Hawthorn is an in-development co-op sandbox RPG and village-life sim from NEARstudios, a team that includes former Bethesda Game Studios developers. It casts players as woodland animals building a community in a fairytale valley. Doug Cockle, best known as the voice of Geralt in The Witcher games, promoted the project during its 2025 Kickstarter—but his announced character, Sir Quilliam, was conditional on the campaign reaching a specific stretch goal.
What is Hawthorn?
Hawthorn is a fantasy sandbox RPG about establishing a village in Windermere, an abandoned valley shared by woodland animals and fairy creatures. NEARstudios describes its world as drawing on Victorian-era European fairytales and the anthropomorphic animal adventures of the 1980s and 1990s. The studio calls it a “co-op sandbox RPG village sim.”
Players can set out alone or with friends, build a lakeside village, recruit and befriend NPCs, farm, craft, explore, and take part in seasonal traditions. The story is described as player-led, with seasonal challenges shaping life in the valley. These are the studio’s stated features; they do not establish how finished or extensive each system is in the current build. NEARstudios’ Hawthorn overview has the official description.
What did Doug Cockle announce?
During the Kickstarter campaign, Cockle encouraged support for the game and offered to join the village as Sir Quilliam, a “grimly cheerful Owl Knight,” if the campaign reached its $2 million voiced-main-story stretch goal. That was a conditional campaign-era offer, not confirmation that the goal was met or that the character is in the current game. Cockle’s campaign-era LinkedIn post is the source for the announcement.
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Who is making Hawthorn?
NEARstudios was founded by CEO and Creative Director Heather Cerlan and Game Director and Loremaster Jason Richardson. The studio says its team includes former Bethesda Game Studios developers, among them Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith, as well as people with experience at other studios and franchises. The former-Bethesda description applies to members of the team, not necessarily every founder or contributor. The studio introduced the project and its team in its official announcement.
How did the Kickstarter do?
NEARstudios’ 2025 Kickstarter campaign ran from May 6 to June 5 with a $200,000 goal. The campaign page reports $450,159 pledged by 5,397 backers. Those are campaign totals, not game sales figures or an accounting of the project’s current finances. The Hawthorn Kickstarter page also carries updates, including one dated August 31, 2026.
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- Hop on an adventure alone or with up to 3 other players, explore a mystical forest and try to defeat the evil lurking within!
- GAMEPLAY: In classic game mode, players will explore a forest of over 20 tiles. At the end of each forest, a boss will spawn and the players will have to defeat it to win the game!
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Is Hawthorn released, and when is Early Access?
No confirmed Early Access date is established by the official material cited here. NEARstudios has described a June 2026 proof-of-concept demo as an intentionally early build and distinguished it from a more advanced development branch. Later studio updates discussed backer playtest waves and work on Windermere, maps, crafting, NPCs, weather, flight, and animations. That activity indicates ongoing development; it should not be mistaken for a near-finished public release. Current announcements are collected on Hawthorn’s Steam news page.
The studio’s crowdfunding page says it plans to release a “Prologue” into Early Access, but does not provide a confirmed date. A winter 2025/2026 update said development had moved beyond the proof-of-concept branch, with work underway on an expandable map and improved dialogue, quest, and storyteller systems. Those statements describe plans and progress at the time, rather than guaranteeing what is in a present build. See NEARstudios’ crowdfunding and support page and its Winter 2025/2026 development update.
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How to think about Hawthorn’s genre
The most useful way to place Hawthorn is at the intersection of village life and sandbox role-playing: its pitch pairs farming, crafting, relationships, and seasonal activities with exploration and player-led adventure. The studio has compared its influences and ambitions with games such as Skyrim, Stardew Valley, and RimWorld; those are positioning references, not evidence that it shares their exact systems or quality. Until a fuller release is available, its co-op and life-sim features are best understood as the developer’s stated design direction.
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