For some, that’s the ‘classic look’ of the towering, scaly reptile with a killer set of teeth - the image burned into our brains by movies, toys and of course, museum displays of the 2000s, which brought dinosaurs to life with scale replicas (pun intended) of what we believed these fearsome and monstrous creatures looked like at the time.
For others, it’s the more ‘modern look’ of a ferocious feathered fiend, light on its feet, cautiously moving forward and sizing up its prey. You often hear people call this the ‘scientifically accurate’ version, as it’s inspired by exciting modern paleontological discoveries which have completely shaken up how we picture dinosaurs today.
Well, we’re not here to debate that - we can see the valid points on both sides of the issue, but we still encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments below.
During an AMA way back when, we announced that Deathground would primarily star feathered dinosaurs, giving a few reasons why we decided to take that direction. Over the course of development, that direction has changed a little, with the Utahraptor and Compsognathus keeping their feathers by default, and the Allosaurs and Tyrannosaurus rex instead shifting to show their scaled appearance by default.
But, we’ve also heard plenty of feedback and requests on the subject, which is why we’ve decided to leave the decision in your hands!
When Deathground launches (Which is happening on the 7th of October, if you missed our last update!) there will be a toggleable option in the gameplay settings menu which allows you to turn feathers off. This gameplay option will specifically change the appearance of the Raptor, and Compsognathus locally - which means if the feathers on / off debate is a hot topic in your squad, you can each choose to have it whichever way suits you personally.
While this setting will initially be an overarching on / off for all feathers across the board, we’re planning to include additional customizability in future updates - so, if you prefer one dinosaur with feathers on, but another with feathers off, you’ll be able to customise that in due time!
While we’re starting with feathers, we’re looking to add more options which let you customise your experience in Deathground. For example:
GORE:
We’ve heard many requests for a setting which would allow players to alter the amount of blood displayed on screen - and while we prefer our facilities coated in, uh, ‘tomato sauce,’ we understand that others might not!
DIFFICULTY:
We’re also keeping a close eye on difficulty, and while our goal is to balance the game’s base challenge level first, we’re aiming to include options for easier, harder, and way WAY harder difficulties later down the line, as well as options for just how often tutorials and point of interest markers appear.
ACCESSIBILITY:
Additionally, we’re looking into more traditional accessibility options such as the ability to adjust the colours shown in game to make things clearer for those with colour blindness, settings which reduce motion for those who struggle with motion sickness, and more.
We are investigating each of these options and hope to update the game over the course of early access to include them alongside various localisation and translation settings. (but more on that later this week)
Cheers for checking in! We’ll see you tomorrow for another mini development feature leading up to the launch of Deathground on the 7th of October! As always, here's your reminder of where else you can find us: Join us and the rest of the community over on Discord. Watch more behind-the-scenes on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Follow us on Facebook, X/Twitter, Threads and Bsky. See you there!