The developers ofPaydaywant to seek player feedback on their next title, aDungeons & Dragonslive-service project. The title, codenamedProject Baxter,will be set in the familiar world of theD&Duniverse and feature procedurally generated gameplay elements to provide a replayable experience for fans.Baxterwill be a multiplayer live-service title, and it’s currently being developed by Starbreeze, the studio behind the latest co-op FPSPaydaytitles.
In an interim report, as relayed byGame Watchers, Starbreeze CEO Adolf Kristjansson voiced the studio’s desire to “involve our player community in development to ensure the best possible player experience.” As such, Starbreeze ishoping to open the floor to player feedback soon in the form of a beta test, with the goal of fulfilling the studio’s “vision” for theD&Dtitle to “create a unique, immersive, co-op game, where player choice is central.” According to theProject Baxterwebsite, the game is scheduled to release on “all major platforms” sometime next year.
Everything We Know About Starbreeze’s D&D Game
A Procedurally Generated Co-Op Adventure
Based on the official website,Project Baxterwill be amultiplayer action-adventure game set in theDungeons & Dragonsuniverse. The game seems set to reinforce the tabletop RPG’s focus on storytelling and teamwork, calling itself a “co-op urban crawl through a reactive Dungeons & Dragons-world.” Procedurally generated scenarios will allow for the iconic emergent, unscripted gameplay that the tabletop game is known for, though not much detail is known yet about how this will work.
Starbreeze promises to deliver a “lifetime commitment through a Games as a Service-model,” with along-lasting multiplayer experience. The studio certainly has a proven track record of delivering on this promise, with the studio’s 12-year-old titlePayday 2still regularly seeing over 20,000 daily players, according toSteam Charts.
Beta Tests Should Help Make D&D Game As Successful As Possible
They May Help Avoid The Doomed Live Service Flop
Many live-service games likeFortniteandHelldivers 2are still alive and going strong, but the last year has been a tough one for other free multiplayer games. Therelease and immediate downfallofConcordis an extreme case of this, but many publishers are choosing tomove away from creating live experiencesthat rely on maintaining a core player base for a prolonged period of time.
