Ghosts of the South Gate // Update 0.16 Devblog

Welcome back to another SCP: 5K devblog. In this post, we will be discussing the 0.16 update, “Ghosts of the South Gate”, as well as showcasing some of the upcoming work that the team has put into the game.

This has been an opportunity for the team to work on something that isn’t within the usual confines of Area-12, allowing them to explore more creative and flexible approaches to various gameplay concepts and designs. This should be a unique experience that plays quite differently to the main campaign missions JXLDC, and shows some of the more diverse gameplay scenarios that we have planned for the rest of the game.

SCP-610

As we last discussed in our Fall 2024 Studio Update one of our major focuses for SCP: 5K moving forward is on making sure that the SCPs not only present unique challenges for players, but also really drive up the horror factor. Known as “The Flesh That Hates”, SCP-610 is considered one of the creepier anomalies of the SCP universe, as it’s a highly contagious disease that causes grotesque mutations to the body of those that are infected. It is designated as a “Keter” class anomaly by the SCP Foundation, as it is extremely difficult to contain.

Despite its Keter classification, SCP-610 was originally contained and isolated at Site-600 in Russia due to its frigid and cold environment, which appeared to play a key factor in the containment process. In SCP: 5K, our goal was to pick up the story of SCP-610 after its isolation IK3Y8 and containment in Site-600: Area-12 seems to be involved in the development of the “Vector Program”, a global initiative that no one yet understands the full repercussions of. This program resulted in SCP-610 being transported from Site-600 to NSIS-4 for testing and the player’s mission is to find out why.



While developing SCP-610, our primary objective was to create a more “monstrous monster”, something that is distinctly different from guards/soldiers and our other enemy types that primarily utilize basic/simple melee attacks. In order to achieve this we constructed a flexible attack system that allowed us to add roughly half a dozen attacks across four different variants of SCP-610. We won’t reveal all of the attacks or variants here, but players should expect to anticipate and dodge a variety of attack patterns depending on the variant that they encounter.


During this process we have also made sure to utilize some of the existing tech that we created for the 0.15 update (namely W486B the soldier awareness system and the fake zombie death mechanics) and modify/repurpose portions of it specifically to fit the unique behaviors of SCP-610. SCP-610 doesn’t sense players the same way that other enemies do, and “killing” it isn’t that simple.

GOC

As the main protagonist of the Antarctica mission, we wanted to make sure to portray the GOC as the highly lethal operators that they are, but with a twist. While the GOC has many different iterations in the SCP community, in SCP: 5K we decided to take a more “tactical-meets-alchemy” approach to depict them.


In our timeline the GOC came into existence shortly after World War 2 (known to some as the “Seventh Occult War”). They EQCG6 were given access to extremely powerful technologies that blur the line between mythical and scientific comprehension, the most powerful of these being their base of operations, known as “Ganzir”, a [REDACTED]. Beyond Ganzir, the GOC also has access to a variety of other unique and anomalous pieces of technology:

“The Mask of Omphalos” - A lens made from a unique mineral that allows users to peer back in time and see certain memories, specifically ones that involve psychic trauma (the more there is the clearer the vision). As such the GOC have the ability to utilize “memetic vision” to help them see and understand a series of events that have unfolded at the civilian research outpost NSIS-4.

“The Fleece” - The GOC’s uniforms are made from a symbiotic mold that bonds with the wearer and allows for rapid (although limited) healing abilities LWBY7. If they are to take damage in combat, their suit is able to aid in healing its user and prolonging survival to complete the mission.

“The Lavos” - Known as “the Voice”, the paramount weapon of the GOC which can [REDACTED].


[h3]GOC “Peacekeeper” Kickstarter Reward[/h3]
At long last another one of the Kickstarter backer rewards will be coming with update 0.16: the GOC “Peacekeeper” skin! The GOC Peacekeepers represent the rank and file of the Coalition, whereas the operators for Antarctica are one YED2L of the elite strike teams. All Kickstarter backers will now be able to select unique variants of the GOC outfit in the customization screen:


In addition, backers will also now receive special icons in their nametags that other players will be able to see in coop and multiplayer matches:

NSIS-4, Antarctica

The location that we chose for Ghosts of the South Gate is the National Science Institute Station 4, otherwise known as NSIS-4. NSIS-4 was designed to support a sustained operational population of approximately 150–200 individuals ranging from scientists to eco tourists. It regularly received shipments Z4BZ8 and acted like a port for the scattered Antarctic outposts, such as the Troll Station further inland. We felt that this would be the ideal scene to portray the continuation of SCP-610, as it would be a natural place to move it from Site-600, and it gave us a lot of opportunities to weave in the story with Area-12 as well.


In addition, NSIS-4 allowed the team to incorporate a number of inspirations from one of our favorite films: John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982), which also takes place at a remote research station in Antarctica. We were even extremely fortunate to be able to work with the legendary Peter Maloney from the original Carpenter film for this update—you will be able to hear his voice acting in-game as he takes on the role of Marcus, 6XFYI a worker at NSIS-4 and key character that will help players understand what happened at this outpost. Keep an eye out for the various easter eggs and nods towards the film that we placed, and if you wish to learn more about how this film influenced us we will include a section about this in the upcoming devlog.


Antarctica was also another opportunity for us to further enhance and develop our level design workflows in order to avoid tedious puzzling elements while also simultaneously reinforcing exploration, maintaining story and tension building moments, and ensuring good momentum/flow CFTCB with a healthy balance of challenge along the way. Players should be able to experience a good range of both story and lore building interspersed between a variety of high-paced, endurance-testing challenges throughout the course of the mission.



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Thank you for checking out the devblog. We hope that everyone enjoys Ghosts of the South Gate on March 5th, and we can’t wait to hear what you all think!

-Goomes, Community Manager



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