Heyho everyone,
we just revealed that we are opening up the books of Deponia again and the reactions have been as expected - very loud. It fills us with joy, that after all those years our community is still that dedicated - you rock! We were aware as well that there will be a lot of questions in the beginning so this is our first step to answer the most burning ones:
“Is this a Poki- Game? Where is he?”
No, Jan “Poki” Baumann is not with Daedalic Entertainment since roughly 2019 and is concentrating his creative outbursts into his music - you can check out and support him and his band over at their bandcamp site. Even though Poki is inevitably bound together with the titles of Deponia (and more), it was a culmination of several people who brought it to life in the form that we all love to play even years after their initial release. Surviving Deponia is created by people telling a new story, with new means - and giving it our own passion to make it as interesting and with the same atmosphere, humor and fun that was already established by its predecessors.
“What? Why now?”
Roughly a year and a half ago our longtime partners AtomicTorch Studio had just finalized CryoFall and were ready to take on their next project, which in their minds was set in stone to be a singleplayer game - simultaneously we were receiving numerous comments on all our platforms asking for anything new related to the Deponia Universe and already tinkered around with ideas how we could fulfill this wish after all those years, creating a first story outline. So when AtomicTorch Studio reached out to us, all things fell in place and we had the great opportunity to bring our idea for Surviving Deponia to life.
“Why no Point&Click?”
We were already throwing around ideas how we can integrate you as the player more into the immense world of Deponia and had several hurdles reached in our creative brainstorming - with AtomicTorch Studio’s experience in survival games approaching us last year, the only logical option was to combine both our efforts. While it is not a point-and-click adventure it gives you a unique opportunity to explore Deponia from a new point of view (see what I did there?). Things change though and us re-visiting Deponia now surely opens up the possibility for even more stories, maybe even Point&Click Adventures in the future.
“So, you are saying there will be a new Point&Click Deponia?”
Surviving Deponia’s development was not started “instead of” another project - it was started to build an interesting segway with a twist, between the finalized Rufus Saga and all the other stories waiting to be told. We hear your comments and feedback … but who knows where the story of Surviving Deponia leads to …well …I do … *slowly moves out of frame*
“What engine is Surviving Deponia built on?”
The basis for Surviving Deponia is the RENKEI™ - engine that AtomicTorch Studio developed themselves. Over the process of the last 7 years the engine was continuously improved and worked on, which means it is tested to a degree that guarantees extreme stability, tons of great features and refined development processes like patching, adding new features or similar. Compared to the multiplayer title CryoFall, Surviving Deponia is a clearly story-driven single-player game with a unique Daedalic-written story to tell and will include newly developed never-before-seen features.
“Who is working on this?”
As already mentioned, AtomicTorch Studio, developers of the RENKEI™ engine and CryoFall are taking care of the technical development side of the game. The creative side is completely handled by writers and artists who were formerly working on the Deponia series as well as dedicated fans of the series that have turned over the years into passionate “Daedalics” themselves. When it comes to the story, evolving the worldbuilding 7 years into the future and guaranteeing an overall consistent “Deponia-feel” you have myself, Daedalics Community Strategist, in the role of Executive Producer on this game. If you have seen our “Daedalic CanCan-Parody” Animation, our “Keeping up with the Daedalics” webcomics series or communicated in some kind of form with “Daedalic” in the last 4 years it is very likely that it was myself. We are aware that Poki's way of telling stories is truly unique and we don't plan to copy it. Instead we are putting our hearts and strength into creating something special that makes you feel at home on our beloved trash planet again.
We hope this could clear up the most pressing questions, follow us here or join our Discord for more information!
Best Regards,
Daniel / “Penta”
Executive Producer