CD Projekt RED/u/TrueNihilistsAreDeadSkyrim, Hyrule, Velen, Lordran; memorable and glorious fantasy realms, all.
Whether you’re slaying dragons, hunting for the Triforce, or tracking monsters to make an honest day’s coin, it’s the scope, level of detail, and care in the world design that so often makes or breaks a fantasy RPG.
If you think you could do better, you now have a chance to create your very own fantasy world to surpass the likes of those seen in The Legend of Zelda, The Witcher 3, and The Elder Scrolls. It’s all thanks to a robust new fantasy map creation tool called Wonderdraft.
Wonderdraft is perfect for all manner of occasions. Maybe you’re a dungeon master looking to create a super detailed map for a killer game of Dungeons & Dragons, in an attempt minimise the amount of ridiculous liberties your players will inevitably try to take over the course of the game.
Alternatively, you may be designing your very own fantasy RPG or adventure game and you need help visualising the world you’re building. Perhaps you’re writing your own epic novel and need to plan out the realms. Maybe, just maybe, you just want want to have a go at it for fun. Whatever the case, Wonderdraft has you covered.
PC Gamer notes that Wonderdraft is actually pretty easy to use, and boasts a number of options to make a fantasy world your way, at your own pace. Take a look at a nifty timelapse trailer below that shows the world grow from nothing, with cliffs, forests, lakes, and cities springing to life.
You can customise everything from the the detailing on the coastline to the amount of water that surrounds your map, or you can simply randomly generate an entire landmass if you aren’t too fussed about the finer details.
Once you’ve generated a rough map, you can set about adding towns, roads, rivers, and the like. There are pre-built icons you can use for these things, but if you really want to make it your own, you are able to import custom assets, meaning you aren’t really limited to just fantasy worlds if you want something a little more science fiction.
To get a real feel for just how robust Wonderdraft is, I recommend having a browse through the subreddit to see what other people have been coming up with. There’s some seriously impressive stuff.
u/DeathbypptWonderdraft isn’t free unfortunately, but for anyone serious about creating their own fantasy world (who might not be the most artistically gifted) should definitely check it out. You can pick it up from the official Wonderdraft website.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.