Why Early Access?

“Featuring truly unique design, gameplay and overall thematic presentation, the game's offering is a completely new experience for most players. This makes Early Access an absolutely essential tool for understanding player response to controls, gameplay systems, themes and so on.

Every species in the game also features gameplay elements unique to itself, making each new content release a step into the unknown. Early Access has proven exceptionally helpful in enabling fans of the game to provide vital feedback in a relatively early stage of the game's development.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Q4-2023 is the current estimate with lifecycle depiction for the current roster completed.

Give the game's vast scope, new content (species/plants/animals) will continue to be added after the game leaves EA as well.”

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

“Creature lifecycles including growth, metamorphosis, mating & reproduction for the game's existing species (invertebrates) will be the main focus of DoN's EA journey. Multiplayer/Co-op support is also planned.

Inclusion of new content such as more species of animals/plants/biomes/scenario-editor may happen, but is by no means considered a core part of the EA development cycle itself, but a process that may extend well beyond EA and into the full release.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The current game is fully playable with multiple game modes and species for players to explore along with procedurally generated levels, sandbox mode, etc.

Upcoming content will add more depth to the existing game modes greatly enriching the overall experience for players with each new content update.”

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

“Eventually as more content is added to the game the price is expected to be adjusted accordingly.”

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

“DoN's genre (the natural world) has seldom been explored in gaming before meaning we're practically building a new genre together while defining the standards for gameplay in this genre. Community feedback will be crucial in ensuring that natural world phenomena depicted in the game translates into gameplay that is both sensible and fun at the same time.

The community is also welcome to suggest their favorite species of animals and plants for inclusion in the game although this will be a long-term process because of the enormous amount of time taken to fully realize a species and not every species will make it into the game.”