Expeditions Samurai Early Access: 4 Classes, 8 Companions

Expeditions Samurai early access launched on Steam August 7, 2026, from Campfire Cabal, the new studio built by veterans of Expeditions: Rome's old team at Logic Artists. Ten days in, the game sits at 242 reviews, a Mixed rating, and one substantive patch already behind it. That's worth more attention than most week-one previews gave it: a studio actually shipping stability fixes ten days out says something a marketing trailer can't.

TL;DR: Expeditions Samurai launched into Early Access on August 7, 2026 at $29.99, the fourth game in Campfire Cabal's 13-year historical RPG series. The launch build covers Act 1 only (roughly 6 to 8 hours), with 4 starting classes, 8 companions, and the series' first co-op mode. Steam reviews sit at Mixed, 151 positive and 91 negative out of 242 total, and the first major patch, version 0.5.2, landed August 13 with a new non-lethal combat option.

Is Expeditions Samurai early access worth playing right now? (quick answer)

Yes, if the Expeditions formula already appeals to you. Campfire Cabal shipped a stable, content-complete first act with four classes, eight companions, and the series' first co-op mode, and it's already receiving weekly patches that fix real bugs rather than just tuning numbers. If you want a finished story instead of one act out of three, wait for Update 2's Act 2 content or the planned early 2027 full release.

Key Takeaways

• Expeditions Samurai entered Early Access August 7, 2026 at $29.99 (post launch-week-discount price), developed by Campfire Cabal, published by THQ Nordic.
• It's the fourth entry in the 13-year Expeditions series, after Conquistador, Viking, and Rome, all published by THQ Nordic.
• Steam reviews: Mixed, 151 positive and 91 negative of 242 total as of August 17.
• The launch build covers Act 1 only (6 to 8 hours); Update 2 will add Act 2 roughly halfway through the Early Access period.
• Patch 0.5.2, released August 13, changed how bludgeoning damage works and retuned the morale system, the first real content patch since launch.

What Expeditions Samurai actually is

The pitch is a party-based RPG set during Japan's Sengoku-era civil war, built around a fictional premise: the historical sailor William Adams, the first Westerner granted the title of samurai in 1600, never makes it to Japan in this timeline. Instead, your custom protagonist, a captain surnamed Flynn, beats him there aboard the Dutch frigate De Albatros with a "motley crew" of privateers in tow.

From there it plays out as tactical, turn-based combat layered onto real-time exploration, with stealth options, the ability to split your party to set up ambushes, and dialogue-driven navigation of warlord politics. Steam's own store page frames it as stealth, diplomacy, or violence, "and every choice matters." That framing checks out against the source, not just the marketing copy: Campfire Cabal's Dev Diary #2 says the studio built Samurai's character system on top of Rome's class-based skill tree, then reintroduced the free-form skills and attributes from Expeditions: Viking to push the game further into classic CRPG territory.

Caption: An early dialogue exchange between Flynn and Tanaka Takayuki. Answers here shape how the crew's origins are perceived by the soldiers waiting at the village bridge.

Who made it: Campfire Cabal and the Expeditions legacy

This is the part most launch coverage skips, and it matters for judging whether this is a real indie studio's game or a publisher-driven cash-in. Expeditions: Rome, the previous entry, was made by Logic Artists, a Danish studio also published by THQ Nordic. Shortly after Rome shipped in January 2022, Logic Artists' founders left to start a studio focused on NFT gaming, and the original studio wound down.

Campfire Cabal is not that company, but it isn't a clean break either. Rome's own creative director, Jonas Wæver, leads the new studio, and Campfire Cabal's own Steam post announcing the Early Access launch describes it plainly: "the new studio we had built" made "the fourth game in the Expeditions series." The game had reportedly been in development for close to four years by the time it was announced two months before launch. THQ Nordic has published every Expeditions game since Conquistador, functioning here the way it usually does for this franchise, as a distributor and marketing partner for a small team, not as a studio dictating a AAA production. That history is why Expeditions Samurai early access reads less like an opportunistic sequel and more like a small team finishing what they started under a new name.

GODEEPER: Campfire Cabal isn't the only small studio betting on a co-op RPG launch this year. Farever Early Access: Shiro Games' New Co-op RPG Launches →

Classes, companions, and how progression works

Expeditions Samurai early access opens character creation with a choice among 4 starting player classes. Campfire Cabal has publicly detailed one by name: the Marauder, which builds up a resource called Focus every time it deals damage, then spends that Focus on an ability called Mark to boost damage against a specific target. Campfire Cabal hasn't published full names or kits for the other three yet, so treat any complete class list you find elsewhere with some skepticism.

Alongside your custom captain, the crew includes 8 recruitable companions, each built around their own unique class rather than sharing from the same four player options. Campfire Cabal has named four of them directly in its own trailer materials: Antje, a burglar specializing in stealth and lockpicking; Johan, an arrogant swordsman related to the expedition's late captain; Tora-Hime, an Onna-Musha searching for her place in a changing Japan; and Étienne Durand, a priest who serves as the crew's diplomat. Every companion carries a dedicated quest chain, and earning their trust can turn them into a friend, rival, or romantic partner, a system the game now extends into 2-player co-op for the first time in franchise history, letting two captains compete for the same companion's attention.

Caption: A level 4 Marauder's skill sheet, showing the Finesse attribute governing stealth and dialogue manipulation skills alongside combat stats.

The first real patch: what 0.5.2 changed

The Expeditions Samurai early access build got its first real patch on August 13, version 0.5.2, six days after launch, a useful signal for how seriously Campfire Cabal is treating the Early Access period. The headline change: bludgeoning weapons can no longer kill an enemy outright in combat. They only incapacitate, unless you hit a target that's already down, which opens up optional non-lethal objectives that weren't cleanly possible at launch.

The rest of the patch is mostly stability and quest-logic fixes rather than balance tuning: dead quest characters no longer respawn when you re-enter a level, several parties could get permanently stuck in combat after loading a save, and a co-op desync bug in the "Perils on the Sea" sequence that could let one player wander away from their partner got a fix. The morale system was also retuned so enemies stop panicking or turning disobedient as easily, now tied more specifically to allies actually dying nearby rather than triggering on lighter combat setbacks. None of this made it into the earlier round of "what to expect" previews that ran the same week, since the patch landed after most of them published.

What players are saying six days in

Steam's own launch post highlighted three press previews, including a line from Big Boss Battle calling it "easily the strongest entry in a strong series." The community's own reaction, visible on the newly active r/expeditionsgames subreddit, is more mixed than that quote suggests. A thread posted August 13 argued the writing has pulled back on what one commenter called "gender reactivity," unique dialogue and content tied to the player character's gender that Rome and Viking both leaned into. Replies split: some players agreed the writing feels flatter so far, one specifically noting the early hours' "culture clash" and "alternative morality," hallmarks of the series, feel thinner while you're still playing as European sailors rather than embedded with a Japanese faction. Others pushed back, saying they're glad the game isn't leaning on the same mechanic.

That tracks with a separate, published criticism: a same-week hands-on piece flagged the movement and stealth systems as "rather wobbly" and said Flynn's dialogue options could use more range beyond a default sassy tone. Neither complaint is disqualifying for a six-day-old Early Access build, but they're the kind of specific, fixable friction worth knowing about before you buy rather than after.

GODEEPER: If you're weighing several Early Access RPGs this month, this roundup tracks which ones are actually worth the risk right now. Best Early Access Games Worth Buying Right Now →

Is Expeditions Samurai early access still worth it?

The honest read: this is a well-supported Early Access launch from a studio with real pedigree in the genre, not a rushed cash-in riding a bigger publisher's name. THQ Nordic's involvement is the same distribution role it's played for every prior Expeditions game, and Campfire Cabal's own account of its founding, plus the direct line from Rome's creative director, backs up the "new studio, same team" framing rather than undercutting it.

Whether the current build is worth $29.99 depends on what you're optimizing for. One act, four to eight hours short of Update 2's promised second act, plus real post-launch patch support and Mixed-but-improving reviews, is a reasonable Early Access proposition if you already know you like turn-based party RPGs with heavy dialogue systems. If you'd rather wait for a complete story, Campfire Cabal's own roadmap points to Update 2 landing around the midpoint of the Early Access period, with full 1.0 targeted for early 2027.

Check your rig before buying either way: minimum specs call for a GTX 1070 or RX Vega 56 with 12GB of RAM, and the recommended tier jumps to an RTX 2060 Super or RX 6700 with 16GB, DirectX 12, and 15GB of storage.

If you enjoyed the tone and structure of games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, it's worth noting the naming overlap is coincidental. Campfire Cabal's own Steam post jokes that the "Expedition" branding has mostly belonged to that other game in the cultural conversation over the past year, a minor irony for a series that's actually been running for 13 years.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Expeditions Samurai and who made it? Expeditions Samurai is a party-based tactical RPG set in Sengoku-era Japan, developed by Campfire Cabal and published by THQ Nordic. It's the fourth game in the 13-year-old Expeditions series, following Conquistador, Viking, and Rome. Early Access launched August 7, 2026 on Steam.

How much does Expeditions Samurai cost in Early Access? Expeditions Samurai costs $29.99 on Steam as of August 17. THQ Nordic ran a launch-week discount through August 14, 2026, so the current price is the standard Early Access rate, not a sale price. The developer has said the full 1.0 release will cost more.

How many classes and companions are in Expeditions Samurai? The Early Access build ships with 4 starting player classes, including the damage-focused Marauder, plus 8 recruitable companions who each carry their own unique class. Character creation lets you set name, appearance, and starting attributes before picking a class.

What are the Steam reviews like for Expeditions Samurai? Expeditions Samurai sits at Mixed on Steam, with 151 positive and 91 negative reviews out of 242 total as of August 17. That's a fairly normal spread for a week-old Early Access RPG still working through its first content patch.

How long is the Expeditions Samurai Early Access build? The Early Access launch covers Act 1 only, roughly 6 to 8 hours of playtime according to Campfire Cabal's own roadmap. Update 2, planned for around the midpoint of the Early Access period, will add Act 2 with a similar or slightly larger amount of content.

Does Expeditions Samurai have co-op multiplayer? Yes. Expeditions Samurai supports full 2-player drop-in/drop-out campaign co-op, the first time the series has included multiplayer. Players can split control of dialogue and combat, including competing for a companion's affection in the relationship system.

Is Expeditions Samurai worth buying in Early Access? It depends on your tolerance for an unfinished story. Fans of Expeditions: Rome who want more of the same systems in a new setting have reason to jump in now. Players who want a complete narrative should wait for Update 2's Act 2 content or the full 2027 release.

Related Reading

• Farever Early Access: Shiro Games' New Co-op RPG Launches: another small studio's co-op RPG Early Access launch, useful for comparing how two teams are handling the same EA-to-1.0 arc.
• Killer Bean Early Access: What the New Roguelike Gets Right: a very different genre, but a similar week-one snapshot of what an Early Access launch actually ships with.
• Best Early Access Games Worth Buying Right Now: for readers deciding which of this year's Early Access launches are worth the risk.
• Clair Obscur Expedition 33 review: worth it a year later: no relation beyond the name, but worth reading if the naming overlap brought you here.

References

• Expeditions: Samurai on Steam
• Expeditions: Samurai Early Access Launch Trailer (YouTube, THQ Nordic)
• Expeditions series official account on X
• r/expeditionsgames on Reddit
• William Adams (sailor) on Wikipedia