Pache.co Information Technologies

With Deadhaus Sonata, Apocalypse wants to bring single-player storytelling to the live-service multiplayer genre. Drawing inspiration from Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen series and works of horror by writer Thomas Ligotti, the game’s grimdark fantasy lore will be largely player-driven, which aligns with Apocalypse’s vision for Deadhaus Sonata as a “cloud-based metagame.”

“Over time, games have shifted from single-player experiences to multiplayer, and there’s less focus on narrative,” says Dyack. “When you’re designing games now, you have to think not only about the content directly within your game, but what’s outside of it; things like social media and streaming.”

Community-driven content from these channels is motivating Apocalypse to further flesh out Deadhaus Sonata’s bones. Early-access players are already writing vampiric lore and adapting it into YouTube radio plays. Apocalypse has even bigger ambitions for players who want to leave their mark on Deadhaus Sonata, with plans to support a player-driven economy where maps, skins, and quests can be distributed and monetized.

“In this industry, there’s a tendency to get overexcited and stumble over new terms like ‘metaverse,’ which can be frustrating for gamers,” explains Dyack. “It’s important to always come back to the player. Deadhaus Sonata’s vision encompasses everything in-game, but also anything outside of it that we can use to engage players and immerse them into the world.”

Deadhaus Sonata is still early in development, with a public alpha they’re calling “the First Age” coming later in 2022. Knowing that it’s easiest to find the right tools before kicking off work, Apocalypse chose to experiment sooner than later, testing a wide variety of engines and development software to create their game. The team tried both Lumberyard and Open3D but essentially decided that Unity offered the most established toolset to help them scale rapidly.

The Apocalypse team is particularly impressed with what they’ve been able to achieve using HDRP in such a short period. “The first thing we did was dive into the HDRP demo, just to see what we’d be working with. We played around with it and the results were already amazing after an hour,” says Dyack.

Visual effects that react to gameplay are crucial for immersing players in Deadhaus Sonata’s moody, gothic world. “Volumetric fog with real-time lights and multiple density volumes have enabled us to establish ambience and tone with incredible ease,” reveals Yuriy Toporovskyy, technical director at Apocalypse. “The Volumes framework for customization of appearance based on game triggers means we can present complex gameplay interaction scenarios very quickly.”

Using advanced material features like Subsurface Scattering, Distortion, Refraction, Multilayer Materials, Occlusion Mapping, Translucency, and Backlighting – all built in to HDRP – accelerated the creation AAA-quality materials for an entire scene in just a few days. “I’m confident we’ll be able to deliver AAA visual fidelity with Deadhaus Sonata,” asserts Rogozinski. “We’re all really excited to show off what HDRP can do.”

Migrating their game data from Perforce to Plastic took Apocalypse less than a day, and they were supported throughout the process by the Plastic team. Once they were up and running, Rogozinski, who had implemented Perforce previously, was shocked to see how much more efficient work became with Plastic – and not just because of how smoothly it handles large binaries: “I was very resistant to task branching at first. I didn’t want people working off-branch for a week or two, because you never know what’s going to happen when you merge it all back.”

“It’s a totally different methodology, and we really like it,” affirms Rogozinski.

Apocalypse Studios has a bold vision for Deadhaus Sonata. To achieve it, they’ve been careful to curate the right set of tools so they can scale as a team, while working hard to build their community since day one.

As enterprise-turned-indie developers, the team offers some advice on how to scale without losing the spirit of creativity and innovation: “My advice would be to find great people to work with and foster those relationships,” shares Pacheco. “Do what you have to to maintain those connections and keep working with them. Communication should be number one.”

Building on Pacheco’s comments, Rogozinski adds, “Apocalypse is really focused on community curation. We want to build a healthy playerbase by interacting with them often, and really listening to what they have to say. Having players helping with content and giving input design decisions is invaluable.”

Closing out the conversation, Dyack reflects on his experiences at Silicon Knights: “At enterprise studios, you’re often so heads-down and focused on the work that you’re missing out on opportunities, whether it’s trends, tools, or different ways of working… Take a look around and see what’s new. We did, and we couldn’t be happier.”

Deadhaus Sonata is currently available to wishlist on Steam. Want to learn more about Unity Plastic SCM? Check out this interview with Michela Rimensberger, who shares how Sycoforge uses Unity version control to enable the unique development process behind their upcoming RPG, Return to Nangrim.