Hello all, we hope you’re doing well and having a fantastic year so far! As always, thank you for your continued support and activity.
Red alert!
Ringing alarms and red lights are a constant reminder of the danger of the Deathground, but what lurks within their glow? We've just released this teaser clip if you haven’t already seen it. Check it on socials or enjoy it below:
Production updates
We’ve seen a lot of questions and comments on the game here that we’d like to address and hopefully bring you more up to speed on the recent developments of Deathground.
Previously, we’ve alluded to external and difficult challenges that have impacted our team, project and studio as a whole over the last year and more. Whilst the original timeline was extended to accommodate the increased game scope and team size with publisher support, these challenges have affected the timeline further as well as our communication and transparency. Whilst this included COVID-19 (as many studios experienced), changing team members and the war in Ukraine with valued team members’ lives being greatly disrupted, the largest factor was that we unfortunately parted ways with our publisher a while ago and this means the funding, marketing and support we once had is no longer available.
As you may imagine, there’s a lot of intricacies and behind-the-scenes business to conduct and conclude when a publishing partnership comes to an end and determining the path forward with development. Additionally, there's only so much we can detail here.
It’s not all doom and gloom
Due to the state of the games industry, development stories like ours are not uncommon today and we aren’t the only ones affected by significant layoffs, cancelled projects and global events. Many other studios would have (and indeed have) cancelled projects or even shut their doors when faced with similar circumstances and challenges. We have, however, done everything possible to support the core team and project and continue full development of Deathground.
Whilst we've downsized a bit and thus we’re a smaller team size again, we hope our commitment to the game is evident in all of the fun gameplay and cinematic content you’ve seen over the last year, including the trailer, all marketing updates and social content produced in-house. We’ve put the bulk of resources into developing the game itself as we must emphasise this as a priority, but we always want to be as transparent and engaging as we can on the marketing side too.
Despite these obstacles, we want to again highlight our commitment to the project and our team continues to work diligently towards the end goal of delivering an exciting and dread-filled dino-experience that captivates our community, namely you!
We’d like to ease any concerns with a dinosaur-based analogy: when the Kickstarter was launched, the team was much smaller, like a Compsongathus, little and scrappy. Even though there was much to build and learn, we were still capable even with our smaller scale, and we believe our early demo speaks to that.
With publisher support, we were able to expand the team and scope and we quickly became a Tyrannosaurus Rex with formidable size and strength (plus the little arms, don’t forget the little arms). We were able to make big moves, and an immense amount of work, from gameplay and AI systems to art and animations were built during this time. This was, however, at the cost of being slower, with less room to manoeuvre, and not being able to share as much as we would have liked.
Now, we’re a smaller team again, it’s also to our advantage and we have the chance to become more like the Raptor, where we can be highly agile and nimble but still with strong claws and predatory skills. Essentially we can work faster and with creative and marketing freedom at this scale but with the added benefit of development progress and experience from before.
In all shapes and sizes!
We’ve shown many work-in-progress images of the dinosaurs you can expect to encounter while surviving the Deathground, but we’d like to show you some more updated versions.
Utah Raptors, often referred to as just "Raptors," are experienced predators that will hunt and stalk you throughout the Deathground. While they may lack the experience and size of their adult counterparts, Juvenile Utah Raptors are still a threat to fear.
Compsognathus, often referred to as "Compy," are much smaller and slightly skittish. They usually occupy crawl spaces such as vents, making them a threat when hiding within these small spaces.
Allosaurus, often referred to as 'Allo,' are formidable carnivore predators. Their size, brute strength, powerful jaws, and predatory nature make them imposing figures.
The Tyrannosaurus-Rex, often referred to as 'T.Rex,' is the true king of the jungle and the largest dinosaur players can encounter in Deathground.
We’re still making many adjustments to get these dinos ready for their debut, and so, as always, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! We're also looking at the feasibility of including a toggle option for feathers as we know there's a split of opinions, but there will be more news on this in future updates.
Prototype access update
If you’re a backer and you missed the recent Kickstarter updates, we opened up access to our demo build and sent out keys so this is a quick reminder to please read the updates and check your messages to redeem your key.
Thanks for reading. More updates are on the way!
Ultimately, if you’re still here reading this update, you should know that it’s the support and passion from all of our community that has kept us going during these times.
We’re fully aware of the anticipation surrounding the game, the announcement of release dates, and more. We’re working as hard as we possibly can to realise our vision and deliver you further updates and of course, in time the game itself.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200770/Deathground/