For many fans of hardcore survival games, Road to Vostok is worth looking forward to. It's a semi-open-world game in development, with day-night loops, weather mechanics, vehicle driving, looting, story, and trading, which are both challenging and rewarding. In the game, players explore real-world frontiers and use a wide variety of weapons to survive in a post-apocalyptic environment that is dangerous every step of the way.
As the creator of Road to Vostok, solo developer "Antti" is passionate about the project and often writes articles or videos to share a lot of details and thoughts from the game's development with players. According to Andy, his only mission is to complete "the best hardcore survival game on the market."
Road to Vostok has been one of the most anticipated games by Steam players over the past few months, and on social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube, Andy, who insists on communicating transparently with players, has also attracted many fans.
In a recent interview, Andy talked about the development of Road to Vostok, the challenges he encountered, and the experience and lessons he gained through the project. "Pre-production of Road to Vostok lasted almost a year." Andy revealed, "This is unusual for an indie game. Nowadays, almost everyone wants to start making [the game] right away without spending time testing their ideas and making plans based on that. ”
"It's an ambitious project that may not be friendly to indie developers, because you can't find any easy or quick way to get the game into a pleasant, replayable rescue experience." Andy further explained that in the survival game segment, many titles ultimately fail to deliver on the promises of their developers, and he would never do it himself.
Andy notes that he has developed more than 20 engine tools and production pipelines for Road to Vostok. As a solo independent developer, Andy sets clear goals and guidelines, and also uses advanced project management tools to efficiently manage project schedules.
In a sense, Andy has an innate set of advantages in making survival games: Not only is he genuinely fond of survival games, but he is also a retired military officer and visual game design instructor with "more than a decade of game development experience." According to Andy himself, he has taught more than 200 students how to become an indie developer.
Andy is well aware of the pitfalls and challenges that indie developers may encounter. At the same time, he believes that in today's relatively saturated market, indie developers must come up with unique works if they want to succeed. So how can Way of Vostok stand out against a huge number of similar games?
"I think in recent years, there's been a lack of enthusiasm for making high-quality, realistic survival shooters, and innovation is rare. In this segment, the vast majority of indie games that have claimed to drive innovation often fail or are abandoned by developers. Andy was determined to do what he said he would – he even set up a company to create something special in the game in order to develop Road to Vostok.
"In my career, I don't plan to tinker with any other projects. I put all my energy and passion into the same mission, the same goal, which is to make the best hardcore survival game possible. ”
Previously, some players pointed out that "Vostok Road" is quite similar to "Escape from Tarkov". Andy said they do share some core elements (because they're both developed using the Unity engine) and the in-game environments are similar, though he stressed that the two games differ in many ways.
"Road to Vostok will be more like Stalker: Anomaly, with player progression tied more to the game world and permadeath and survival elements like DayZ. I also want to encourage players to create their own stories and polish the typical survival mechanics, such as building campfires, cooking, fishing, crafting temporary gear, and so on. ”
Andy admits that at this stage he is still focusing on core mechanics such as shooting and weapon manipulation, which may be why many players compare "Road to Vostok" to "Escape from Tarkov" - at the moment, there are no survival elements in this game. But Andy mentioned that he plans to release the first public demo version of Road to Vostok in the third quarter of 2023, thus showing off its "gameplay loop experience" for the first time.
According to Andy, the Road to Vostok demo version will provide players with more than 4-5 explorable maps, more than 100 items, weapon modifications (features), shelters, looting mechanics, survival and medical mechanics, trades, and more. In particular, Andy emphasized that all maps are real: in order to create a realistic in-game environment, he once personally traveled to the border between Finland and Russia.
Andy also mentioned that he has plenty of time to learn how to balance his personal life, running a company, and developing a game on his own. During the development of Road to Vostok, Andy had to manage company finances, write programs, draw, and occasionally deal with outsourced people. So far, however, Andy has not worked with any publisher or investor, relying entirely on his years of experience to produce Road to Vostok.
Before the interview ended, Andy chatted down with some of his thoughts on the future of Road to Vostok.
"I think the atmosphere, the environmental narrative, and the enjoyable mechanics are far more important than the story, so once I'm done building the core mechanics, I'll focus on those areas. At this stage, the game can't really immerse the player in the environment and mechanics, but that's my goal. I believe that in the near future, "Road to Vostok" will enter that stage and am happy about it. ”
Original translation https://insider-gaming.com/road-to-vostok/