Behaviour on exploring PvP asymmetry in Deathgarden

Deathgarden is the next asymmetrical multiplayer game from Behaviour Interactive, the studio behind the slasher movie-inspired horror title, Dead by Daylight. In that game, players are trying to run away from a slow but overpowered serial killer as they look to escape eerie environments (you can find out more about the current state of DBD by sinking your mouse cursor into the back of this link).

Now the studio has revealed its next project, Deathgarden, and while it's another multiplayer game where one powerful character takes on a team of weaker opponents, there are some notable differences.

"The moment that we wanted to allow guns into the game things changes dramatically for us," creative director Ash Pannell told us in Boston. According to Pannell, they added "parkour elements" to the mix to speed up the action, but more importantly, the so-called runners can "hit back at the hunter."

"And that is something that has really changed our game. Now the runners can't hurt the hunter, they can't kill the hunter, they can't take down the hunter, but they can upgrade their vambrace, which is their weapon, to be able to fire these special abilities at the hunter. They can slow him down, they can reveal it to the world. It's all about teamwork and revealing for the runners."

Teamwork is the keyword then, and the team of five runners will have to coordinate carefully if they're going to avoid getting hit. They do, however, have a few tricks that should help.

"So one of the core co-op mechanics we have is that the runners can mark any item in the world, and as they do that they mark it up to the entire team. So you as an individual can slowly map the world that's in front of you so that everyone can make informed decisions on how to act, and this is very important for the runners."

As for the player going it alone, according to Pannell, "the hunter's amazing. The hunter can bring in a suite of powers too. Each one will fundamentally change the game."

"It's about the five working together to dynamically overcome whatever's being thrown at them. One minute it's going to be a hunter with this power, next minute they're going to have something else. In [the PAX East] demo they can have turrets in the game. The next demo they could have supercharge that lets the hunter jump right across the map. So maybe one time the slow arrow is really useful, maybe the next time the slow arrow is not as useful in that situation, for example."

Deathgarden is heading to PC later this year, where it'll land first as an early access title. Thereafter it could make it over to console, but Behaviour isn't talking about that just yet.