THE DZ MANIFESTO

Darkzone is made with love and care by a tiny independent team trying to bring joy to those gamers, like us, that want to have something fun to play while working, studying, relaxing, watching Netflix, [fill in the blank], etc. :)

Making games is how we make our living (or try to), and it’s also what we love to do. We make every decision for the game from a place of humility, and our #1 priority will always be to make the game better for the largest amount of DZ players possible.

We wanted to share some insight into a few things about DZ with our player base and community so that our community can better understand what values we are using when making decisions for the game (both so far, and in the future).

With every decision that we make, we want to be able to all come back to this document and see if what we are doing satisfies the values and core pillars we want to abide by.

So, here we go :)

1. Commitment

We are 100% committed to Darkzone and have been since we started this long journey back in mid-2019. Since then, with all of its ups and downs, we’ve been fully committed and dedicated to improving the game as much as we possibly can. We’ve spent thousands of hours working hard behind the scenes to make the game better even if that translated to delays and financial strain.

We have made many mistakes, and hope to continue learning from them. We remain, more than ever, committed to Darkzone and to continue improving and expanding Darkzone as long as the game can financially support itself and we have a community that wishes for the game to continue growing. This should be just the beginning of the journey!

2. Humility

Everything decision we make, we make it from a place of humility. We can’t claim we are veteran game developers (former Riot and all that jazz). We are just indie developers who want to get joy out of making games. Frequently, we will make mistakes. The decisions we make, we will make by using data and feedback from our community, and we hope to always make more right decisions rather than wrong. If something didn’t come out quite right, we sincerely hope to hear about that and fix the issue as best as we can.

3. Staying True

One of our pillars needs to be to stay true to the game we set out to build. Darkzone is an idle RPG for gamers who love loot and gear (farming it, collecting it, trading it, crafting it, refining it, etc.). It’s a background game that you can progress in while studying, working, or maybe playing something else. It should take some interaction, at times, but it should feel like it can progress for a decent span of time without needing manual input.

This is probably not the right RPG for you if you are looking for an immersive, active, experience. We take all of our players’ feedback to heart, but please know that this is what we are trying to build. A game where you just find better and better loot, collect everything you can collect, farm, grind, min-max your characters and squad, and kill bosses in higher and higher difficulties all without the need to dedicate your full attention to it. We are always trying to balance idle vs active times (please see #5).

4. RNG

This game is filled, and we mean filled, with RNG. If you don’t like RNG in your games, this game is probably not for you. We do take into consideration the feedback of players when it comes to how much RNG is enough, and how much is just, simply, too much. But all in all, we did set out to make a game in which loot feels like the loot systems used by PC ARPG classics, and that implies a lot of RNG.

5. Balancing

This one is simple, we want the game to be enjoyed by the largest amount of people in our community. We will always be open to feedback about balancing so that we can find the perfect balance between progression and challenge (difficulty), and also a perfect balance between idle and active.

6. Monetization

The wrong approach in monetization can kill a game, or at least severely hamper it. We’ve always wanted to create a game in which, much like some other F2P titles that have gotten it right, we are being fair with our player base.

Our take on this is the following:

- Ads
We currently don’t have any kind of ads, and we hope to never have them, unless (through a fair ad system) that was the only way we could keep the game running. The keyword being: “fair”. This, of course, puts a little more importance on the game being able to generate some revenue via its IAP system.

- Energy System
We don’t have an energy system or limit on how much a player can play at any point throughout the game. We don’t ever want to have a “pay-to-play” type of system or a limit to what F2P should truly be: free to play as much as one wants.

- In-App Purchases
Lastly, we are fully committed to making everything in the game that has an effect on stats/power/strength unlockable through effort and farming.

Being that the game is F2P, and we don’t have ads, our vision is for players to be able to purchase or pay for things that can speed up their progression. However, we vow to never have anything that affects the strength of players and their squads be locked behind a paywall without the ability to unlock that “something”, whatever it might be, by simply playing the game.

Everything that affects strength/stats/power will always be available to all F2P players.

We very much want to hear from our players and community if they think we are not abiding by this.

7. Priorities & Roadmap

We vow to set our priorities and roadmap by heavily leveraging feedback, thoughts, and wants from our community.

We will always be open to feedback, suggestions, and questions from our community. This goes for absolutely everything in the game.

8. Social

From the start, we’ve always wanted to create a game that, even though is mostly to be played in the “background” or idle, makes all players feel like they are part of a community and feel like they aren’t alone in the Darkzone. For every new idea or change, we will always check to see how it will affect the overall socialness of the game.




Thank you so much to everyone who is a part of the DZ community! This would not have been possible without the longstanding support of all of our Alpha and Beta players. We are looking forward to making great memories for all of us now that the game is heading into Early Access / Open Beta with so many changes and new things we want to bring to the game in the future :)

- The Capitanos Team