Starfinder: Afterlight Isn’t Just a Baldur’s Gate 3 Spiritual Successor, Major RPG Hit Potential

The end of the year is nigh, with 2026 almost upon us; as such, it’s the perfect time to look ahead to what the next year promises to bring.

You’re all likely very familiar with the upcoming year’s heavy hitters. I hardly need to sit here and tell you that Grand Theft Auto VI or Marvel’s Wolverine, for example, are finally set to grace us with their presence. What I’m far more interested in is unearthing the next major hit that may not be on your radar, and Starfinder: Afterlight perfectly fits that bill.

Developed by Epictellers Entertainment, Starfinder: Afterlight is an upcoming CRPG that adapts Paizo’s Starfinder TTRPG, with devs citing Baldur’s Gate 3, Guardians of the Galaxy, Pathfinder, and Divinity Original Sin II as additional inspirations. I had the opportunity to previously attend a virtual preview for the title, and I came away from said preview certain that I’d just seen something rather special.

You see, it would be unfair and incorrect to categorise CRPGs as niche, but you cannot deny the impact that Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 had on popularising the genre. The title dominated 2023’s The Game Awards, securing eight nominations and six wins. It ruled chatter, essentially reaching zeitgeist status.

While the video games industry is nothing without the creativity and sense of innovation of the individuals that form it, there is, naturally, trend-chasing in certain areas, albeit largely from stakeholders and executives that lack those aforementioned traits. Following on from Baldur’s Gate 3’s success, many of us expected to see CRPGs become the key focus of that trend-chasing, but little has arrived to threaten Baldur’s Gate 3’s hold over the genre.

As for why that is, well, CRPGs are notoriously difficult to make, which is a real testament to the level of ambition Epictellers has with regards to Starfinder: Afterlight. I recently had the chance to sit down with several of the game’s cast and developers, including Epictellers co-founder Ricard Pillosu.

CRPGs Resonate Deeply With Players, But That’s a Tricky Thing to Pull Off

“You take visual novels, for example, and everything is about the relationship,” Ricard told me. “But when you bring the CRPG formula in, you have a relationship, but you are adventuring, you are fighting, you are progressing and exploring a big world, having this kind of unique experience with the game’s characters.

“You share that experience with them. It increases the emotional intensity that you have because you can see them fail. We fight many fights, we go through a lot [as players], and those things unite people. You have a stronger sense of belonging by the end, as many found in Baldur’s Gate 3. When you say goodbye, it’s highly emotional because you feel like you have been on a journey with those characters and CRPGs give you that mix that is very beautiful and allows you to connect to those characters on a different level.”

Certainly, it’s companions that really are the backbone of the CRPG experience, and Starfinder: Afterlight is already building up a solid roster. To bring you up to speed, in this branching story, the titular ‘afterlight’ is a key threat – an event which can shroud the galaxy in darkness. It’s up to you, the player, to hunt down the missing Captain Khali, voiced by Carolina Ravassa, who may hold the first clue to putting a stop to this dire eventuality.

“I think that Captain Khali is excited to round up this group of misfits,” Carolina told me of her character. “[The game is] about family and teamwork and lifting each other up. I think it’s very clear in the trailer that you can see it’s a call to action. That sense of, ‘All of you out there that feel like you have no place where you belong, come with me on this ship and we’ll go together.’ It’s a parallel of life. You have to find your weirdos and go along on an adventure with them.”

Two such “weirdos” are Neil Newbon’s Preach and James Alexander’s Sterling, both of whom you can add to your travelling cohort within Starfinder: Afterlight. Preach is a Shirren, belonging to the Mystic class, devoted to protecting a worm-like creature known as The Golden One. It’s Preach’s hope to become a High Priest, although it’s the player who’ll determine whether that destiny unfolds.

“It’s Very Mandalorian,” Neil Newbon Says of Companion Preach

“He’s kind of a fatherly figure role,” Neil began. “He has a guardianship of this larva, […] but I don’t want to talk too much about it because I think it’s better left for the actual gameplay itself. But it was nice to play somebody who isn’t necessarily a villain. I think a lot of the time, you know, I tend not to play the good guys. I tend to play [villains], and I hate the term because I don’t see my characters as bad guys or villains, but it’s nice to play somebody who’s ostensibly set up to be a good person.

“It’s really exciting for me to explore that kind of character, somebody who has a little uncertainty there. He’s not necessarily going to be the loudest person at a party. He probably won’t even go to the party necessarily, but it was very interesting to sort of approach a new character like this, something I haven’t done for a while, I would say.

“I was very much looking forward to playing a kind of clerical type figure role who’s got to present himself in such a way that there’s a certain formality to him. There’s a certain public persona that he’s portraying, obviously given that he has some kind of status to have guardianship over this glowing, cute golden larva. It’s very Mandalorian without being as cool as The Mandalorian, I would say. He’s not a cool guy, you know? [Preach] is not portraying himself as cool. He’s quite serious.”

Sterling Is a Charmer, Whether You Love Him or Not

Sterling, on the other hand, is very pretty, uh sorry, I mean a Human Borai Solarian. A “trickster brought back from painful death,” Sterling may be easy on the eyes, but there’s a darkness that permeates him, actualised as a sense of nonchalance that drives him to drink, gamble, and romance his way across the galaxy.

“He’s the life of the party,” James began. “He’s very much a party boy, a socialite, you know? He’s all about the good times but again, like Neil said, without giving too much away, there are so many more layers to peel back with Sterling.

“He has this wonderful relationship with Melissa [Medina]’s character Lu-323, who you’ll be seeing more of as the time goes on. I think he’s a very good example of what can happen if you’re given more time. That’s all I’m going to really say because I don’t want to jump too much into his class, but it’s all about what you can do with more time, or how you can face certain aspects of your life, whilst also completely ignoring them.

“This is all very cryptic. At face value, with Sterling, I think you’ll love him or you’ll hate him, but either way he’ll charm you. I think that’s the part of it that I’m very much looking forward to, throwing some very interesting one-liners in.”

Neil Newbon Pulls Double Duty as Voice Director

Starfinder: Afterlight shares yet another similarity with Baldur’s Gate 3 beyond the obvious fact that both titles are CRPGs. They also both have a Neil Newbon. Neil portrayed fan-favourite Astarion in the Larian Studios title and here, in addition to voicing Starfinder: Afterlight’s Preach, the actor is also serving as the game’s performance/voice director. In fact, that’s how he came to join the project.

“I’ve actually been directing for about eight years,” Neil explained despite, perhaps, being most well known for his acting work. “I started doing motion capture directing, action directing, and stunt choreography stuff as well. I think the first game I worked on was Total War: Three Kingdoms with Creative Assembly. I’ve trained in almost every – I would say – legitimate acting craft or technique, so I understand acting, I think, very well now after 30 years.”

Neil additionally notably worked as voice director on Deliver Us Mars, with the production wing of his company, Performance Captured Productions, having partnered with Capcom, Larian, Cloud Imperium, and more.

“Taking this on was an amazing opportunity, one that I’m very grateful for,” Neil continued. “It’s not a new thing for me, […] but the opportunity to help the work at this early stage is new as director. […] I love the universe. I love roleplaying games in general, but also Starfinder, Pathfinder, and D&D are just amazing games to play as a human. The fact that I get to now help craft a story with the writers and with the development team as well, it’s super exciting for me because I’m a card-carrying lifelong geek.

“We’re casting for the game as well. Saleta Losada is our casting director. Performance Captured Limited, which is our production company, she’s also co-founder, and we’re finding amazing people. There are people that I know personally like James and Carolina, who are amazingly talented actors, but I’m also meeting new people like Melissa Medina. It’s a really wonderful part to be able to add on to what is going to be hopefully a really fun adventure. It’s also a great opportunity to go back over the craft of being a director and really try to raise my game and evolve as a director as well.”

I was eager to hear from Carolina and James on how they felt Neil’s direction and experience within the CRPG genre had helped shape their performances, albeit at this early stage in the development process.

“It’s funny. Neil started [this process] by saying, ‘You know, if I get very serious, don’t worry. I’m just focused,’ and he needed none of that prelude because he’s a fabulous director,” Carolina said. “He created a really cool safe space for us to just be fun and crazy. Khali needs to be a little wacky.

“But it was a collaboration with the writers as well, and so it just felt like a fun space to explore. There were suggestions and, you know, we try a thing here and a thing there, and I think it was just a good time. I’m excited for more.”

“It was the first time I think I’ve worked with Neil in an actor-director position,” James added. “We’ve known each other a fair few years, so it feels like a nice full circle kind of moment. Neil’s perfect in allowing everyone to kind of blend ideas to get the best outcome for the lines that are written. […] He’s really good at accommodating not only the actor’s needs, but also those of the entire Epictellers writing team as well. It’s a wonderful collaborative process.”

“To add on to this ridiculous praise,” Neil said. ”I’m blushing, thank you very much for that. The wonderful thing about going into this as early on as I did, as a director, I spoke to Epictellers about its ambitions, about our performances and what the team wanted us to bring. The early conversation was always very much like they really loved the fact that I was pushing, and they were, for the actors bringing in their own ideas to the character.

“I really believe as an actor, but also as a director, that as you go along, the actor will take more ownership than anybody over a role. The only other person that will have that level of ownership obviously is the writer of the character, but even at that point, I think the actor, once they get into the meat of the performance, they really know the character better than anybody whether it’s TV, film, or games. Whatever the thing is, the actor is living those moments.

“We’re very lucky that Epictellers was really up for and interested in actors having these organic moments and finding happy accidents and finding ideas that just pop and sing. It’s just trying them out, something you can’t do with AI. You know, you can’t really ask an AI to come up with an original thought. It’s just scraping information from other people’s source performance. The inspiration of these moments come from actors, from real people, because of their life experience as well as their craft experience, as well as their ideas for the character and how they want to honour that. It’s really great to work with developers that really get that and are positive and performance forward in their thinking.”

It’s clear to me, during our conversation, that there’s a great sense of camaraderie between the cast. In the 45-minutes that I spent with Neil, Carolina, and James, it’s almost as if I can see Starfinder: Afterlight’s sense of found family before my very eyes. It all harkens back to one of Starfinder: Afterlight’s key inspirations, Guardians of the Galaxy.

A CRPG With a Guardians of the Galaxy Flavouring

It was Ricard who outlined what sets Starfinder: Afterlight apart from experiences like Baldur’s Gate 3. While the two projects may share some similarities, Starfinder: Afterlight is very much its own, unique beast.

“We are a very small project,” Ricard began. “We are where Larian was with [the first] Divinity. Actually, worse because they had a lot of projects before that and have been amazing forever.”

It’s here that I’ll remind you that Starfinder: Afterlight is Epictellers’ very first game release.

“We wanted something that theme-wise brings something different,” Ricard continued. “Starfinder has this kind of Guardians of the Galaxy feel. Both are really this journey of a found family, and this allows for a key difference with CRPGs that are about big heroes that are immediately awesome.”

“That’s one of the most exciting things that we’ve been discovering together with the actors as well,” Neil added. “Like you just said Ricard, it’s a found family. These aren’t people that are thrust together out of necessity. They find themselves together, and they may not even know necessarily why they gravitate towards one another, but they find each other and they form a family. It’s about these difficulties of having a dysfunctional family that is, you know, ultimately striving towards the same thing, as opposed to a bunch of strangers being forced together to deal with something that they cannot avoid.

“These people are choosing to spend time together. I think that’s really interesting in a CRPG because it does have the sense of family. It does have the sense of, well, you’re not just fighting for your companion; you’re fighting for somebody that you might consider almost your brother or your sibling.”

Carolina Ravassa Originally Auditioned For Another Role

By all accounts, it doesn’t appear as if joining Starfinder: Afterlight was a hard sell for Neil, Carolina, or James, which isn’t at all a surprise. Even still, the trio graciously offered further insight on what it is that drew them towards the project.

“When I was asked to come on board, especially as an actor, a big part of it was just the excitement of this interesting new world and universe,” Neil said. “I think unhelpfully people in the past have considered CRPGs as a dead end part of the industry, which is absolutely not true as we saw with Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s just that [development] cycles take a long time in games. […] Personally, for me, it was the story and Epictellers as well, you know? I met the guys and I just thought they were really interesting people to work with and also really passionate.”

“I received the audition before I knew anything about the game,” James added. “One thing I did appreciate is that there was actually a good amount of character and world building information. Sterling had potentially the most detailed character bio I’ve received ever. I spent a good time reading that and then I, you know, ultimately came up with my idea of what I thought the character would sound like and sent it off.”

He continued, “I booked it and then we had our first sessions and a chance to kind of discuss more about wyere Sterling’s going to go as a character. […] It was my first exposure to Starfinder.”

It is, if you hadn’t gathered, still very early days in the development process for much of the cast with many sessions yet to be completed. Starfinder: Afterlight is launching in early access in 2026 with a full launch pencilled in for 2027. Naturally, those windows may shift.

“I actually auditioned for another character,” Carolina revealed. “I prepared all my stuff and I must have been channeling Khali because they were like, ‘Yeah, no, all wrong for this character.’ No, I don’t know what was said, but they were just like, ‘You know what, we’re going to put you in another place.’ I was really excited to be involved with Neil. I didn’t know the team yet, so I was just really grateful that they were finding another job for me, but I didn’t know anything about Khali at the time.

“I did talk a little bit before via WhatsApp with Neil, he was giving me the breakdown, but it was really kind of in the first session where we fully broke Khali down and I understood who she was and what she was about. I got to think a little bit more on, you know, this idea that Khali speaks different languages because she’s traveled all over and I personally love that, so I did a little bit more work prepping for the second session to find fun stuff to throw in there.

“I really wanted to nail the strength and excitement she has to kind of bring the team together, but also she’s seen what could happen so she’s trying to, I guess, save the galaxy. […] I also had never heard of Starfinder; I was learning it all on the go. I’m excited to learn more.”

“Let me add to that because you’re too humble Carolina,” Ricard responded. “When we heard her voice, it was an instant, ‘She’s amazing, just not for this character. Let’s go for Khali.’ And then the normal process was to go to Neil. I said, ‘For Khali, it’s Carolina right away. No discussion.’ She’s amazing.”

“You were directly the character,” Ricard said to Carolina. “It was absolutely the best decision.”

Carolina is a familiar voice to many, perhaps most notably having portrayed Sombra in Overwatch and Raze in Valorant. I enquired as to how working within Starfinder: Afterlight’s complex, sprawling narrative differed to working in the live-service realm where, traditionally, there’s a lot less meat on the bone when it comes to a character’s backstory.

“I like this more because we do get to sort of understand the backstory a little bit more in advance,” she told me. “I want more backstory for those live titles that we haven’t gotten yet. […] I just approach every acting role with everything I’ve got because we have to give it our best, but I think understanding every character specifically is what we have to do. I feel like this has been a more personal project.

“We’ve seen the Kickstarter excitement and then, you know, added Roger Clark and Fred Tatasciore. Seeing it come together, it’s special, especially to see however many thousands of people have donated to the Kickstarter. You start feeling like a family that’s bringing it to life. It’s more special than when you’re sometimes part of a AAA and you do your thing and don’t know anything else about it. This is very unique, and I feel honored to be a part of it.”

Starfinder: Afterlight’s Kickstarter Ran Out of Cats in Three Hours

As alluded to, Starfinder: Afterlight previously ran a Kickstarter campaign, although it’s very important that I make clear that this wasn’t to fund the game. The base game is fully funded; instead, the Kickstarter allowed for gamers to fund additional features. This included voicing all of the game’s villains, adding new playable species, as well as voicing side quests and NPCs.

I’m thrilled to say that the Kickstarter reached its goal in a mere 80 minutes, going on to eventually raise a whopping £706,103. That’s more than 10 times the original goal. Perhaps my favourite moment in the game’s Kickstarter run came when I received an email outlining that the Kickstarter had run out of cats in just three hours. The story here is that for $450, backers could send a photo and the name of their cat, with their real-life kitties being made available in the game’s cat rescue home.

“It’s overwhelming,” James said of the response. “When you’re creating a game, a project that’s, you know, your baby essentially from the devevelopers’ perspective, you want it to be taken in, loved, or hyped about, but it doesn’t always go that way. […] I never expected it to be fully funded after 80 minutes. It’s just nothing but humbling. We’re thankful to everyone for, you know, obviously giving their money to make this game even better.”

Starfinder: Afterlight Could Boast 40 to 60 Hours of Content

This is shaping up to be a pretty hefty CRPG, with Epictellers estimating that there will be 40 to 60 hours of content for players. That, of course, will be shaped by how many side quests you undertake, and the final runtime will almost definitely shift slightly between now and launch. What you must remember is that’s the runtime for just one playthrough but Starfinder: Afterlight boasts a branching narrative. Just think of how many variations of this story the cast is tasked with bringing to life.

“I think a big part of that obviously is working very closely with the writers, directors, as well as the actors,” Neil began. “From a directing and writing point of view, that is essentially our job to help make sure that, at any point, the actors know exactly where they are. The thing about our process that Ricard, myself, and Albert [Jane, also an Epictellers co-founder] discussed very early on is that we wanted [writers] Felix [Rios] and Isabel [Perez] to be available where possible for every session that we’re doing with the actors to be able to talk to them directly about context and about lore or any backstory that isn’t obvious through the script.

“A big part of our job isn’t really to completely finesse and tweak every single word and every single line with the actors. There’s a certain amount of tweaking here and there but ultimately, the actors are so good that our job really is to guide them through what they’re already doing really well, including helping context of motivation, what’s just happened, what could have just happened, and also keeping track of different permutations and combinations that could happen within each different moment. It’s very early days at the moment.”

Ricard concurred, adding, “It’s very early, but it’s about giving freedom to the actors and saying, ‘Okay, this is the mood. This is what just happened, you lost that person, or you are just happy because this happened.’ And saying, ‘Here are the lines but after those just feel free to [experiment].’”

“I’m gonna add a tiny thing,” Carolina said. “When you showed me the trailer without any voice, I was in my booth and I got chills. The art was so beautiful; the music was amazing. Then we recorded and Neil sent me my voice in it and I listened to it and I said, ‘No, I didn’t get chills. We need to make the voice part better,’ because I had already felt this magic. So you guys [the developers] gave us this piece of art and we’re adding a little bit to it, but I was really moved by it from the beginning. You know when you have to rise to the occasion.”

“And that’s the thing, it’s very much an organic process,” Neil continued. “We’re always encouraging the actors to go, ‘I’ve got a better idea. Can I try it one more time?’ There is a time and money constraint to that to some degree, but we’re trying to factor that [approach] in with every session. We’re never going to just accept something just because we need to move on.

“With the moment where Caroline goes, ‘This isn’t right, I wanna do the entire thing again,’ we’re like, ‘Let’s do it again. Let’s spend that money to get it right.’ I think it’s great that we have already found this lovely balance which is working very well, and we’re managing to get through more in a session than we actually sometimes predict, which is great.”

A Game That’s Not To Be Overlooked As We Head Into 2026

I am quite confident that Starfinder: Afterlight will find its audience; in fact, with the response to the game’s Kickstarter, you could argue it’s already well on its way to having done so. After I previously previewed the game, it soon caught the attention of the wider GAMINGbible team. “I hadn’t heard of this but it sounds incredible,” was the general consensus. It’s a sentiment that I believe will soon spread as Starfinder: Afterlight continues to drift towards its early access launch next year.

Ahead of then, however, I wanted to give the game’s cast and developers an opportunity to explain from their own point of view why Starfinder: Afterlight is most definitely a game you need on your 2026 release radar.

Neil began with his suggestion: “For me personally, now more than ever, against some of the greatest social and literal evils of the world that we are facing collectively as one species, the fact that there’s a story about a family sticking together, trying to get through and facing down evil resonates pretty strongly with me.”

“I’ve just been telling people we’re being directed by Astarion and they freak out. That’s all I need to say,” Carolina joked.

“Have you seen the voice cast outside of me? Have you seen it?” James said.

“This is only the voice cast we can talk about as well,” Neil teased.

“I think that, if we are lucky [the game] will stand by itself,” Ricard offered. “The more we talk about these characters, the more people will be aligned with what we’re trying to do. Right now, nobody knows, we can say it’s like Divinity, which again is a masterpiece and sets a super high bar, meets Guardians of the Galaxy. But I suspect it’ll just become Starfinder: Afterlight and people will roll with that.

“I’m still overwhelmed with the reception to the game. The team is excited but also that’s pressure, but we’ll see. I think that we are cooking something very special.”

“I’d say there’s definitely something of a space western in this,” Neil added. “An action-adventure with fun and comedy and pathos and lightheartedness.”

“The sci-fi adventure you’ve been waiting for,” James said, and I have a feeling he’s right.

Starfinder: Afterlight is due to launch in 2026 in early access on PC.