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Klei Entertainment is the Vancouver-based independent studio behind Don't Starve, Don't Starve Together, and Don't Starve: Elsewhere. Klei has shipped both the original Don't Starve series and its co-op follow-up, and the studio also serves as publisher for its own catalog. The team has built a track record across stealth, survival, simulation, and roguelike deckbuilding genres over two decades, and Elsewhere is its first all-new entry in the Don't Starve world since the launch of Don't Starve Together in 2016.

If you are unfamiliar with the studio, the games below all share a recognizable visual signature: hand-drawn 2D character art, dark humor, punishing systems, and a willingness to let players fail. Elsewhere keeps the studio's design philosophy while pushing the franchise into 3D for the first time.

Studio Profile

Quick reference for the studio's foundational details. Use this when you want to confirm Klei's history at a glance before reading the longer history section below.

Notable Games

Klei's released catalog spans action platformers, stealth, survival, simulation, parkour, and deckbuilders. Don't Starve: Elsewhere joins a back catalog that has steadily evolved away from side-scrolling action and toward open, systems-driven survival sandboxes.

Don't Starve launched on April 23, 2013 and brought the studio its first major commercial breakout. Don't Starve Together followed on April 21, 2016, transforming the single-player survival formula into a long-running co-op service that continues to receive updates alongside Elsewhere's development.

Studio History

Klei was founded in July 2005 in Vancouver, British Columbia, by Jamie Cheng with co-founder and creative director Jeffrey Agala. The studio's early years focused on small downloadable titles, including the puzzle game Eets in 2006.

The studio's first widely-noticed release was Shank in 2010, a side-scrolling beat-em-up. Mark of the Ninja followed in 2012 and earned recognition for translating stealth genre conventions into a 2D side-on perspective with clean readability and forgiving but punishing rules.

The 2013 release of Don't Starve set the studio's long-term direction. Its hand-drawn art, gothic humor, and uncompromising survival loop became Klei's calling card, and the 2016 follow-up Don't Starve Together extended that formula into a persistent online co-op experience that the studio still actively supports.

Klei expanded its catalog in the second half of the 2010s with Invisible, Inc. (a turn-based stealth roguelike) in 2015, Oxygen Not Included (a colony simulation set inside an asteroid) in 2019, and Hot Lava (a 3D first-person parkour game built around childhood floor-is-lava play) the same year. Griftlands, a deckbuilding roguelike with branching dialogue, shipped in 2021.

In 2017 the studio acquired Slick Entertainment, a small Vancouver developer best known for the N+ series. On January 25, 2021, Klei announced that it had become a subsidiary of Tencent. The studio publicly stated that Tencent acquired a majority stake but that Klei would retain full creative and operational control over its games and projects, and the studio's leadership and culture would not change. The arrangement was framed as a way to secure long-term independence rather than a transition into a larger publisher's pipeline.

Klei now employs roughly 100 people, the vast majority based out of its Vancouver studio.

Don't Starve: Elsewhere

Don't Starve: Elsewhere was unveiled on April 9, 2026 and is Klei's first all-new entry in the Don't Starve series since Don't Starve Together launched in 2016. Klei is both developing and publishing the game.

Elsewhere is also the most ambitious technical pivot in the franchise's history. Where Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together used a fixed-perspective 2D paper-cutout style, Elsewhere moves the series into a fully 3D world with free-look movement. This change is paired with a long-requested jump button and an entirely new multi-tiered, elevation-based world that adds mountains, cliffs, plateaus, rivers, seas, and cave systems on top of the genre's traditional flat plane. Klei has also introduced a new hazard called the Fog, a creeping, sanity-draining environmental threat that sits alongside falling and starvation as one of three core failure states.

Two of these design pillars line up with games already in Klei's catalog. Hot Lava in 2019 was the studio's first first-person 3D project and gave the team direct experience with platforming, jumping, and verticality in a 3D space. Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together established the studio's core competency in survival systems: hunger, sanity, seasons, base-building, crafting, and procedural generation. Elsewhere combines those two skill sets into a single project, which is the framing Klei has used in talking about how the game came together.

The studio has been clear that Elsewhere is a separate experience rather than a replacement. Don't Starve Together will continue to receive updates, and Klei has stated that the two games have equal reasons to exist for a long while. Cosmetics and characters from Don't Starve Together will not transfer to Elsewhere because the new project uses a different art style and is set in a new world distinct from the Constant. New players can start with the getting started guide to learn the core loop without prior series experience.

Unconfirmed Details

The following details about the Elsewhere project specifically have not been published by the studio. They are listed here so readers know what is still missing rather than to fill in guesses.

• Team size assigned to Elsewhere within Klei. The studio has roughly 100 employees, but the proportion working on Elsewhere versus Don't Starve Together updates and other projects has not been disclosed.

• Total development time. Klei has not stated when Elsewhere entered preproduction, full production, or any internal milestone schedule.

• Internal project codename history. Pre-reveal teasers used the word "exspectamus" and a portal puzzle, but Klei has not confirmed an official codename for the project prior to announcement.

• Game engine. Klei has not publicly stated which engine Elsewhere uses, and no claim should be made until the studio confirms it.

• Release window. The April 9, 2026 announcement included no release date, no estimated quarter, and no early-access plans.

• Console plans. Only PC via Steam has been confirmed at announcement; no console platforms have been announced.

When Klei publishes more information through its official site, newsletter, or in-game updates, this article will be updated. Until then, treat the items above as open questions rather than implied answers.