We have 60 players in squads of three inside a 2.5km circle. We went with trios because playing with mates simply makes the game more fun. You mentioned extraction shooters, which is quite fascinating, but we firmly view DED.NET as a heavily twisted battle royale. Since players try to extract with their hard-earned gear and items packed in backpacks, calling it an extraction shooter is not entirely wrong. You develop abilities, try to minimize damage, and carry character persistence across a multi-match journey.

The main point is that we want players to push through runs. A run is a multi-match journey where you pick a participant and chart out how you want the character to evolve—whether that is becoming a supporter, an overwatch, or a close-quarters door breaker. As matches pile up, you plug ROMs—chips wired straight into the brain—for fresh gameplay abilities. Some are predictable, like faster reloading or longer diving distances, but you could also end up slithering on your belly like a snake, turning into a lethal baby doll, or ripping a car door off its hinges to use as a riot shield.

Every match grants you more power, but it also saddles you with injuries. You have to manage ailments like coughing when smoke rolls in or fumbling your weapon during a reload, all while hunting for that sweet spot to craft the ultimate build. That tightrope walk between what you want and what you actually need is where the real fun of PUBG: DED.NET lies.

A winning run takes roughly 30 minutes per match. As for how many matches a single run spans, that depends entirely on your choices and playstyle. Since a run's lifespan hinges on your injuries, wins, and losses, performing better lets you drag that run out longer. The same goes for whether you can tolerate specific injuries. If you pick up an injury that hurts you in the water, it is fine as long as you stay dry. On the flip side, severe injuries might just tempt you to ditch the character and kick off a brand new run. On average, you are looking at roughly 6 to 8, sometimes 6 to 10 matches in a single run.

There are plenty of games out there obsessed with making every single match fair and neatly balanced. There is a great line from the 90s film The Big Lebowski that goes, 'Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you,' and that pretty much sums up our philosophy. You might be running into a character just starting out while you are midway through your run. Conversely, you could bump into someone who is 10 games deep. That unpredictability adds spice to the whole affair. Even if you are not at peak skill, those asymmetrical encounters—like a veteran crossing paths with a newcomer on their very first match—create brilliant moments. Unlike traditional extraction shooters where you nurture a single character for ages, we expect an average run to last about 8 to 12 matches before players push the character to breaking point.

Pace and persistence. By pace, we mean movement, the gunfight durations between engagements, and waiting times between respawns. It is a fast, intense game. There are moments to catch your breath, sure, but we want players constantly fighting, looting, and pushing their characters to outlast everyone else.

Persistence is what sets us apart. You might start out wanting to build a specific character archetype, but as sessions roll on, field conditions and your squad's playstyle dictate what abilities are offered and what choices you make. Guiding your character down an unpredictable journey makes for a truly unique experience. Experimenting with new abilities sparks fresh ideas for your next run. Even if you suffer a string of brutal losses through the night, when you finally wrap up a session and get offered three bonus perks, you will likely mutter to yourself, 'Bloody hell, I got the bloody eye perk, the snake perk, the akimbo perk—I've been waiting ages for this ROM!' That 'just one more match' itch is terribly strong here.

The core map is a 5x5 square kilometer area set in 1990s Washington state. One major departure from PUBG is verticality. The map features towering cliffs alongside low, flat plains. We have built what is quite possibly the densest forest in battle royale history. Since matches kick off inside a 2.5x2.5 square kilometer circle, you never quite know which corner of Cascadia you will drop into. After a few phases, the circle starts shifting, making the blue zone notoriously tricky to predict. Another highlight is the realism powered by Unreal technology. Towns are packed with infrastructure and heaps of cover, and since we had more tools to breathe life into the world compared to past projects, simply exploring the place is a treat.

Regardless of playstyle, we want to leave paths open that carry both pros and cons. Crafting a perfectly balanced sandbox was never the goal. Early on, we had users with five abilities matching against players with zero, and it was brutally harsh on newcomers. Using that feedback, we introduced a phase-based ability unlock system. There are five phases within a match where everyone's abilities switch on simultaneously. By the time you activate four abilities, your opponent will have four as well. One player might have invested in situational awareness and movement, while another poured points into door-breaching and hiding in refrigerators—both are completely viable strategies. Seeing how these wildly different abilities bounce off each other is where the real charm lies. Balancing this is a massive undertaking, which is precisely why we keep running tests.

Director Curd leans toward a bit of a 'trollish' playstyle, so those kinds of abilities get picked often. There is a perk called 'Peekaboo' that lets you see silhouettes through walls and buildings if someone wanders within 10 meters, which pairs brilliantly with lethal blade hands for close-quarters scraps. Director Curd also loves a hefty mobility kit featuring long dives and slides, topped off with a boombox blaring music for opponents to listen to. Since the tunes actually heal squadmates, it tends to drive enemies completely mad.

There is another ability called 'Creeper', tailored for hiding inside fridges and peeking out through half-open door cracks. When you are hunkered down inside a container, subtle breathing sounds play out, meaning all you have to do is wait for someone to walk into the room. Combine that with 'Killer Vibe'—a perk that rattles your controller when someone is nearby—and you have got yourself a delightfully cheeky build.

PUBG found its success by listening closely to fans. If the demand and player numbers are there to support a solo mode, we will definitely look into it. Trios hit the sweet spot because of asymmetry. 1v4 fights are just too punishing, and 1v2 skirmishes lack tension, but 1v3 encounters strike that exquisite balance where the odds are stacked against you, yet victory is never entirely out of reach. We tested countless variations, and trios proved to be the setting that kept the most people happy. Playing solo transforms the experience into something far scarier, slower, and more tactical, which can lead to genuinely eerie moments.

Looking back at history, eras of upheaval are always fascinating. Moments of transition, like the romance of westerns or samurai tales, always pit the old against the new. The mid-90s are intriguing because we grew up using landlines with no way to call for help if we got lost, yet we were also the generation that experienced modems, dial-up, and the earliest forms of streaming content. It coincided with the birth of web streaming, reality TV, trashy television, and the infancy of pro wrestling like ECW extreme deathmatches. Drawing inspiration from that, we imagined what it would be like if up-and-coming reality show producers decided to broadcast a bizarre, micro-scale show for a tiny, ultra-wealthy audience instead of something like The Real World or Survivor.

Even today, instead of a single monoculture, we live in a world with millions of streamers, communities, and niche obsessions. The 90s provided a brilliant time and place to lean into the idea of weird things made for small audiences. The setting itself naturally breeds mystery. Looking back at media like Twin Peaks and The X-Files, alongside the music of the era, we felt it was a unique time and place that could be effectively recontextualized for a modern audience. We are not just blindly copying the past; we are twisting it through ROMs and dark web game shows.

We took heavy inspiration from Running Man. Everyone is here because there is prize money on the line. The twist is that not every character is necessarily grinding solely for that cash reward. Every character is tied to the map through their own personal background, caught in webs of rivalry or alliance, each chasing their own private agenda. Everyone is on a personal quest. When you lead characters to points of interest that actually matter to them, unique dialogue triggers to flesh out the narrative.

The dark web streaming game show acts as a device that lets the audience chime in. You can spot characters in the trailer trying to answer phones—those are viewers watching the show from home and nudging the game in subtle ways. We call them patrons, and your relationship with the crowd can make or break a match. Tweaking time-to-kill (TTK) too heavily or handing out game-breaking damage multipliers would ruin the fairness, so we focused on crafting abilities that offer clever, strategic opportunities instead.

The beating heart of PUBG is desperate survival and the law of the jungle. The smart and adaptable overcome the odds and come out on top. People keep crawling back to the game because of that unmatched rush when you outlast everyone else against impossible odds. The connection here is that while DED.NET rocks a faster pace and physical persistence that carries abilities across matches, it fiercely preserves that core DNA: when pushed to your limits, the adaptable and clever survive by using whatever is at hand. That is the common thread tying DED.NET and classic PUBG together.

Big games usually find comfort in repeating the exact same formula, but PUBG constantly asks itself, 'What else can we do? What other stories can we tell?' People often ask why this couldn't just be a new mode or rule set inside classic PUBG, which is a fair question. However, the camera perspectives, gunplay, and movement mechanics are entirely different. We did not want to make a twin brother to PUBG; we wanted to create a mutant cousin. We are building something that can happily coexist alongside PUBG. For those craving something gritty, packed with a specific mood, and featuring unapologetic violence, DED.NET will feel like home.

A PC version is definitely in the pipeline. Our upcoming closed tests will focus on consoles first, but we are actively pondering everything from mouse and keyboard controls to all the necessary PC optimizations.