It's a fantastic start to our campaign, thanks to your support!
It took only 15 hours to reach 50% of our goal, much more than we expected. We're on a good path to succeeding and delivering you the most anticipated game feature, according to your feedback. The first-person combat will be a massive expansion of the existing gameplay mechanics and allow you to switch between two totally different camera systems, depending on your preferences. Anytime in the game, you'll be able to change the perspective from a natural, first-person, very immersive point-of-view to a third-person camera, where you can control the environment with more focus on any of its aspects.
In this way, we'll be much closer to the other best post-apo action RPGs, where you can experience the same situations from different points of view and customize your playing style.
But why is this feature such a big challenge?
In video game engines like Unreal 5, which we're using for Chernobylite 2, it's relatively easy to set up a camera behind the back of your avatar with the visible body (third-person camera) or in the position of the head with a body that is primarily invisible (first-person camera). The real issues start when it comes to planning what parts of the environment and your body should be displayed and in which way.
In first-person perspective, your camera position and orientation are fixed with your head position, meaning you can't move it freely without moving the body. It lets you see the close objects with more detail, aim more precisely, and immerse more profoundly in the feeling of being part of the world.
In third-person mode, it's easy to allow you to orbit the camera all around your character, which gives plenty of opportunities to control the environment and the movement of your game hero more efficiently and flexibly around the surrounding objects or enemies.
When it comes to just an exploration of the world, we could say that it's just a matter of the comfort and enjoyment of selecting this or another perspective. However, moving to combat, each of the above options affects the encounter pace, your perception, the speed of reaction, and the easiness of performing this or this action. For example, to keep it short, using blunt weapons is usually much more natural in the third-person perspective, where you sway the weapon all around your body. But oppositely, shooting and aiming with firearms is definitely more immersive when you choose a first-person perspective and use the weapon sight like in reality.
To balance everything around both third- and first-person combat systems, there is a need to customize body and weapons animations, interface elements, camera movement routines, and overall difficulty balances - which leads us to the point where we not only work on the player model and movement, but also refine the enemy AI and animation setups. And then, you need to make sure that the game is fun and plays well in both modes or whenever you change your perspective within any game situation. This means more testing, bug fixing, and potential difficulties with playing that need to be addressed - and this is why we're here, asking for your support.
We already know we can do it with your help, and we're glad you're supporting us in working on this task!
Stay tuned for more news, and don't forget to spread the word about our campaign to your friends. We believe that after reaching the fundamental campaign goal, the following stretch goals will be as cool as the main one.
Cheers,
Wojciech Pazdur
Creative Director
We're working on our new game! Add it to your wishlist!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2075100/Chernobylite_2_Exclusion_Zone/