The Flock’s population countdown will be available for player to monitor from in game menus, The Flock’s Steam store page, at Vogelsap’s website, and on The Flock’s subreddit. People addicted, smashed little cube bits in Curiosity because they really wanted to know what was at the end. Time left for people to buy the game depends on the death rate of players within The Flock. When the count reaches zero, the game will no longer be purchasable.
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Asymmetrical multiplayer is all the rage these days thanks to games like Evolve, but the staying power of such titles is unproven, with the player base of Evolve dropping radically since launch. When that figure is depleted and the Flock are effectively extinct, the game will be removed from sale, and only those still part of the world will be able to participate in the climactic finale to the greater narrative.
“There is no scenario the game comes online by our hand after the game has ended”, creative director Jeroen Van Hasselt told me this morning. “In opposition to other multiplayer games, we want The Flock’s experience to inspire a sense of awe, to keep players eagerly anticipating what is coming next and to end with a memorable climax”. The attraction will lead to their death or transformation into a whole other being. After the game launches in Q3 of this year exclusively for PC, the community will be given a set population, and each in-game death will work to deplete that population.
The Flock is an asymmetrical (the Evolve flashbacks are strong) first-person horror multiplayer title that pits groups of grotesque monsters against a single, light-wielding Carrier. Centuries of devastating pollution have blocked out the sun, blanketing the planet in darkness. Play begins with an item called the “Light Artifact” being dropped into the map and the goal of the Flock players is to collect this artifact, transforming them into the “Carrier”. Practically, online multiplayer turns off. The Flock will only be playable offline. When a member of the Flock successfully lunges at the Carrier, it seizes control of the Light Artifact and becomes the new humanoid hunted. It’s being developed by Vogelsap, which consists of Dutch university students.
This is intriguing, from a developer’s perspective, because Vogelsap seems to be spicing up its marketing strategy even as it effectively sets a hard limit on lifetime sales of The Flock.
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Although the very concept of a game that renders itself unplayable at an indeterminate point in the future may sound like commercial suicide, to van Hasselt it’s more about creating something intangible and precious to gamers.
