I’ve been thinking a lot about a long-term game development goal of mine.
My dream project would be a realistic first-person multiplayer game that combines elements I love from different genres. I’m a big fan of survival games, extraction shooters, and tactical team-based games, so I’ve been wondering whether it’s possible to build something that evolves over time rather than trying to do everything at once.
My idea would be to start with an extraction-shooter foundation and focus on making that experience solid first. Then, if the project grows and I can build a larger team and secure more funding, I’d expand it with additional modes such as a tactical 5v5 experience and eventually a persistent open-world survival mode.
What I’m unsure about is whether this approach is technically realistic. Would building multiple game modes around the same project create too much technical debt over time? Could very different gameplay loops end up making development significantly harder?
I’m also curious about the player side of things. If a game offers several distinct modes, does that risk splitting the community too much and creating matchmaking or population issues, especially for a smaller or growing player base?
I’m still fairly new to game development and currently planning to work in Unreal Engine using Blueprints, so I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone with experience in multiplayer games, live-service projects, or large-scale game development.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
Players are generally resistant to changes made in a game. When you release a game the players that keep coming back are the ones that liked what you’ve made. Those that don’t like it won’t cone back. Many of them won’t even try for a new game mode.
Even if you released with all planned modes your player base would likely fracture into the modes they prefer, but not evenly. Eventually you’ll have to prioritize one mode over the others and you’ll pick, not your favorite mode, but the mode with the highest player count. This will lead to bugs not getting addressed in your less popular modes and player counts eventually falling off.
Consider COD and Fortnite. Each are massive franchises with huge player bases and multiple modes, but there’s really only one or two modes that people play (and those games are produced with massive investments. Hell, PUBG even has occasional seasonal modes–but it’s not getting huge numbers of non-pubg players you boot the game and the core player base is sticking to the mode they play the game for.
My advice here is to pick one mode. The one mode you most enjoy and build that. You can then build a community around people that like the same gameplay you do and your enthusiasm for that mode you enjoy will help that community grow.
You mention you are still new to game Dev. What have you built already? These are all ambitious projects, and it you don’t have the relevant experience yet will be a VERY difficult task. I’d advise making your first couple of projects really small to get a feel for it and learn incrementally. This will help you gain the requisite skills and delay burnout. If this is your first real big project and you’ve done nothing with multiplayer before you’re gonna have a difficult time.