The makers of the highly successful Dead by Daylight game have just recently announced that they are making a new asymmetric hunting game. In this one there is one hunter and five runners who are trying to escape. The runners cannot kill the hunter though there will be ways to slow down or stun the hunter. Additionally, while the runners are playing in third-person and have a large field of view the hunter will be in first-person with a more limited field of view.
One cool thing about Deathgarden is there is a ton of customization available for both the runners and hunter. Players can tweak not only what clothes they’ll use but also the colourization of just about everything about their character. The goal here is to give players more of a personal attachment to their characters as if it is them in the game itself.
There’s also an interesting mechanic of totems being dropped on the map occasionally. These totems will give the hunter various kinds of buffs and the runners will need to make choices about if they are trying to focus on surviving first or if they want to take out the totem. There’s also a proximity factor to the totem where the closer the hunter is to it the stronger the buff is.
One thing which they are also adamant about is there will be no power gained through levelling or to be bought in a store. They believe the advantage veteran players will have over new players is their experience in the game and with the systems. If they started increasing player’s power as they level up or sold boosts for money the game would become prohibitive for new players, which would spell the end of the game quickly.
Since the game was just announced there isn’t a whole lot they could talk about yet, more announcements will be coming soon. However, what I did see of it at PAX East looked good and everyone seemed to be having fun playing. Currently, Deathgarden is in closed beta and you can sign-up to join on their website.
