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!
My honest opinion is that I would never play a game that tried that. It’s too much genre diversity in one game.
I think extraction is oversaturated at the moment/too heavily competed. As do I think the 5v5 team based shooters are.
I also think that at the point of adding survival ontop of it, you are trying to advertise to too broad of an audience. Your survival open world mode would be significantly different mechanics wise than your extraction mode, so you would essentially need to make an entire different game just for that mode. They are two polar opposite game styles. Extraction style is a fast paced perma death style mode with no real intent outside collection to increase char strength and skills, where survival is slow paced by norm and would need some form of driving factor to keep people interested in playing the mode, as the primary reason to play it (get shit and get out) is no longer in play.
if its a passion project/not expecting any return out of it. I would say go for it but, I think that if you intended to make it a monetization thing and have it take off, its a bit ambitious and I think you should start with one or the other.