Launched in 2004, Dofus quickly became an essential figure in video game Made in France. With its unique artistic direction and its tactical gameplay in turn, the title of the Roubaisian studio Ankama has attracted millions of players. Twenty years later, the saga made its comeback on the front of the stage with the highly anticipated release of Dofus 3. More than a simple update, this new opus is an ambitious technical and artistic overhaul, fruit of several years of risky work and paris. Back on a success story from Hauts-de-France , told at a 2025 PIX conference by Geoffroy Pineau and Maxime Lagache, respectively producer and Lead Developper Unity on the emblematic MMORPG.
Genesis of the project: Why Dofus 3?
If Dofus was able to cross the decades, it is at the cost of an almost heroic maintenance of a suspended technology. Originally developed in flash, the game has long challenged the limits of its engine. But in 2020, with the official end of the support of the antediluvian technology, the evidence is essential: Ankama must move on if he wants to continue to make the magic last for many years!
It is in this post-Cavid context, between the end of 2022 and the end of 2023, that Ankama began the ambitious project of Dofus 3 . The studio opts for Unity, an engine now central in its production. Thirty developers introduce a port in direct collaboration with Unity teams. Then the project is growing: it is not only a question of migrating the game from one technology to another, but of reinventing it, modernizing its interfaces, enriching its animations and improving its performance.
This technological moult is therefore much more than a simple change of engine: it embodies the desire to bring Dofus into a new era, without betraying the soul of the original game!
Get out of the flash shackles
Flash has long been the pillar of Dofus, but also its main constraint. Graphic limitations, unable to animate maps, display restrictions on the number of players simultaneously: the developers had to compose with an increasingly anachronistic engine. Geoffroy Pineau and Maxime Lagache are categorical on this subject: Holding Dofus 2 was simply a technical feat.
The passage to the unity engine was experienced as a release, but the transition was not painless. The task promises to be titanic: exporting twenty years of assets, developing a cult game without breaking its balance, while continuing to bring Dofus 2 and its community of more than 200,000 monthly players to life. Anecdote which is worth its weight of Kamas: the team will even go so far as to recreate HD textures from simple screenshots, for lack of being able to recover original files with absent or difficult to find subscribers. Scripts are automated to the chain to manage this colossal volume of content. For Maxime Lagache, this is the most painful memory of the project: the management of HD and 4K packs, with 140,000 textures to bring out in three different levels of quality. A " real hell", as Maxime Lagache sums it up.
For Ankama, the site is also an opportunity to recruit new developers . Flash being a dead and buried technology, going to Unity allows the French giant to attract young talents in order to renew its teams. Today, all new studio projects are also thought of around Unity. A salutary unification.
Ads and launch: a controlled marketing turn
In 2024, after several years of semi-confidential development, Ankama made a complete turnaround in its communication strategy . Make way for transparency, Devlogs, community polls, an intense beta phase of four to five months, and especially a large campaign orchestrated around Twitch in December 2024.
The objective is clear : to seduce the old people of the old and attract a whole new generation of players. Thanks to the involvement of major figures of the French streaming scene, including Kameto, Squeezie, Mistermv and the Solary E-Sports teams, Karmine Corp, Aegis and Gentlemates, the launch takes on an unprecedented scale. Result: more than 300,000 pre -registration at the announcement of the beta, and a million players affected in just one month. Our speakers tell us that we even had to increase the number of servers in emergency to deal with this record crowd.
In terms of rewards, the consecration is soon to arrive: Dofus 3 wins the price of the best game as a service (GAAS) at the Pegasses 2025, a prestigious recognition in a context yet tense for the French video game industry
The multi-count puzzle
If the transition to Unity has solved many problems, he gave birth to other challenges, in particular the thorny question of the multi -count . This specificity of the DOFUS community, a good half of which likes to play characters at the same time, represents an issue that is both technical, ergonomic and marketing.
Currently, the team is considering two solutions: be authorized by several windows, with an interface designed to facilitate switch from one character to another; be simulated several characters on one and the same customer. It is this second track which seems rather to impose itself, although it also raises new questions: how to manage backups? How to avoid drifts? How to organize data flows on the server side?
Still in the discussion phase, this subject illustrates the complexity of providing responses to current technical constraints while continuing habits deeply rooted in the community.
Production memories: between galleys and moments of grace
Behind the figures and lines of code, there are humans, galleys, and moments outside time. For Maxime Lagache, the most beautiful memory remains that of the release: the culmination of two years of hard work awarded by the enthusiasm of historical fans and newcomers . For Geoffroy Pineau, it is the closure of the servers of Dofus 2: " A work that exceeds you ". A historical moment, symbolized by Squeezie's emotion discovering her NPC in the new version of the game.
But the road was also strewn with pitfalls. Geoffroy Pineau remembers DDOS attacks , of an unprecedented scale in the history of the saga, which disturbed the first two weeks of launch. A huge stress for the team, coupled with intense community pressure.
Despite a party a little spoiled by the attacks on the servers, it is pride that predominates . With Unity, Dofus 3 will benefit from new possibilities: dynamic animations of cards, shaders, particle system, richer visual feedback ... The world of twelve will now be able to evolve according to the choices of players. A reinforced promise of immersion which should delight fans of the first hour.
Find the balance between audacity and loyalty
Dofus 3 is the story of a studio that dared to shape its raw jewel without taking the risk of breaking it. A project that required years of work, constant questioning and a perfectly calibrated marketing strategy. Ankama was able to find the balance between fidelity at the origins and technological daring, to revive a legend of the French game at the time of realistic 3D superproductions. If the success of this resurrection is already there, the future promises to be even richer: evolutionary gameplay, emerging technologies, new extensions ... One thing is certain, Dofus 3 has not finished surprising !
The PIX festival brings together the ICC ecosystem
Geoffrey Pineau and Maxime Lagache were invited in April 2025 as part of the Pix festival organized by the Plaine Images. Pix was born from the desire to make the actors of the cult and creative industries of the Hauts-de-France territory shine.
At the same time, meetings between actors in the creative industries sector, Pix is also an inspiration for professionals "by the way" wanting to seize good ideas, methodos, creativity and innovations produced within ICC.
Find more information on the festival website.
The full replay of our conference is available here:
And to find more conferences, go to our YouTube channel.
