







The update many of you have been waiting patiently and eagerly for has finally arrived. Generally these updates are full of pictures, videos, and detailed write-ups about what we have accomplished since the last update, but today’s will be heavy on text. It is important that you read through it thoroughly and completely, as there is a lot of important information.

First things first:





Beta Phase 1 Key Distribution





We are awaiting final approval from Valve and we expect to be able to send out your beta phase 1 keys on the morning of October 31st. It is possible we could send beta keys sooner than that (with an announcement), but we want to make sure we have all of the keys first. The exact time of launch is still to be determined but we are expecting to launch Beta Phase 1 in the mid to late evening, central standard time, on October 31st. These keys will be sent out via the email address associated with your Kickstarter or PayPal account. If you do not have access to that email address you will need to contact your email provider and arrange access. This is the only way we can assure that the account that backed us receives what they paid for.





Status Of Beta Phase 1





As all of you know, beta phase 1 is a big milestone in our game’s development and is vital for receiving feedback and shaping our game. In hindsight it was probably a mistake for us to label these testing phases as beta(s). These days, betas are generally complete games that are used for marketing purposes and player feedback almost never makes it into release.





That isn’t the way we want this testing to be. We believe we are still a decent amount away from release. Dedicated servers have been the central pillar of our time spent which has taken away from other content development, but we believe it will be worth it in the end. As we have detailed previously, in our discord , we have multiple beta phases scheduled which will allow us to implement feedback and bug fixes from the previous testing phases.





Why We Are Doing This Test





This beta phase 1 test is all about core gameplay, systems, playability, stability (especially important with dedicated servers), atmosphere/mood, and bugs bugs bugs. This test is not meant to market the product to new players, that is why there is a strict rule of no streaming, no YouTube videos, and no screenshots. We will have a dedicated channel in the backer channel of our discord for short clips and screenshots to be posted for bug reporting purposes only. We want to show the game off to the whole gaming community, but first impressions count. Which is why we are implementing this ‘no content creation’ rule. The general gaming community won’t understand what our beta is about and will simply assume it is like any other popular game’s beta; to market a nearly finished product. Anyone who posts content outside of the dedicated channel will have their beta key for all phases banned/revoked. No exceptions.

Content In Beta





First we’ll start with what you should not expect and does not exist in beta. There is no progression, unlocks, leveling up, character customization, animals, perks, or the vast majority of in-game backer rewards. These are the sort of systems that we’ll enable once we have the core loop of the game made into something people enjoy from your feedback. Once we have that locked down we can enable these other features





What is in beta phase 1. There is a single Hunter, the Scientist. Survivors are randomized.

4 maps: FarmDocks, River, Campground, and Swamps_b. We removed Graveyards from the list because we were not happy with the quality of some of the assets and the implementation of backer tombstones.





Farm Docks





River





Campgrounds





Swamps_b

Please be sure to hop onto our discord for the latest announcements regarding key delivery and beta roll-out, or alternatively follow us on twitter:

https://twitter.com/HideOrDieGame https://discord.gg/HideOrDie





Throughout the beta we will be posting updates regarding server status, potential server stress tests, and other game events. See you in game!