Not quite gone are the days of the zombie survival simulator. Although there are still titles coming out, the releases seem staggered more and more among the wider breadth of multiplayer titles. NetEase Games is looking to change that dynamic with Once Human, a free-to-play online multiplayer title in the same vein as titles such as Tom Clancy’s The Division. We recently went hands-on with the Unreal Engine 5 title on PC thanks to two NetEase reps (Derek Qiu, Head of Overseas Operation, and Peng Sun/Victoria, World and Content Designer) who sat down to talk with us for a brief interview at GDC 2024.
In the interest of time, we skipped over the character creation and introductory missions, instead letting me hit the open road on a motorcycle and explore throughout the early game segments. My first trek ended in disaster as I explored an abandoned farm teeming with antagonistic life in the hopes of securing my first loot cache. Instead, I quickly met a quick end at the hands of a fierce Deviant despite my best attempts to kite it around an abandoned truck to keep some distance between myself and its area of effect attacks. My second adventure let me chase down an oversized Deviant that took the form of a dilapidated bus walking around on grotesque limbs. Climbing aboard rewarded me with a small loot cache, but I didn’t come close to having the power to take it out. While some of the action and performance felt undercooked, the core concepts of Once Human are already fairly solid and I’m curious to see how Starry Studio and NetEase Games expand on the project ahead of its full launch in the (hopefully) near future.
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How long has Once Human been in development?
Derek Qiu: Over three years, with over 300 people.
You talked about using your own engine. Is that something you have developed specifically for this game, or have you worked on other projects with it before?
Derek Qiu: No, that's specifically for Once Human.
What are your release plans? Do you have an early access window or beta tests going into a launch?
Derek Qiu: Well, actually, we had two beta tests already. Our upcoming beta test will happen in April and then the full release is really based on the beta test phase. If everything goes well, we will probably go into early access in Q3. But if there's something we need to change, it might take more time.
Which platforms is Once Human launching on?
Derek Qiu: Firstly, we will only have a PC and mobile version, but in the long term, we want to launch it on the consoles as well. But that's part of the long-term plan because we want to stabilize the PC version and the mobile version first.
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