Two survival fans decided to make their own game. Here's what the world is, who the Reds and the Blues are, and why you pay for extraction in vodka.
Hi! We're Konstantin and Ruslan — nice to meet you. We've been playing survival games for years, and at some point we decided to make our own. We called it RAVENSK.
The world
The world has fallen into a zombie apocalypse. Ravensk is a fictional region where several settlements have taken root. Every now and then they feud with each other, but when times get hard they band together to survive.
The map is about 63 square miles — roughly 10.6 by 6 miles. The terrain is close to Alaska: taiga, rivers, mountains and coastline.
When you start the game, you'll pick a side: the Reds — the settlement of Prichal, or the Blues — the settlement of Gnezdo.
The concept
A big open world with several safe zones where shooting other players is not allowed (for now that's enforced by the game itself). But we have a mechanic in mind where settlements will sometimes come under attack. Windows of time when you either defend against zombies and other players — or join the raid and the looting yourself. Trust plays a big role here.
There's one more settlement in the plans — Yarus. It will be neutral, but it will have its windows too, when the Reds, the Blues or a separate group of people can take it over. Yarus matters strategically: it will sit closest to one of the most important places on the map, with fat and rare loot. The settlement will also give access to special extractions, and whoever holds the zone will pay less to get into extraction.
Extraction
Yes, extraction is already part of the game. You get there from the safe zones — with a party or on your own. And you'll be able to party up with people from different servers: extraction is basically the zone where players from different servers cross paths. It will follow every rule of the genre, though: die in extraction — lose everything.
To get into extraction you'll have to pay an NPC guide. One wants a couple of bottles of vodka, another takes ammo, another food — the main currency of a post-apocalyptic world.
What we build it on
We're developing on Unreal Engine 5. We think it's the best choice for great weather and visuals, and it speeds up development too.
Right now, in closed testing, 40 people can comfortably be on the map at once. Our goal is 100 players. We'll see how it goes from there — maybe we'll find a sweet spot in between.
Who we are
The game is made by two people — Konstantin and Ruslan. We also bring in contractors for different parts of the game.
This is our first game. We've been working on it for over a year and are only now starting to share it: we wanted to be sure we could hit a minimum bar first — player count, core mechanics, the character, the world around it and so on.
We're counting on the support of survival fans and everyone who loves zombie games.
How to follow us
Subscribe on our website. For now we keep in touch through the site and our email newsletter for registered users; a Discord server will come later. Anyone who wants to can sign up for closed testing on the Closed Beta page. By our estimate it will run in October–November. There's no exact date — like I said, we're new to the game industry, and we'd rather not promise exact dates and then blow them 🙂