Left nearly totally abandoned after the unsuccessful facility-wide escape attempt, Site-113 was left crawling with dangerous creatures and a handful of site personnel and prisoners that were unfortunate enough to be left behind.
Those who were lucky enough to survive the constant threat from the loose creatures soon found out that finding a consistent source of food was extremely difficult depending on which section of the facility they were located in. Survivors who tried to continue their journey throughout the facility alone had survival chances that were slim to none and were constantly being starved or killed off as the months passed by.
It was not until a large enough group of survivors came together to create a semi-permanent encampment in the residential zone where they could better search for resources and hide away from the horrifying creatures that were constantly attacking them and forcing them to further and further regions of the facility.
The creation of the first camp sparked the creation of two more camps in completely separate locations by two different groups of survivors, each with their own goals, resources, and feelings towards others in the facility.
Within the game, you will come across three separate survivor camps ranging from a camp of site personnel who have banded together with leftover MTF to a camp of savages who have lost their minds due to constant pressure from the surrounding horrors that remain in the facility.
Below are two concept images for the MTF/Site Personnel camp and for the D-Class camp that will exist within two zones in the facility.
In the first image is the MTF Camp, which is a lawful and controlled camp that is put together and strict. Your interactions with this camp will be to barter and get certain objectives for different parts of the game. The overall demeanor of these survivors is untrusting of you since you yourself are technically part of the facility personnel that left them for dead.
The next camp is the D-Class camp, which is much less lawful and has many dangerous members that make it up. These survivors will be distrusting of you since they have a visceral hatred of those who imprisoned them there but will be willing to tolerate you as long as you are useful to them.
The final camp, which is having the concept made currently, is the savage camp. This camp is chaotic and lawless and full of many people who would try and literally eat you if they got the chance, but are willing to tolerate your presence as long as you help them and them alone. However, each camp has a single leadership figure that keeps the people within the camp in line, and you will be able to interact with these leaders to build up a certain degree of trust which can come in handy later in the game.
At each camp, you will be able to get objectives, trade, and restock your supplies. However, the camps are not a safe zone and many things can and will go wrong in these camps so never always rely on them being there throughout the game. It will be up to you which camp you decide to help, if any, as some may have ulterior motives you must be aware of, and some want nothing more than to watch the facility burn. You will come to understand their motivations and distrust of the other camps as you progress throughout the story, but you very well likely will be surprised by what you learn about who you have been helping.
The camps will play into the main story of the game through the options that come from helping camps in their 'side tasks', these tasks can give you certain items or unlock certain areas that will otherwise change the flow of the campaign and open the door to a high degree of replayability depending on which camps you help and how you help them. The interactions with the camp leaders are incredibly important so it's critical you do not mess up the relationship or else things can get messy for you very quickly.
Overall, the camps provide semi-linearity to the story and allow NPC interaction which will create a rich experience overall and adds a ton to the atmosphere of Site-113 and the game as a whole since the choices and interaction with these survivors will ultimately change the progression through the game, so it's a new feature that is extremely exciting.
Be warned, however, that things in the camps are as not they seem, and every interaction and choice will have an impact on the camp or story. What they ask of you can be used for good or it could be used for evil without your knowledge -- so tread carefully and only help those who you can trust, even if it’s not who you expect.
We will be expanding on these camps even more as we progress throughout development and will begin to show how they work in terms of bartering and interaction, but that will come in another post.
Next Week:
Next week we are going to be showing off some AI and newly modeled weapons that will be making it into the game, so sign up for our mailing list and be sure to watch the devlog on this post this coming Sunday on our YouTube!