Dave the Diver’s creator wants to create a ‘Dave cinematic universe’ of games

Dave the Diver creator Jaeho Hwang says he wants to expand the Dave the Diver IP, with new games focussing on different characters and spanning multiple genres, following the success of the first game.

Jaeho Hwang is now CEO of Mintrocket, following parent company Nexon’s decision to spin the developer off into its own independent division. This followed its successful debut title, Dave the Diver, which has sold over 4 million units, and won a BAFTA Award.

Speaking to VGC at Gamescom Asia in Singapore, 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.

“Actually, I want to expand Dave the Diver IP itself,” Hwang said, when asked what the future holds for Mintrocket. “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.

“In that sense, the games’ genres can be different. Maybe one day, if we start to make a Dave’s backstory game, we could make Dave [another profession]. He’s always been a diver, so we really haven’t thought about how we should move with Dave.”

Hwang said he wants to flesh out the Dave the Diver story by telling the backstories of both its protagonist, and main side characters.

“I really want to show how he grew up, and how he became a diver, and how he ended up coming to the Blue Hole,” he said.

“I think it’s really fun. Cobra, one of our main characters, he’s from my previous project, Evil Factory. 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 said that, despite being granted its own subdivision within Nexon, his desire is still for Mintrocket to remain small.

“ I think we’ll stay small. I mean, the definition of small can be varied. Dredge, they only have four people on the development team. But I think the 20 to 30 people team is ideal.”

He added:” It’s easier to communicate and easier to be on the same page that way. I think Mintrocket can get bigger in the future in terms of size, if we are confident in what we’re doing right now.

“But that means we’ll have more teams of similar size, or maybe we’ll start to do some publishing stuff. But it doesn’t mean that we’re going to have a huge 100 people team.”