We chat to the team behind island survival sim Better Late Than DEAD

If there’s one genre that springs instantly to mind when you think of Steam Early Access, it’s got to be the survival sim. Whether you’re crafting new trousers, running away from zombies, or getting bitten in half by sharks, there’s no shortage of ways to die horribly in the unforgiving wilderness. Better Late Than DEAD is Brazilian team Odin Game Studios’ attempt to come at the genre from a slightly different angle; rather than endless, aimless wandering, the aim here is to provide a clear endpoint goal for the survival experience, and to remove some of the busywork involved in crafting. I spoke to Odin co-founder Alexandre Kikuchi and publisher Excalibur’s head of marketing Richard Barkley about their project.

GameWatcher: How do you make a survival game stand out in a pretty crowded genre?

Alexandre Kikuchi: Yeah, I think you know about all the survival games; Seven Days to Die, Stranded: Deep, The Forest, right? Well we are trying to make something more realistic with the ‘survival’ part, so no fantasy creatures or anything like that, and we try to keep everything inside the perspective and immersion of the player. For example, we have some great things in the game regarding interactions with animals, and in multiplayer, with the other players. Not just killing other players or running from them, but something more like in The Hunger Games movie. For the singleplayer, you can choose between just surviving, and trying to find a way out. We won’t say how you can do this, but we will give the players the tools they need. We want that to always be present on the players mind.

GameWatcher: So does Better Late Than DEAD have a story? I know you start the game with only a picture of a child and no memory of how you got to the island. Will there be cutscenes and so on?

Alexandre Kikuchi: We have some background story, but not something really big. It’s a part of the game, but it’s not like the game entirely depends on the background story. There will be an introduction to show the player, and there are player missions where they need to find an item, but they can also get out and explore the island. They can try to find out what is going on, but they can also just play and explore if they want to.

GameWatcher: That sounds interesting. A lot of survival games end up feeling a little aimless after a while, but you’re giving players a definite endpoint to aim for.

Alexandre Kikuchi: Yeah, we want something different. For example, we’re influenced by games like Resident Evil, games where you are exploring a story, a mystery. So you can interact with objects to check if they’re useful or not, we’ll have information for the player when they try to interact with objects. I think this will increase immersion, and will give the player another perspective of survival on the island. It’s not just like you’re playing, building millions of objects and that’s it. We already have games like this, so we want something with a more realistic approach, where the player can try to figure out what’s happening or not. It’s his choice.

GameWatcher: Could you shed some light on the crafting system? I know you’re using a slightly different system than most survival games.

Alexandre Kikuchi: Yeah. We tried some different mechanics, but at the same time we wanted to use a system that the player was used to. They know how games work, so we came up with a point and click selection of objects, but then you have actions to mix with the crafting. The player needs to use the right actions with the item or it won’t work at all. For example; the player has a wood stick, and he wants to make a spear. So he gets the stick, and he has to cut the upper part of the stick to make it sharp. For this, he needs a knife to open up the ‘cut’ action. You need to use these items and actions in the correct order to craft items. But we don’t want players to have to create a million items to build what they want. That’s not necessary for us, we don’t want the player to make ten items to create the one they need. We want an easier approach. We want them to think about the right order of items and actions to create what they want. It’s about logic.

GameWatcher: What kind of challenges will the player face in the wilderness?

Alexandre Kikuchi: We have animals as a challenge for the player. Players have to worry about their health, so they can get hungry, they can fall from high places and break their legs. They have to handle all this, because there is permadeath in the game. Players will be able to make traps, catch animals. There are small creatures and large creatures. For example, a snake is deadly because it can poison the player. For multiplayer it might be a different experience. We want players to create their own servers, so they can make a private server for their friends, or they can create an open server for anyone to join. For now we will allow players to basically play how they want online, so they can play PVP wars, or try to survive together. Also, they will have the same objectives in multiplayer as the singleplayer; they can find the right items, complete the mission and escape the island. A match could take an hour, a day, a week, it will depend on the player and what they want to do.

GameWatcher: You mention a weather system in the game notes as well. What kinds of extreme weather will players have to deal with?

Alexandre Kikuchi: Right now we have just a couple of things, like heat and rain. We thought about hurricanes, big waves and all that kind of stuff, but I think it would not be good for the things we want the players to be able to do on the island. This is something that we want players to help us with. We have three island parts, two small ones and one bigger island. The players will have to go between these islands, and the weather can have a big effect on this. Players can get dehydrated, can get cold, can get sick and die. If you’re cold you’ll need to make a fire, or find a coat. This is part of the weather system, because obviously if it is raining you can’t make a fire. But then you can get water from the rain with a bowl. So we are trying to think of different things to do with the weather like this.

GameWatcher: How many players can join a multiplayer game?

Alexandre Kikuchi: Right now, we have four players in the Early Access version. We can have more or less, but it will depend on the community feedback. We really want players to participate in development, so that we can develop the game the way the players want, from what they miss in other survival games.

GameWatcher: That’s presumably why you went for the Early Access model, then?

Alexandre Kikuchi: Yes. We could, to be honest, take a few more months depending on polish and speed and then release a full game, but we want to use Early Access to find out what players want, what they have missed in other games. That will mix with our unique features to create a different challenge for players. We know that there are a lot of survival games out there, and we think that we can add something. That’s why I think that a game like Stranded: Deep has something different, and has attracted a lot of players, even from other survival games.

GameWatcher: So what will be in the initial Early Access version of the game? Will the solo mode be fully playable?

Alexandre Kikuchi: Yes, mostly. There will be some things that we will not have in that version, like traps and a few other things. We’re experimenting with a few things, like some of the interactions with objects, but as an Early Access version we’ll have almost the full singleplayer experience, and a playable multiplayer. We will keep communicating with our players on the Steam forums, to let them know what we are working on.

GameWatcher: This may be more a question for the publisher, really. Excalibur is generally known for these hardcore simulators – Euro Truck 2, Construction Simulator, Train Simulator and so on – this is a slightly unusual title for the company. Did you approach them with this concept, or were they actively looking to broaden their horizons?

Alexandre Kikuchi: We started working with them last year. We had a lot of ideas, so did they. We have the same thoughts on a lot of things about gaming. As you say, they make a lot of simulator games, and we do like simulator stuff ourselves. Our first game, Enforcer, was a police sim. While we were talking with them, we started to grow some ideas, create some prototypes. Finally we came up with the idea of Better Late Than DEAD and took it to them. I think they want to try some different approaches, but following some of their ideas on the simulator front. It’s a good relationship between us.

Richard Barkley: Yeah, the reality is that virtually all of the sim games we publish are licences. Obviously, if you don’t own that licence, you’re not in control of driving your own revenue. You’re relying on outside sources, and those can quickly dry up. Excalibur had been so successful in selling titles that were never going to be critically acclaimed; we sold about 45,000 copies of Street Cleaning Simulator, for example, which is an absolutely ridiculous concept. That’s how we stayed in business, by publishing these niche titles. Alex came to us with the idea for Enforcer, which was a police sim, and also showed us a prototype of Better Late Than DEAD as well, and that’s really how it came about. Our need to have more control over our IP, and our need to break away from just mainstream simulation games as well.

GameWatcher: Is this something that Excalibur will look to push going forward, with other third-party developers? Less working with licenses?

Richard Barkley: Absolutely. The reality is that Excalibur is a very small publisher, and that means developers that don’t want to self-publish on Steam or whatever can approach us, and we have a much more viable business model that allows us to put money into fun projects that the big publisher just wouldn’t be interested in. When you get to a situation like Square Enix, where you sell 6 million copies of the latest Tomb Raider, and that’s somehow seen as a failure, there’s something intrinsically wrong there.

Alexandre Kikuchi: This is great for us. When Odin started out we were seeking funding, seeking investment, and when we talked with Excalibur, what was great was that we could try a different game, while at the same time exploring new ideas within the simulator genre. We can do things that are really personal, really different, by looking at what the market doesn’t have today; a different survival game, a different simulator like the police game. We will, I think, have some more of these unique ideas in the coming months and years.

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Many thanks to both Alexandre and Richard for speaking to me. Better Late Than DEAD launches on Steam Early Access this July 9.