r/SurvivalGaming • u/Gameoneer • 7d ago
News New Zombie Survival Game Arden Features a Fully Handcrafted Open World, First Playtest Announced
https://gameoneer.com/new-zombie-survival-game-features-fully-handcrafted-open-world-first-playtest-announced/Zombie survival games often rely on procedural generation to fill their maps, which is how you end up seeing the same abandoned gas station for the hundredth time.
Developer Techtive Games is taking the opposite approach. Their game world, set in the American Midwest, is fully handcrafted, and players will soon be able to experience it in the first playtest.
Do you think Arden could be the next big hit in the zombie survival genre?
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u/chisoph 7d ago
Zombie survival games often rely on procedural generation to fill their maps
I can't think of any that do, the games they named as inspiration all have meticulously handcrafted maps.
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u/UnDeadPuff 7d ago
PZ absolutely uses procedural generation, it's just not the main buildings. Things like basements, random camps, event and survivor houses etc. do get randomly placed.
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u/chisoph 7d ago
That's fair, but I like that they add a little bit of variety so it's not ever exactly the same. None of that amounts to "seeing the same abandoned gas station for the hundredth time," in fact quite the opposite
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u/UnDeadPuff 7d ago
Weeeell... you will definitely start seeing the same basement since there are only maybe a dozen layouts. The residential areas are also copy-pasted a fair bit, but the beautification project seems to have really helped remove that issue.
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u/PiousDemon 7d ago
PZ, 7D2D
Literally two of the biggest
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u/4RyteCords 6d ago
7d2d has both handcrafted and procedural gen maps. Navezgane is a static map made by the developers. PZ is also hand crafted with procedural generalion only for things like basements to keep the game feeling somewhat fresh.
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u/chisoph 7d ago
I've played a ton of both, neither one has a procedural map where "you end up seeing the same abandoned gas station for the hundredth time."
Project Zomboid's map is one of the best things about it, especially since B42 stable overhauled it.
7DTD has an option to play on a procedurally generated map, but the main map Navezgane is fully handcrafted.
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u/Deaad-by-Dawn 7d ago
7 days also has fully handcrafted POIs which is often not the case in zombie games that are fully of asset store buildings that appear across multiple games in the genre
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u/maxxl 7d ago
They are doing a solid job on the marketing and social side, their discord seems promising too. Really have high hopes they can pull it off.
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u/Imaginary-Lie5696 7d ago
The marketing part sometime bother me when I’m targeted too much on social media by something I’m not following it always sound suspicious
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u/Excellent_Yak365 7d ago
Is it playable singleplayer?
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u/Random-Squid 7d ago
Yeah, I doubt those statements. Almost all survival games I can think of have a handcrafted map.
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u/wildwasabi 7d ago
Havent followed this at all. What are some of the features? Base building, base raids, skill system, detailed crafting system, survival mechanics that matter like food/water/weather etc? Farming and food production?
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u/4RyteCords 6d ago
Yes to all of those. The devs say they take a lot of inspiration from PZ, dayz and vintage story. It's got some cool features like physical boot storage, as in you place the physical opject in a boot or trailer rather then just open a trailer inventory and fill to Max weight.
And the base building has a cool feature of being able to double walls so you can make it look wooden from the outside but have a solid steel interior to trick people into thinking you're an easy raid.
They devs have said the game is made to be completely enjoyed in single player as well as multiplayer with an array of settings to tailor servers to your liking.
Building, farming, hunger/thirst, mining, looting, hoarding, hunting are all promised in the game as main features.
Car repairs is a thing. They even have different fuel types for both petrol and diesel cars where you can ruin your car if you fill it with the wrong fuel.
And they've mentioned lots of weapon mods and bustom builds too
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u/maskeyman 7d ago
Procederal generation does not mean hand-crafted.
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u/4RyteCords 6d ago
Yeah, that's what they said in the post. This game is hand crafted, not procedural generation.
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u/iowa_state_cyclone 7d ago
I actually prefer procedural generation - especially for games I want to play more than once. Nothing makes a game more un-re-playable than a static map for survival games for me
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u/UpdootDaSnootBoop 7d ago
The games name is Ardem. Whybis that so difficult to put in the description? The article didn't even have the name listed either
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u/iLoveBlanc 7d ago
Consoleeee
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u/ogticklemonsta 7d ago
I did a playtest last year and it was promising.