PUBG: DED.NET Developer Argues Making a Game for the Mass Market Where 'Nobody's Too Offended and Everybody Kind of Likes It' Has Become 'Box Office Poison'

PUBG — the battle royale that popularized the genre — already has a number of spinoffs. But none is as love it or hate it as DED.NET.

Like PUBG, DED.NET is a multiplayer first-person shooter that revolves around outlasting your enemies, but there are a number of key differences. Chief among them is roguelite progression that persists across runs, and a heavy-handed 1990s aesthetic dubbed “Grunge House.” But there’s more. Matches — even if you make it to the end — will come in at around the 25-30 minute mark, which makes it a digestible experience relative to PUBG’s more intense, longer-lasting battle royale. And while PUBG is available on console, DED.NET is built from the ground up for consoles.

Set in Cascadia in 1996, a world inspired by the Pacific Northwest of the 1990s, and with a reimagining of the PUBG formula beyond battle royale, DED.NET may prove divisive. That, creative director Dave Curd told IGN at gamescom, isn’t just okay — it’s exactly what the developers at Krafton want. In fact, Curd argued that making a game for everyone has become “box office poison.”

“Definitely PUBG was the one that brought the genre to prominence and then everyone was like, ‘What's my take? Is it destruction? Is it competitive play? Is it Twitch reactions?’ And you're picturing the games as I'm describing them,” Curd began.

“And ours is the rogue. This is the rogue version where you're always chasing a build, getting into hilarious shithousery along the way. You're telling hysterical stories, you're engaging in a world filled with Twin Peaks, X-Files, David Kronenberg, body horror. We're trying to make a real evocative, love it or hate it experience.

“I think the age of making something for the mass market... which, what is that anymore? I don't think that's safe. I don't think that's smart. I think making something that can really get a fandom, something where people feel seen and they connect with, and have just as many detractors, I think that's wiser than kind of, ‘Well, let's make sure nobody's too offended and everybody kind of likes it.’ So we're trying to be sexy, evocative, gory.”

Curd said the inspiration for DED.NET’s Grunge House aesthetic includes grunge band Nirvana, Italian zombie movies, Grindhouse, and Tarantino movies. And, he believes that if DED.NET proves “sticky,” he expects other battle royale developers to give the ‘rogue multi-match journey’ mechanic a try.

“But what they won't be able to do is replicate our world where you can chop your hands off and replace them with machetes and have a standoff in a cult mansion, underground cellar filled with bodies,” he insisted. “We're just trying to serve up something fresh for the kids.”

سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/pubg-dednet-developer-argues-making-a-game-for-the-mass-market-where-nobodys-too-offended-and-everybody-kind-of-likes-it-has-become-box-office-poison