The Team Behind Mercenaries Share Some Insights! | Creator Island Special Edition

For our readers who have yet to try Mercenaries, how would you best describe the island?

“Mercenaries is a permadeath looter shooter with social elements. It's also a better version of the map Salvage Survival which was made by Wertandrew, DolphinDom and KKSlider. Mercenaries was primarily designed around immersion, lore, looting and exploring.”

During the development of Mercenaries, is there any specific tool or technique that was pivotal for your team?

Wertandrew: “Mercenaries is an open-world game, so the ability to expand the map in one single level was pivotal for immersing the player in what is known as the Dark Region. Also, due to the limitations of memory in the engine, we had to condense, recreate and expand mechanics using Verse, which allowed us to build more.”

“Lastly, using Unreal Engine technologies such as World Partition, Nanite, Sequencer, HLODs and Lumen allowed us to make an immersive world that would equal many of the AAA games you see on the market today.”

LAMA: “As for the Verse part, since we were aiming to reduce thermometer memory from the beginning, we had to redo some native devices like the player spawners (which cost less memory now), beacon devices and supply drops for example.”

What about the other side of the equation? Was there a point of frustration that could have made development easier?

Wertandrew: “UEFN is still in Beta, thus many tools used while scaling to large projects can show their cracks. There were a lot of areas that we observed issues with our tools, and some even required direct contact with Epic's support to help reproduce externally and eventually fix. Even now, we have a few disabled features that we are waiting Epic to address first.”

LAMA:” I could say a lot of things here unfortunately, the map was supposed to get released in February but we kept on getting new blocking issues after each Fortnite update that we couldn't solve by ourselves. Epic was the culprit, that being said, we kept on reporting those issues and they eventually got solved after a few months, I'm glad they were solved that fast to be honest, I feel like we were very lucky about that

Another big issue we encountered and that we're still trying to solve is the server lags (what causes the players to rollback/stutter sometimes), map and gameplay was initially designed for 50 players, but we quickly understood that the servers couldn't handle much players on such a big map (we still don't know why). When we tested before release, servers were able to handle 24 players, but after the release we had to lower this number down to 12!”

We know it can be hard to pick a favorite child, but is there a specific area of the map/island that you are really proud of?

Wertandrew: “In terms of level design, I am proud of the general island layout. The front side of the island (North on the minimap) serves to guide all beginner players towards two central points (hotel and mall) which they can find loot and improve their loadouts. The elevation of the terrain also helps, directing them towards those two points as well. Due to some optimization that creative maps have, players cannot see each other past 150 meters in the game, so this design also helps them meet easier (we also have mechanics such as alarms to attract others by sound).”

LAMA: “I didn't do any level design at all, but I do like raids, seeing players solving them differently is really fun to watch”

With such a large, sprawling world, is there anything you think players may miss or not be aware of when playing your game?

Wertandrew: “Again in regards of level design, the world of Daark is made so that it is experienced slowly. Since this game will be played for many, long sessions, having everything encountered early would mean the player has nothing to strive after a while. This is why there are a lot of secret caves, areas and entire endgame zones that are only found if you find clues in the world, or explore heavily. Even our most hardcore players haven't found everything yet!”

LAMA: “As of right now, if you leave too soon, you might not be able to see the different companies and the shelter upgrades (shown at the end of the first main quest). Other things that I could mention are the bounty system (could be hard to understand), the raids (end game only), the real estate properties and hazard areas (because you need to explore a bit)”

For all the Fortnite Creators reading this, is there any advice you would give them, from your experience developing Mercenaries?

Wertandrew: “Never give up. Be persistent. If you can't change the world, let the world change around you. Have a goal and stick to it. Let nothing stop you. Completing Mercenaries for me was initially an impossible task. The scope of the game was too large and the mechanics didn't really bring anything new. However, with the addition of Lama and the aid of Alliance Studios, not only I managed to reach my vision, we went way past it, with things like Loot Radar, Main Quest, Contracts, Bounty System, and many many more things that I could only dream of doing myself.”

LAMA: “From my experience developing Mercenaries, my main advice that I think would have made the project easier and safer for release would be to playtest your map with real players (the young ones), I feel like it's still a bit hard in the ecosystem to be a niche game and get a good CCU going on, if that's what you're aiming for. If your map is fun for everybody, your map should be played. I feel like I'm a good example as well as I hate tycoons because it's the easy solution for a creator but I always finish them when I get to try one, which means they are still fun and/or addictive (not doing promotion for tycoons!)”