We did it! Darwin Project left Early Access last month and it is available for free on PS4, Xbox One and Steam. It took us a bit of time to defrost the doors to the Arena but we are super excited to welcome you all there. We’re happy to see so many new Inmates!
We want to thank you all for your unwavering support and trust over the past two years. You have seen the numbers of our recent infographic, you’ve seen the different patches, you’ve witnessed the evolution of the game, to which you have significantly contributed, and you know it was quite the journey!
Now, let’s talk about why you came here: the new content.
THE CLASS SYSTEM:
We have added to the game a brand new class system, dictated by the Gear you select at the start of a match:
- The Jet Wings: Equip these aerodynamic fuel-injected Jet Wings and take to the skies! Master their maneuverability and acrobatic abilities to daze and amaze your opponents, while raining death from above with a flurry of arrows!
- The Grapple Gauntlet: Do you like things up close and personal? Then close the gap in the blink of an eye and bring the fight directly to your opponents and give them the chance to meet the business end of your personalized axe, or grapple the environment for quick getaways!
- The Headhunter Drone: Are you the type of person who likes to have a companion with you when venturing out in the wilderness? Then be sure to enter the Arena with this helpful little friend, who can gather resources for you as well as track your opponents to ensure you’re never taken by surprise!
Each class has its own set of abilities. At level 1, you will only have two abilities to choose from. You will only be able to unlock the third ability when you reach level 3, and the fourth ability at level 10. Each class also has its own experience bar and needs to be leveled up separately (you will get fan gifts whenever you level up with any class).
Additionally, each class has three unique gear upgrades that you will be able to boost every match in order to be stronger, faster, and to reinforce each class’ unique playstyle. Each gear upgrade can be crafted 3 times to maximize their effectiveness.
We hope you’ll enjoy the new possibilities and play styles these classes offer!
THE DARWINIUM:
Another new addition to the game: the Darwinium. To upgrade your gear and unlock your abilities while roaming in the freezing Arena, you will need to use this brand new collectible resource.
Players will be able to gather this mysterious resource by destroying tanks of Darwinium dispatched all around the Arena. You’ll be able to use it to unlock the abilities of your gear and upgrade them.
Each Darwinium tank you find in the wild will give you 15 individual Darwinium. Electronics have been replaced with Darwinium shipments, which will give you 150 Darwinium.
Although we replaced the leather resource with Darwinium, you can still find and harvest wood – happy chopping!
THE NEW CRAFTING WHEEL:
The crafting wheel has also been revamped. With new gears, new abilities, new gear upgrades, and a new resource, we needed to rework the crafting wheel.
From now on, you will only be able to choose one craftable item amongst the five available: Bear Trap, Cage Trap, Pulse Mine, Tripwire and Smoke Bomb.
The crafting wheel is split into two sections –one for each gatherable resource in the map:
- Upper half: Use wood to craft shields, fires, arrows and your personalized craftable item.
- Lower half: Use Darwinium to unlock your abilities and upgrade your gear.
Note that the cost of gear upgrades will increase every time you purchase one starting from 50 to 75 and 100 to max it.
These changes to the craft wheel come with a global UI revamp, including a rework of the inventory system.
THE NEW INVENTORY SYSTEM:
The inventory system has changed a lot with this update. You don’t have to loot bodies after killing another inmate anymore. Instead, all items and unused Darwinium and Wood are automatically dropped on the ground when an inmate dies. In addition to the unused resources, 35% of the Darwinium used by the inmate to upgrade their gear and abilities will automatically be dropped as well.
Regarding the inventory, you can now drop off any item you picked up to empty a slot of your inventory, or pick up something you may find more valuable. All available items are now available among chests and deer loot.
Each slot of your inventory allows you to stack up to 3 of the same item, max, but you are allowed to gather several stacks of each item in different inventory slots.
In chests and deer, you’ll be able to loot: Shields, all 4 traps, health pack, speed boost, glider, coffee and smoke bomb.
We also limited the maximum amount of arrows to 8. We decided to do so to improve variety in combat, especially increase the switch between axe and bow, to put more emphasis on picking up arrow and to balance arrows versus axes.
We also decide to remove a few items, upgrades and powers that were not feeling relevant with both the new class gameplay and the new inventory system such as:
- Rigged Chest / Hook
- Hunter Arrow / Fire Arrows / Berserk Arrows
- Axe sharpener / Lumberjack / Scavenger Axe
- Fur cloak / Detective Cloak / Ghost Cloak / Runner Cloak / Revenger Cloak
- Speed Boots / Evader Boots / Hunter Boots / Ninja Boots
- Detector
THE NEW TUTORIAL:
To introduce the gameplay mechanics of Darwin Project to new players on all platforms, we designed a brand new tutorial explaining the basic rules of the game that were sometimes unclear for new players.
With this new addition, we decided to remove our training yard which would have required a lot of rework time to fit with the new class system.
NEW COSMETICS:
We added some new cosmetics to the game. We started by reworking the iconic ‘Orange Skin’ which is now exclusively available to Early Access players and created a brand new chameleon skin which changes colors every session depending on the random color the game gives you in the lobby. Note that the weapons for the chameleon suit and the lights on the jet, gauntlet, and headhunter drone are also following the same logic.
You can get your favorite colour for your chameleon outfit in the dressing room for a low ramen fee.
We also added two legendary sets: Dark Dragon and Dark Serpent skins which you now get from the ‘Shop and Sales’ tab.
We also added a new ‘Starter Pack’ with the exclusive and legendary Dark Ninja skin in the primary shop. You can also get 1100 Ramens (Ramen Dinner) and a bunch of Fan gifts to start your adventure in the arena with style.
MISCELLANEOUS:
We also made several other gameplay changes:
- We removed the Show Director prestige system. It wasn’t a clear system for the inmates to ‘rate’ the show directors in their lobbies and was also not a good indicator of a Show Director’s performance.
- Inmates are now sprinting by default: We made this change to increase the global pace of the game and to focus the gameplay more on class and abilities than on stamina management.
- We made some new daily challenges for you to do while playing in the Arena to get some ramen. We also removed some of them in order to fit with the current core features of the game and especially the class system.
- We slightly changed the control schemes for both Mouse and Keyboards but also for controllers in order to fit with the new gameplay, namely the class system.
2020 ROADMAP:
We’ve prepared a roadmap to provide insight into Darwin Project’s future updates.
We aim to release a Battle Pass at the end of February,complete with a progression system which will allow you to unlock exclusive rewards, such as Cosmetics, while offering unique quests to challenge your skill and wits in the Arena.
We disabled Duo mode at launch due to a number of issues surrounding the addition of classes and bugs in our Invite/Party system. Our goal is to address these in time and present Duo mode again after the Battle Pass by the end of March. Do not expect any major changes to the mode for now but we are thinking about different ways to potentially improve it via future updates.
Approximately one month after the first Battle Pass, by the end of March, we will add a new tile to the Arena: New Life City. We will tell you more about this tile in future communications. Simultaneously, we will improve the Twitch extension to bring an even more interactive experience to viewers on Twitch while watching Darwin Project.
Following this, we will add new classes, Show Director Powers, a second Battle Pass, new additions to game modes as well as implementing new Stats Tracking via the returning Career Profile.
We hope you will be as excited as we are about these incoming updates!
Thanks for your support!
Scavengers Team
