Final Letter to the Community
Deathgarden: Bloodharvest — an asymmetric multiplayer first-person shooter with survival elements in which a hunter tracks and guns down scavengers. Developed and published by Behaviour Interactive.
It’s been quiet sometime, since I was in the closed beta. What I experienced was an interesting take to the asymmetric multiplayer formula. The game was on Steam with over 12,000 positive reviews and not in early access but very much still a closed beta.
At the time of this article it has an average of 200+ players which is a far cry from the close to 10,000 it had 6 months ago. It looks like it’s not going to get the final stretch they had in mind as Blood Harvest is shutting down on it’s final 1.0 patch.
They team has this to say in an email that was sent out to registered accounts yesterday:
Dear Deathgarden Community,
They say all good things must come to an end. Over the past few weeks, our team has been rather quiet about the development of Deathgarden. Witnessing the decreasing player base, we’ve been working on finding solutions: we sought advice, considered many different scenarios, looked at various solutions, but unfortunately, none of them would change the fate of this project. Today, it is with a heavy heart that we’re announcing the end of Deathgarden’s development. To honour the production team’s work, we have decided to give the game a meaningful last breath by finalizing every feature we’ve been working on.
Two years ago, a handful of passionate game developers at Behaviour got together to develop a new game concept. This paved the way for great talents to join the team, and we want to acknowledge the work of every single person who took part in this soulful adventure. Deathgarden was, and still is today, a project of passion. A game that we wanted to make for ourselves, but also for players around the world to enjoy.
This project made us go through a roller coaster of emotions, from the first version to the reboot, and we take pride in what we’ve accomplished. We grew a lot from the experience, as a team and as individuals and we will keep on going, we will take risks and be innovative to meet our player’s expectations. As for the future, the Deathgarden team has been redeployed to other Behaviour projects, both live and unannounced.
All this work wouldn’t have been possible without you, the community. We want to thank you for your continuous support and contribution during the ride. We want to leave this adventure on a high note and make the work we’ve been doing these past weeks be worth it for you.
In the light of this news, we wanted to have one last moment to share with you. We will be hosting a Deathgarden’s sunset Play with the Devs livestream on December 12 at twitch.tv/deathgardengame starting at 3 pm EST to share our love for the game with you.
We will keep Deathgarden’s servers up at least through the end of the year, and you will still be able to play the game as long as matchmaking is viable. We are also making the game free today, so more people can join you.
Thank you very much for your support these past two years and we will see you again soon,
The Deathgarden Dev Team
It’s always sad when hard work doesn’t pan out to the way one hopes and even more so when the end feels premature. They have since outlined the final patch notes & created a FAQ for those who want to know more.
