Road to Vostok is one of the most-wishlisted games on Steam, presenting players with an intense survival experience that boasts authentic mechanics, maps based on real-world locations, and a hardcore permadeath mode that’ll challenge even the most talented of gamers. The game’s last demo – which was released in 2022 – pulled in more than 400,000 players, and thanks to a recent catch-up with the game’s solo developer, I learned that the next demo will be roughly five times bigger than the first one.
It’s set to drop in a week or two and is the result of painstaking work. As I spoke to Antti, the dedicated creator of Road to Vostok, I learnt that the upcoming demo is the result of 615 hours of effort, which saw him port the entire game from Unity to the Godot engine.
Here’s what I found out about the upcoming demo from my catch-up with Antti.
‘First Glimpse of the Main Gameplay Loop’
The upcoming Road to Vostok demo will reveal the core gameplay loop, which involves ‘looting, preparing, and planning before you head into this dangerous journey towards Vostok, which is a high-risk, high-reward permadeath zone in the game.’
During our catch-up, Antti was forthcoming about what the all-new demo will showcase, including:
- Four demo maps
- One ‘crossing point’
- One trader
- 15 animated weapons
- 100 items
- Shelter system
- Trading system
- Weapon modding
There’s a solid goal to deliver an early access product of Road to Vostok, with Antti speaking transparently and stressing that the first commercial version of the game is ‘getting there slowly but surely’. There will be one more demo following this upcoming release – but after that, it’s all systems go for a push to release the game into early access on PC.
That’s something that Antti spoke about:
Before the Public Demo 2 the development was kind of “tunnel visioned” because I was just building those core mechanics one by one and focusing on individual features. After this demo I can start “opening the aperture” to other important topics like game design, level design, atmosphere and so on.
I played the first demo for Road to Vostok and was impressed by how the game was shaping up. It’s exactly the kind of game I like to play, and I’m hopeful that ‘Demo 2’, which will expand on the game’s key mechanics, such as shelter, trading, and looting, will only make me more excited to get my hands on the full product. Per the Road to Vostok website, the game will eventually feature dynamic events, a full-fledged weather system, advanced weapon modifications, vehicles, and a separate ‘winter mode’ that offers a significantly higher challenge.
Road to Vostok’s next demo is expected to land within the next two weeks.
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