Hello friends
Vladimir Savchenko here, I run Demagic Games studio, where we work on Unreal Engine projects, specializing in solving really complicated problems. I’ll be stepping in as the production director for Deadside. Our team is working on Hello Neighbor 1&2 with tinyBuild and a while ago Alex Nichiporchik asked us how we can assist the guys at Bad Pixel with their game’s development. We immediately fell in love with the project and after many hours spent with the game and the team, I’m here now to outline the 2022 roadmap for Deadside.
First let’s talk global. The Bad Pixel team will be rapidly growing to speed up development, shorten updates delivery time and improve the overall stability of the game. Team expansion is never an easy process and we’re hopeful for your support as we build up momentum.
Deadside has an outstanding community, your feedback is extremely valuable for the team and we are working on improving this process. A major part of this improvement will be extended updates staging on Public Test Server (PTS) prior to going live and establishing more convenient feedback channels for you to report issues and suggestions based on PTS, as well as voting for features. All voices will be heard.
Now let’s talk tactics. We aim at delivering 6 major updates throughout 2022 and several minor updates in between. We will be sharing the exact dates and detailed scope for all every update closer to its release, meanwhile here’s an outline of the main points we will be focusing on:
1. Technical foundation and groundwork. The team did a fantastic job delivering the game in its current state to Early Access, and in Q1-2 we will be focusing heavily on getting the project’s base ready for expansion. We’re talking movement optimizations, death and damage registration improvements, inventory and items storage expansion, support for advanced base building and systems, vehicles, significant increase in encounters density on the map, etc.
2. Spawn system overhaul. We are working on a design for a new spawn system with custom respawn markers and more control on the way players are spawned on the map. Though being relatively cheap to implement this feature has a significant impact on gameplay and balance. It will take several iterations on the PTS for it to hit all the live servers.
3. Resources and craft system redesign and expansion. Current state of this system in the game is the first step towards its original design with weapons disassembling, crafting and improvement and during 2022 we’ll be adding a lot of features
4. PvE events, missions, map density and expansion. The world of Deadside is a beautiful place to live in and we want you to have plenty of things to do in it. Over the course of 2022 we’ll be adding new non-combat mechanics, missions with unique rewards, PvE events, uncharted encounters and much more.
5. Weapons system and content overhaul. Deadside strikes a great balance between arcade and realistic gunplay, but as many of you mentioned it lacks distinct division between weapon classes for CQB, midrange and long range and the balance across all weapons lineup could be better. We’ll be addressing all of it in the nearest updates as well as adding more depth to the weapon system itself with features like more detailed recoil feedback pattern, progressive spread, damage drop and overhauled ballistics over mid/long range distances. On top of that we’ll be adding improved sound positioning, reworking all guns sound effects and animations
6. Base building system and raiding overhaul. We’ve got a huge number of requests from you for the late game stages features such as more content for the bases and improved raiding, so we will be addressing these points in 2022 as well. The team has great ideas for electricity, workshops, traps and a whole lot of other handy devices to complete your base in the grim world of the aftermath.
7. Vehicles. This one is a long time coming and due to the complexity of the feature itself and the colossal impact it has on the gameplay we will be implementing it in several stages throughout all of 2022. First stage - propeller swamp boats and rivers to support it will be introduced in Q2 with land vehicles to follow in Q3-4. We will share more info as we progress with the feature.
8. 100 players per server. With the proper foundation in place and all the core features implemented the team’s ultimate goal for 2022 is having 100 players per server along with an increased number of NPCs.
9. And more We have tons of more features and content planned for you that we’ll be sharing the info on starting from January. As for now we’ve prepared the New Year Update that is currently being deployed on all live servers. It marks the beginning of a new era in Deadside development, with super talented guys at Bad Pixel at the helm and tinyBuild as a publisher the game cannot be in better hands.
Stay tuned, friends!
