If you watched Gamescom‘s Opening Night Live showcase, you might have spotted a new game appearing plucked straight from the ever-evolving PUBG universe: DED.NET. It’s an all-new shooter with a unique operating model that fuses roguelike energy with traditional run-and-gun gameplay, and in this world, death is only the beginning.
After the game’s inaugural trailer landed, I sat down with PUBG DED.NET’s creative director, Dave Curd, to learn all about this ambitious and high-octane shooter. It’s no big secret that the PUBG universe is undergoing a diversified transformation, but it’s not all working out for the best.
How will DED.NET be different?
Blindspot Bombed Hard, But DED.NET Might Not
PUBG Blindspot holds something of a record in the gaming space. From when it launched in early access this year to when it was pulled offline, it managed to rack up a miserable 51 days on the market. It made it from February to March, and that was all she wrote.
Aside from that, the PUBG brand is also reaching into other areas, such as the extraction shooter space, with Black Budget, another experimental title that fuses traditional extraction with a BR-style map-shrinking mechanic.
During Gamescom, DED.NET became the talk of the town (kind of) because of the strong showing the game had on the floor. KRAFTON had built a wonderful themed booth completed with costumed performers, all of which echoed the insanity of the shooter they’d revealed that same week.
It certainly piqued my interest.
When I sat down with Dave Curd to learn more about the game, one of my first questions was a blunt one. I wanted to know how they were going to avoid becoming ‘the next PUBG Blindspot’:
We’re very responsible in building with lean teams, engaging the fans very early, validating the fun very early, and PUBG was built with the fans. I believe a good game is a handshake between the player and the developer.
I think if you’re too prescriptive, ‘This is the fun, play this way…’ Trust me, you’ve lost it.
That’s how we’ve been developing DED.NET, and so far, so good. That’s why we’re so stoked for this trailer and getting more people into the beta, getting more hands on it, and to help us harden it up.
The sheer notion of DED.NET’s conception was around a desire to grow the PUBG label and reach new audiences. It’s no big secret that PUBG’s foundational DNA rests in the battle royale space, but you can’t ride that train forever. That’s what Curd explained:
I was challenged to try to grow PUBG. They’re like, ‘We’ve got a good thing going, but can you spread that gospel to other players that we’re not reaching?’
I was like, ‘Man, there’s a lot of players in the West that I really think would be playing this game if we could give them a slightly more tailored experience.’
In Curd’s words, it was about examining the success of PUBG’s core battle royale experience and then looking at what the game had never done so well. What emerged was the antithesis of the BR formula: the roguelike progression that sits at the heart of DED.NET.
The very first one is ‘equal starting’, right? All right, the opposite of that, what if she could be on her third game and she runs into you on your eighth game, and you both feel okay about the outcome and that was the twist that got me a little curious.
It’s really hard to create something totally, totally new and have people go along for the ride, so you kind of… Bait.
‘Hey, you remember BRs, you remember circles? You remember how cool it feels to get to the end?’
But then our sauce is, what if death was just the beginning? What if even after your hot drop when you totally eat sh** and died, in the out-game, ‘Oh, akimbo finally came along, I can finally dual-wield, I’ve been chasing that. Okay guys, let’s play one more time.’
The operating model at the heart of DED.NET sees you become increasingly powerful the longer you play, picking up perks, items, equipment, and abilities as you go. It keeps things relatively unpredictable and dynamic, and that builds on the sheer batsh** crazy sense of the game itself.
Seriously, it’s nuts. Here’s the debut trailer:
But the vibe is what makes the game stand out. That’s what Curd told me, anyway:
Once we had the gameplay hook, I was empowered to hopefully create an evocative setting – mid-nineties, dark sense of humor, all of that.
It starts with, if it makes us laugh, and it’s something we like, think about the next day when we wake up, there’s probably something to it. When you decide you’re putting babydolls in the game, you don’t even understand the technical debt: the collision, where they can get into, should they climb on characters’ backs?
I want (players) to feel like they’re seeing something naughty and getting away with it. It’s as simple as, how do we make people smile? I guess that sounds stupid or cheesy, but if we’re not laughing, it’s probably not fresh.
PUBG DED.NET doesn’t have a release date, price point, or roadmap of any kind, but it’s still hugely exciting. If I were a gambling man, I’d bet this will do much better than PUBG Blindspot did, because although it’s insane and utterly bizarre, it feels familiar enough to not be off-putting.
It’s a shooter that doesn’t take itself seriously, and sometimes we all need to have a little mindless fun, right?
Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord server if PUBG DED.NET sounds like your kind of game.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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