• What is Derelicts, in a nutshell? Derelicts is asurvival co-op base building game that started as a passion project, back in 2019, available for wishlist on Steam or Epic Games Store . It is developed on Unreal Engine 5.
As a big lover of survival games (The Forest, Green Hell, Subnautica, Grounded), I started to get the idea to make my own survival game that would gather all the concept I had in mind and that I haven't really seen in past games. The idea of the game is to offer innovative ideas, in term of organic crafting, base building (automation), weather events and cool AI for ennemies to be interesting to fight.
The game is heavily oriented on horror/gore as well (so be warned!) but I'm planning to add both "creative" (no ennemy) and "peaceful" (no gore/horror) modes with time (not at first).
• Who is developing Derelicts? Hi! I'm Romain. I'm 33 and French. I'm the creator and sole developer of Derelicts (at least so far!).
• Is Derelicts you full-time job? It's not. I started working on it during evenings and weekends. I then took a 2 years leave from my daily job in order to completely be laser-focused on Derelicts development. This leave was only temporary as I was not getting any salary/wage during these 24 months (hence the Patreon. decision I will tell you about a bit below)! :)
• When is the game releasing? There is no official release date for Derelicts at the moment. The game will release when it's ready. I'm the sole developer working on it so it's really hard to forecast a specific date for release. The only thing I know is that I don't want to rush the release with a broken unoptimized game.
The good thing about being solo and auto-published is that I can choose the moment when I feel the game deserved your attention and time, when everything is ironed out and polished. However, you can still wishlist the game on Steam or Epic Games Store. This is helping me a lot! :)
• Will there be a demo so I can try the game before buying? At the moment, I'm still thinking about making a time-limited demo with the beginning of the game, so players can decide if they like the game or not. I will give more information about a potential demo as time goes on!
• How can I support the game? Is there a Kickstarter or Patreon? For now, I do have a Patreon available for people interested in helping. This Patreon was made in order for me to get help with funding the game, buying assets, trademarking it, paying for the official website you're reading this on. As I'm working full-time with no salary on Derelicts for 2 years, this is also greatly helping with the general cost of life. I'm really grateful to people who have been helping me so far!
As for a Kickstarter campaign, I will probably do one later on in order to get a lot more funding for many additional things like paying a company for localization (translating the game in 20 languages), paying a company for serious testing and debugging (to finalize the test with the community) and other heavy expenses like trademarking the game worldwide (which cost a good chunk!).
• Will the game release in Early Access and why? Yes, I'm planning to release Derelicts in Early Access. The answer to why is because being solo working on it means that it would take probably 6 years to have the full vision of the game I want being done. A lot of people asked me if I could release the game with good initial content and then add upon it with free updates.
My goal is to have the very first Early Access version with enough sandbox content as well as parts 1 or 2 "dungeons" for the story part. Then, I will add the additional story parts (meaning the dungeon to advance the story) with updates. This way, people can still play the game and come back to it when an update is made, so they can progress again.
If you're not liking this idea, please wait for the game to release in its full version so you're not disappointed by it! :)
• Can you play the game solo? Yes. Derelicts can be played from 1 to 4 players.
• How many players will the final version (after Early)? My goal is to have around 8 players being able to play on a same game. So far, I'm working with 4 players max but having more would be really cool!
• Will PvP be in the game? There is no Player vs Player mode planned for Derelicts. Only solo and co-operation.
• Is the game 1st person or 3rd person? The game will be 1st person only. There is no 3rd person planned.
• Is there an open alpha/beta planned? So far, there is only a closed alpha planned. The closed alpha is to reward people supporting the game on Patreon. It's the way for me to thank them for believing in the projet and trusting me. It's also to have a smaller pool of testers at first that know what they are getting into! :) This will also allow me to test the first versions with my community to remove most of the initial bugs (especially linked to multiplayer).
After the initial testing phases, I will decide later on if an open alpha/beta will be available if needed.
• Is the game coming to PS5 and Xbox series? Probably yes but after the PC version is done first.
• Will SteamDeck be supported? Probably yes but after the PC version is done first.
• Will there be a VR mode? Probably yes but after the PC version is done first.
• Is there a partner program planned for streamers? Yes, there will be a program streamers will be able to apply to in order to get keys of the game. This program will automatically check your average number of viewers and will be made to avoid people spamming requests for keys.
• What makes Derelicts different than other survival games? The best way to answer this question is to check the trailers, screenshots and descriptions Steam page of the game, in order to have a good look at what the game offers. Overall, the major difference with other survival games are the fact that players can automate some crafting processes (log flumes, saw mills) and they need to use energy generated from the world to do so. The weather will also have a strong influence on the way you'll play the game.
• Is the world of Derelicts procedural? No, the map is handcrafted.
• Is there space travel in Derelicts? There is no space travel in the game. The story takes place on Earth.
• Are you creating everything yourself for the game? No, I'm focused on the programming, game design and level design. I'm buying most of the 3D models, animations, sounds, VFX. A really few of them are also kindly created by people from the game's community.
If I were to build everything from scratch on my own, the game would take 20 years to make (which would be a shame). I prefer to buy assets from much more talented people than me at 3D modeling/texturing, animation, SFX, VFX, and so on.
• Which engine are you using to create Derelicts? I started on Unreal Engine 4 and updated to Unreal Engine 5 in 2022.