In 2025, long-term partner Supercell asked us to create a 2.5D animated cinematic for the promotion of Clash Royale’s “The Undead March” season. After working on dozens of projects together over multiple years, they trusted us to create something unique and different for them. The result from fans was overwhelmingly positive worldwide, earning over 7.6 million views on YouTube and being recognized by Supercell as one of their most organically successful and impactful video releases of 2025.

“When you look for a partner, you naturally expect solid work, but it’s rare to find a team that truly cares about the project to the point where they feel like a genuine extension of your own. With Mooncolony, we didn’t just get great results, we had a great experience getting there.” — André Forni, Game Artist at Supercell

The aim was to bring narrative and depth to the new Witch Evolution Card and 1v1 ranked challenge. In this 2.5D animated cinematic, we explore The Witch’s tragic origin story and her relationship to fan favorite “Larry” the skeleton. The story reveals an unexpected emotional side behind two of the game’s most iconic characters, centered around friendship, sacrifice, and loss. For this project, Mooncolony handled every aspect of production, from concept to storyboarding, illustration, animation, 2DFX, lyrics, music, audio, and final polish.

“Clash Royale's Season of the Witch cinematic was such a blast to work on. It involved style pitching, visual development, and close collaboration with artists from all kinds of fields (concept artists, illustrators, animators, and VFX artists), which is exactly the kind of teamwork I love as an Art Director. These cinematics are pretty special because we get to be involved from the very start, shaping early style decisions all the way through to the final art and animation.” — Joris Dewolf, Art Director

The project aimed to solve a creative challenge: how to portray the poignant backstory of a more serious character in a world typically known for its humor and chaos. The solution was to tell her story through paper puppet theatre, a haunting yet beautiful handcrafted style that allowed us to explore the Clash universe in a more serious tone. The handcrafted aesthetic was brought to life by the art team through clever use of layering and lighting, enhancing the depth of silhouettes, paper folds, and vertical cuts to give the visuals a tangible, storybook feel.

“My role was guiding the art direction, helping the team push toward a unique visual identity while keeping everything consistent from start to finish. Though the artists themselves deserve all the credit for the amazing ideas and art that shaped the cinematic. Together, we brainstormed art styles, created mock-ups that felt straight out of the cinematic, and compiled them into a visual pitch document for the client. Once the client picked a direction, we dove into a short visual development phase, refining the style and shaping its distinctive visual language  (a look the whole team is really proud of). These visuals then became the reference for the final illustrations featured in the trailer.” — Joris Dewolf, Art Director

“We did things slightly differently from usual in this one. There was an intense visual development process to come up with a cool visual style for the cinematic, and we designed illustrations to be used as props to the animation team. The end result is very cool, I'm very proud of the work we did as a team.” - Alexandre Leoni, Lead Artist

Audio was a key element of this project, especially since our characters don’t speak. So key, in fact, that it’s earned us a nomination for Outstanding Original Music at the Society for Games Cinematics Awards! That’s why each scene is guided by the narration of a hidden puppet master telling the story. The music reflects the emotional tone throughout, opening soft and slow but gradually building to be playful and hopeful. There are also fun elements included, such as stopping and starting to match the hiding and sneaking moments. The audio eventually grows with more energy into heavier, metallic music for the Witch’s transformation and final shot. Unique touches like paper creaks and mechanical sounds add another dimension, bringing the visuals to life.

Our internal teams and Supercell worked closely throughout to ensure the unique stylized aesthetic and narrative landed exactly as intended. 

“Working with Supercell was (and always is) fantastic. They really know how to create a safe, collaborative space. The feedback is clear and thoughtful, and you genuinely feel like part of their team, which makes the whole process flow naturally and keeps the creative energy high.” — Joris Dewolf, Art Director

We’re fortunate to have had a fantastic relationship with Supercell that has spanned a variety of projects, from cinematics like these to loading screens and in-game emotes. If you want to see more of our Supercell work, check out our portfolio.

Animation Team: Bobby Donald, Gordon Howie, Mathieu Lafay, Alan MacEachern

Music: Cezar Brandão (arrangements and music production), Jorge Mutarelli and Cezar Brandão (Lyrics and additional voices), Charly Coombes (main voice and additional voices), Cezar Brandão and Vitor Motter (sound design), Ganso Music and Blood Audio (Studio), Dani Monaco (executive production)

Artists: Daniele Santandrea, Mattia Rangoni, Florent Mounier, Kate Lischina, Lekso Tiger, Zhongyi Zeng, Rafael De Guzman, Mingzhi Liang

Lead Artist: Alexandre Leoni

Art Direction: Joris Dewolf

Director: Dave Ferguson, André Forni (Supercell), Fredrik Herneoja (Supercell)

Project Management: Meghan Hamilton, Katie Millar, Amy Paterson