By Arnar Arnórsson, Chief Technical Artist Director

Building the Foundations

We’re still in the early stage of Waters of Ragnarök, working on how the world itself is built and what makes it feel alive. At this point, it’s not about visuals or polish, but about structure, scale, and how the environment ties everything together.

Prefab-Based Procedural Generation

Instead of generating terrain purely at runtime, we’re building a prefab-based procedural world.
We handcraft islands, fjords, and landmasses ahead of time, bake them into prefabs, and then let a procedural generator arrange them in new layouts based on a seed.

This gives us both consistency and variety, and the control of a designed world, combined with the replayability of
procedural generation.

Capturing a Sense of Scale

One of our main goals is to capture a true sense of scale. Sailing between islands should feel like crossing a real expanse of ocean, with the horizon stretching far ahead and distant landmasses fading through fog.

We want players to feel that balance between realism and myth naturally, not as a visible system but as part of the experience itself.

World-Building Workflows

For world building, we’re combining different workflows for broad shapes and detailed sculpting.

Larger landmasses, the outer rim, and the general layout of the archipelago are created with procedural terrain tools.
Once a terrain piece feels right, it’s baked into a prefab, complete with vegetation and seabed, and ready for placement by the generator.

This hybrid approach lets us iterate quickly while maintaining artistic intent.

Overcoming Procedural Challenges

There are challenges that come with this approach, seams where prefabs meet, patterns that become too recognizable,
and the need for the outer rim of the world to feel natural.

We’re addressing these through:

Connector tiles that hide joins
Procedural dressing with rocks, fog, and vegetation variations
Placement rules that keep everything within believable boundaries

The Current Focus

Right now our focus is on building the first batch of prefabs:

Volcanic islands
Detailed fjords
The large outer landmass that frames the world

Once those are in place, we’ll test how they connect, how far we can push variation, and how scale influences
the feeling of travel and exploration.

The Long-Term Vision

Our goal is for every world to feel handcrafted, even when procedurally assembled.
This system will also determine how resources, environments, and encounters are distributed later,
forming the foundation for how the world of Waters of Ragnarök will grow and evolve.

Waters of Ragnarök - Shaping the World