Once Human Interview – “We To Turn Players Dreams into Reality”

Building an online game can be a bit of a poisoned chalice. Fierce competition and demanding players can often make developers lose. The Once Human team is very aware of this and plans to put the community at the center of every development decision they make.

“In the process of running Once Human from start to finish, we always want to really listen to the players' voices and also proactively address the issues they raise,” lead designer Woody tells me. This is a sentiment he repeated over and over when we spoke during the rescheduled Tokyo Game Show interview.

It was reported in September that the Once Human team was demoralized by the feedback they received around the game's second season, but Woody says the message was the result of a translation error. “We didn't actually mean 'demoralizing' or 'feeling angry.' But we're just eager to address the issues the players have pointed out,” he says.

“We want to update them on our thoughts, feelings and plans to address these issues as soon as possible. I think it is thanks to this mechanism of mutual communication that our community remains healthy, proactive and constantly communicating with us.”

“The core gameplay of our two latest scenarios came from our communication with our players.

Community feedback is so important to the team that it has already begun to shape the development and release of Once Human content. He tells me that much of Once Human's latest update, Way of Winter, was created in response to challenges from its players.

“The core gameplay of our two latest scenarios came from our communication with our players. It's the result of listening to their opinions,” says Woody. “For example, they told us they thought the previous scenarios weren't challenging enough in terms of survival, so we added a new temperature mechanic.

Unfortunately, while great for the audience, relying on feedback can have a knock-on effect on long-term planning. There is a delicate balance between keeping players happy and implementing content that the development team believes is part of the game's vision.

“We plan ahead,” says Woody, “But [player feedback] it forces us to reevaluate our plans. We try to see if what we have planned is likely to have a positive or negative impact on the game, and we are very nimble to tweak and adjust things as we need to.

“If it's something we desperately want to implement, we'll work with our players using an internal framework and make adjustments accordingly. Once Human had a very long closed beta [was] released, so we've already improved that process, but there's a problem that we have to balance.”

We are very confident in our current monetization system and its future.

Early on, Once Human was praised for its “very fair” monetization, which Woody described as bold but “natural for us when you consider the type of game we play.” Fans were quick to label the title the “lowest paying free game in a while”, something Starry Studios was aiming for. “Our game requires fairness, and while it presents challenges, we didn't want it to be damaged by numerical payments.”

The game eschews any significant pay-to-win elements in favor of a cosmetic trade. “Players have been very accepting of this and our more affordable monetization system. So of course we get feedback from players every day about items they like or don't think are pretty enough. This feedback allows us to optimize our store based on player votes and we are very confident in our current monetization system and its future.”

Big Plans For Base Building

While the community has clearly contributed to shaping Once Human's story, Woody shares that specific features requested by players have also been implemented into the game. For example, in the beginning, despite being able to build some truly stunning bases, players felt that the mechanics were incomplete, leading Starry Studios to make some extensive changes.

“We have received feedback from many very creative players who want to build large or more creative structures in their territory. But they shared their feelings that when they build their dream places, the available pieces make it very difficult for them to achieve what they want. So, after this communication, we added more building structures. We've also added a god view that actually allows you to see multiple pieces more easily, and a grid system that makes it easier to attach structures.”

We want to help our players turn their dreams into reality in the game.

Woody tells me he was “amazed by the creativity of the players” and how they were able to “exceed what the development team could do.” He's obviously excited about what his community has created and even rocked some of his favorite structures he's seen so far, including a warship anchored off one of the Once Human's shores, an entire city, and a “very warm city.”

He says it's “exactly why we make games: for imagination, creativity, fun and sharing,” and the team is already thinking of ways to make things even better for audiences. “We want to help our players turn their dreams into reality in the game. For example, how can we make a warship move through the water, or how can we populate these cities with more realistic components and improve the sense of interaction?

Design, development and the future

While Once Human was met with mixed reception upon launch, the game world and monster design were almost universally praised. The game's creatures, known as Deviants, may seem wild, but they're all designed to fit into the game's overarching story.

“We first conceptualized our deviants by giving them a high-level label, [which is] the concept we want to show our players; then we shape that tag into something more concrete, more tangible, that resonates with the theme of our game or setting.”

Arguably the game's most iconic monster is The Wanderer, a giant bus with six legs and arms for legs. I asked Woody if it was going to get any crazier than this.

“Actually, it will depend on how crazy. [we] can be,” he says, before returning to the idea of ​​player luck. “We're always trying to design new monsters and deviants, especially those that are closely related to new scenarios and new environments. We want them to be closely tied to the environment, so hopefully they'll have more interaction with players during their survival experience.”

The next most important milestone will be our console version.

With the PC version of Once Human doing well and a mobile port on the horizon, the conversation turned to a potential console port of the game. Woody tells us, “After the development and release of the mobile version, the next most important milestone will be our console version.”

Once the console version of Once Human hits the market, the team will have reached two of its key milestones and are already thinking together about what to do next.

“We were inspired by a lot of great shows when creating Once Human. The Mist and Stranger Things are two. It's not inconceivable that we'll make a TV show or a novel or an animation,” Woody tells me, before quickly coming back down to earth, adding, “But the game is still early.

“We still think we have more stories to tell and more characters waiting to be introduced and fleshed out. We really want a comprehensive game story first, and that's where all our attention will be going forward.”