-friendly mobile adventure. The studio subsequently developed Earthlock: Festival of Magic, released in 2016 after a successful Kickstarter campaign and five years of production. Drawing inspiration from late-1990s turn-based Japanese role-playing games, it introduced the fantasy planet Umbra. A comprehensively overhauled edition, titled Earthlock, followed in 2018 across PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The game surpassed eight million lifetime downloads.

Snowcastle expanded that setting with Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure, released for PC in 2023 and consoles in 2024. Its cooperative approach combines island exploration, simulation and crafting, extending the Earthlock universe into a different style of play. The studio’s released work also includes the interactive narrative experience The Snowman.

Continuing the Umbra universe

As of November 2026, the studio’s development slate includes Earthlock 2 and Lysward. Earthlock 2 is an action RPG featuring open-desert traversal, customizable Desert Ships and ecosystem simulation. Lysward approaches Umbra through a single-player desert survival adventure, with open beta testing and playable Steam demos during 2025–2026.

The company’s capabilities cover the full development cycle, from concept art, worldbuilding and narrative design through systems programming and quality assurance. Alongside development, Snowcastle handles independent publishing, multiplatform distribution, community engagement and post-launch updates. Its production experience includes Unity and Unreal Engine 5. The studio combines a physical development team in Oslo with remote contributors elsewhere in Europe.