Why Early Access?

“Ocean Drive Studio holds closely to the vision of making fun games by working with the community. As we considered ways to do so, we have come to the conclusion that the best approach for Blackout Protocol would be through Early Access. Our decision was made so that we can learn from fans and players of these genres, especially about what they enjoy and what they want from the game. Our goal is to provide the best gameplay experience we can, and we believe that the community’s help would be a key element in meeting that goal.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“If everything goes well, we aim to go into official launch within a year of Early Access. Internally, we’ve set up plans for Early Access and beyond. However, we’d like to note that our commitment is to our goal of providing the best gameplay experience we can, not necessarily a specific plan or timeframe. The Early Access duration may change as we take feedback from the community.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The main difference would be the amount of content accessible to players. We will cover the scope of Early Access in the next question, so to keep the focus on official launch: the full version will take players through the entirety of Section 13 base, have additional weapons/skills/enemies, and more playable characters! We are also planning to add more variety in the procedural generation algorithm–this should give players a richer experience as they delve deeper into Section 13 base.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Blackout Protocol’s Early Access covers about 60% of Section 13 base, leading up to a boss fight. We plan to update the boss fight with official launch, so players will find the true evil lying at the heart of Section 13 base later.

Multiplayer supports a party of 3 players. In Early Access, players have 4 different characters to choose from. Each character has a unique ability that sets him/her apart from the others, so we encourage players to try them all out and find the one they like the most!

Early Access will also feature about 60 different skill cards, each falling under one of the 5 different categories. Weapons have something like an affinity to these skill cards–certain weapons will be more effective with skill cards under a certain category. By collecting multiple skill cards within the same category, players can activate different levels of special perks associated with each weapon.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Based on our current plans, we intend to increase the price over the course of Early Access. We hope to share additional details once our development roadmap becomes more concrete. We will also continue to review ways to show our appreciation to players who help shape the game.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Feedback from the community takes an important role in our decision-making. While we try our best to collect feedback from all available channels, players often find the Discord server to be the easiest channel to reach out to us directly.

We also believe in establishing a positive feedback loop, and this process includes sharing decisions and updates with the community. This may come in various forms, such as dev chat streams, progress updates, dev blogs, and more. To learn more about our approach to development, please read our blog post.”