Deathground news & patch notes

Patch 9 is now live for Deathground (Version 0.1.58b)

Hi Operatives, we hope you're all doing well.

Please see the latest patch notes below as we continue to work on the upcoming and major updates. Thanks again for all of your feedback, support and bug-reporting to help this process.

PATCH NOTES: (V 0.1.58b)

⚠ Important: Before launching, please ensure your PC meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics drivers are fully updated! For reference: 

• NVIDIA users: Make sure you have the ‘NVIDIA app' installed and that the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver is updated under the drivers tab. 

• AMD users: Make sure you have the ‘AMD app’. It will automatically detect your hardware and guide you through updating to the latest driver version.

Highlights and changes

• Glass sound traps removed from all maps temporarily

(Developer's Note: This was an adjustment which we forgot to mention during the main patch notes of 0.1.57b, whoops! Feedback suggested that players didn't quite understand how this mechanic worked or missed that it was a thing entirely, sprinting over glass without realising it was a hazard that would alert raptors. After some discussion we’ve decided a temporary removal and deeper rework is the best way to resolve these issues in the long term, more news on that soon!)

Bugfixes - General

• Fixed an issue where some wall collisions were missing during ‘Biomedical - Feeding Frenzy’ which allowed players to escape out of bounds

• Fixed an issue which caused ‘refrigerator’ containers to go missing during ’Biomedical - Secure The Specimen’

• Fixed an issue where some ‘refrigerator’ containers could not be interacted with

• Fixed an issue where supply caches could be opened but not used during ‘Biomedical - Secure The Specimen’

• Fixed several issues where materials would not render correctly

• Fixed an issue with extra terrain geometry in ‘Agricultural - Spray The Greenhouse’

Bugfixes - Dinosaur / AI

• Fixed an issue where navigation could generate incorrectly on top of vent layouts (which could cause issues with Compy navigation and item drop placement)

• Fixed an issue where raptor leg collisions could interact incorrectly with some audio/gameplay collision volumes

We have a lot of great content and polish on the horizon. Here's a reminder of our DeathRoad to release: 

To view in full size, click here.

See FAQs and Discussions and we will do our best to get back to you!

Join our Discord and for Bug Reporting or search for teammates.

Thanks,

'Feeding Frenzy' - Update is now live for Deathground! (Version 0.1.57b)

Since you last ventured into the Biomedical facility, Cooper has been checking in on the Bio-scanners. It looks like something's gotten itself trapped in one of the paddocks and it doesn't seem right to let it sit there and starve, so you’ll need to feed and release it.

Hi Operatives, Deathground's first sub-mission, 'Biomedical - Feeding Frenzy' is now available, alongside several mechanics updates and balancing adjustments. Please see the update and patch notes below for the full details.

This Sub-mission, like ‘Epoch’, has a shorter duration than the larger primary missions. Taking place in the basement of the Biomedical facility, where you’ll have access to a few new side-areas, the ‘observation deck’ and ‘morgue’ In Feeding Frenzy, you’ll need to search fridges across the basement to collect ‘meat’, which you’ll deposit into the observation room feeding chute. Be careful, the more meat you’re holding at once the more of a trail you’ll leave for raptors to follow…

In one of the observation paddocks sits a starving Allosaurus

Behind the glass of the observation room sits a starving Allosaurus

As part of this update, we’ve updated the raptors perception, specifically, scent. This was (is) a tricky sense to balance, for a few obvious reasons, including the fact that you, the player, can’t sense scents…because of this, raptors respond to scent trails, for example, meat being carried by a player.

After losing sight of a player, raptors will now search more thoroughly around the environment in an attempt to locate them; opening lockers, checking in barrels and under tables. 

That’s IF they lose sight of you! We’ve also fixed a rather pesky bug which was preventing players from being spotted correctly after entering a hiding space within view of a raptor.

Compys have also been adjusted based on player feedback.

After spotting you, they become more aggressive the longer you spend nearby, and this aggression rises faster the closer you get to them - stay there too long or get too close and they’ll attack, either by quickly nipping at you, or by launching themselves at your face! Rather than attacking again right away, they’ll instead retreat to a safe distance and wait to see if you got the message. 

Throwing an object, like a bottle or a brick, at the compy previously caused them to retaliate and attack, but now, instead, causes them to retreat for a short period, allowing you to gather your composure and plan your next move. Compys hiding in lockers and barrels have continued to cause chaos during development (and not in a good way!) but we hope to include these in an update fairly soon, we’ll let you know when you need to start keeping an eye out!

This mission's objectives are balanced based on player count, which is a fancy way of saying that if you have more players in your team, you’ll be given more work to do during the mission! 

In the last few months, we’ve been tweaking missions and mechanics to account for these changes, so similar expansive balancing changes will be included in missions going forward, and added into existing missions over the course of the next few updates.

Clone-pods, respawning and player assists have also been reworked for this update. The spectator menu has been revamped, showing spectator mode controls, including a new ‘request respawn’ button, which will highlight the nearest active clone pod so that your team can bring you back from the dead.

We’ve also adjusted how many respawns players are given when starting a mission and when unlocking additional respawn rooms. This balancing change aims to make things a little more fair for solo players by granting them more respawns, and a little more challenging for teams by granting them fewer respawns.

Players can now help up teammates who are downed without needing a healing item, and crawling speed while downed has also been reduced to account for this change.

PATCH NOTES: (V 0.1.57b)

⚠ Important: Before launching, please ensure your PC meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics drivers are fully updated! For reference: 

• NVIDIA users: Make sure you have the ‘NVIDIA app' installed and that the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver is updated under the drivers tab. 

• AMD users: Make sure you have the ‘AMD app’. It will automatically detect your hardware and guide you through updating to the latest driver version.

Highlights and changes

• ‘BIOMEDICAL - FEEDING FRENZY’ Sub-mission added

  • New ‘Drop off chute’ and multiple ‘Fridge’ interactable objects added

  • Multiple new ‘Meat’ items added (Including carriable, single and stackable types)

  • A new collectable document found in the basement of Biomedical, during the Feeding Frenzy sub-mission

  • Updated artwork for some Biomedical assets

• ‘Biomedical - Feeding Frenzy’ requires completion of ‘Biomedical - Secure the specimen’ in order to be unlocked

• ‘Mission Control - Epoch’ now requires completion of all Primary missions to be unlocked

(Developer's Note: as part of general progression mechanics, going forward, you’ll need to complete specific missions and even optional objectives to unlock some content!)

• Raptor perception additions and improvements

  • Raptors will now detect and then follow scent trails left by specific gameplay elements, such as the ‘Meat’ items found in feeding frenzy

  • Raptors can now detect and interact with ‘smart objects’. Currently, the selection is limited to hiding spaces, but additional interactable objects will be gradually added in future updates.

  • Fixed an issue where raptors would sometimes not correctly see players entering a hiding space - causing them to lose track of players when they shouldn’t

• Compsognathus enemy rework

  • The compy now attacks less frequently, but deals more damage per attack and can also stop the player in place for a ‘grab’ attack.

  • The compy now roams the vents, rather than simply making its way to a player entering the vent

  • The compy no longer leaves immediately upon players exiting a vent, and will wait by the entrance to deter players from returning too quickly.

(Developer's Note: These updates aim to make interactable hiding spaces a location where you pause and wait for enemies to pass, rather than somewhere to jump in and hide, dodging the raptor completely. They also aim to make vents more viable traversal options for getting around levels, without immediately and relentlessly being chased by the compsognathus! We will continue to balance each of these elements based on feedback.)

• Respawn Rework

  • New ‘Spectator’ Screen has been added, which displays keybinds for switching view, and the name of the player you are spectating

  • While on the spectator screen, you can now ‘request respawn,’ which applies a marker to the nearest set of clone pods to help guide teammates

  • Respawn quantities have now been adjusted:

    • 1-Player: Starting respawns increased from 1 to 3

    • 2-Player; Starting respawns unchanged from 2

    • 3-Player; Starting respawns reduced from 3 to 2

    • 4-Player; Starting respawns reduced from 4 to 3

    • Additional respawns granted from unlocking clone-pod rooms reduced to 1, regardless of player count

  • Players who are downed can now be helped up without needing a healing item. Using a healing item will still restore health and help players up faster.

• Interactive items visual rework

  • Interactive items are now highlighted by a pulsing ‘glow’ effect, to help make them easier to spot, and more clearly interactable

  • To differentiate types of items, ‘distraction items’ and collectables blink once, ‘key’ items blink twice in rapid succession, and containers and buttons blink half as often

  • Additional visual improvements and optimisation for items across the board

• General Optimisation and Performance Improvements

Quality of life adjustments

• Updates to the bio-scanner mechanic, with more intended as part of an upcoming rework to the ‘Secure the specimen’ mission.

• A ‘news carousel’ is now displayed on the main menu

• ‘Quick thrown’ items now follow a trajectory more central to the camera, making them easier to aim

• The flashlight now lags behind the camera, both horizontally and vertically

• The ‘tranquilliser rifle’ loadout item reload is now correctly halted while sliding

• Adjustments to various UI elements and related assets

Bugfixes - General

• Fixed several instances where players could drop items out of bounds

• Fixed an issue which caused some containers to become ‘desynced’ between host/client

• Fixed an issue where a collectable in Agricultural - Spray the greenhouse was unobtainable

• Fixed several visual issues related to clone pods, including clone pod doors becoming ‘blurred’ while opening / closing

• Fixed an issue which caused players to become stuck on the spectator screen

• Fixed an issue which caused healing/damage visual effects to remain on screen 

• Fixed a rare issue which caused incorrect animation blending when entering hiding spaces

• Fixed an issue which caused interaction prompts for vaultable objects to display incorrectly

• Fixed an issue which caused a crash when interacting with fuseboxes too early

• Fixed players being able to equip an item whilst entering a hiding space

• Fixed a multitude of issues introduced by the engine upgrade from Unreal Engine 5.2 to Unreal Engine 5.7.

(Developer's Note: This engine upgrade is part of plans to upgrade visual and animation fidelity, giving us access to multiple new tools and updated features - but man alive did it introduce a whole heap of issues as a result there are likely some additional issues we’ve missed in our testing, so we’ll be relying on you to let us know what’s broken via the bug reporting section of our discord server!)

Bugfixes - Dinosaur / AI

• Fixed several instances where players could become stuck in a hiding space, due to raptors not ‘spotting’ them correctly, or because of overlapping collisions

• Fixed a rare issue which caused players to instantly be ejected from a hiding space by a raptor

• Fixed several issues present in hiding space ejection animations and kill sequences

• Fixed an issue which caused players attacked by a compy to sometimes clip out of bounds

Here's a reminder of our DeathRoad to release: 

To view in full size, click here.

See FAQs and Discussions and we will do our best to get back to you!

Join our Discord and for Bug Reporting or search for teammates.

Thanks,

February Development Intel - Inside the Deathground

Operatives, we hope you’re all doing well. We know it’s been a little longer than anticipated since our last communication, but since the beginning of the new year the development team has been back at work behind the scenes.

This update features just a few of the things we’ve been working on over the past few months, with plenty of effort going into work that makes the whole experience feel more consistent on a foundational level, based on your feedback.

It’s also worth mentioning that we’ve gone through an upgrade from Unreal Engine 5.2 to Unreal Engine 5.7 to make use of several new features, though as with any upgrade, this naturally causes its own set of problems which we’ve been weeding out.

Of course, we’re still working on missions, sub-missions (such as the upcoming sub-mission ‘Biomedical - Feeding Frenzy’) and even more fixes and improvements, but here in this update, we’re going to focus primarily on several mechanics and systems reworks and expansions.

Some of the updates we’re about to talk about below will be available in the next patch, and others will be included over future patches, but we wanted to quickly share them so you know what to expect in the coming months.

AI behaviour and animation reworks

Utah Raptor

• Raptors have received several reworks, all aimed at making them more animated when moving around and interacting with the world and players.

  • After losing sight of a player, Raptors will now search around the environment in an attempt to look for them, opening lockers, checking in barrels and under tables and generally attempting to sniff them out.

  • Additionally, raptors can now better interact with other objects while roaming around the environment. These interactions will be limited at first, but over time, additional interactable objects, animations, and more will be added - making the raptors more curious about the world they inhabit.

  • Raptor movement has been given a complete animation system overhaul, thanks to new systems made available by the upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.7. We’ll share more information on this in the near future.

Compsognathus

• Vents are home to some of the smallest critters in all of the Deathground, the Compsognathus or ‘compy’ for short. These little terrors are meant to make vents unsafe, rather than a ‘get out of jail free’ card for you to escape the much larger Raptor at any given time.

• We found many players felt frustrated with them, in large part because the compy would attack repeatedly without stopping if you stayed in a vent too long or got too close - forcing you to leave the vent without offering any kind of alternative play.

• We’ve made some adjustments to their behaviours, which hopefully make them feel a little less like a nuisance, but still like a threat to look out for.

  • Now, once they’ve spotted you, Compys become more aggressive the longer you spend nearby, and this aggression rises faster the closer you get to them - stay there too long or get too close and they’ll attack, either by quickly nipping at you, or by launching themselves at your face.

  • Rather than attacking again right away, they’ll instead retreat to a safe distance and wait to see if you got the message. Additionally, throwing an object, like a bottle or a brick, at the Compy previously caused them to retaliate and attack, but now, instead, causes them to retreat for a short period allowing you to gather your thoughts and plan your next move.

  • In addition to this, Compys can now be found hiding in lockers and barrels, ready to strike at unsuspecting operatives who get too close. And after jumping out at you and trying to bite off your face, they’ll retreat to the nearest vent.

  • We’ve adjusted raptor behaviours around this change too, and while they’ll absolutely take advantage and swoop in for the kill after a surprise attack while roaming, they’ll also chase a Compy if they spot one making their escape.

Allosaurus

• A lot of the work mentioned above relating to raptor movement aims to improve dinosaur locomotion in general going forward, and this includes the Allosaurus. You’ll encounter the Allosaurus locked in a containment cell as part of the ‘Feeding Frenzy’ mission soon, and we’ll share more information on the actual Allosaurus enemy in the near future.

Respawn, healing, and helping up rework

• Death is a pretty major part of the Deathground, and not something to be generally concerned about, after all, it happens to everyone - for D.A.R.T operatives usually a few times a mission.

• But we found many players were confused with exactly how respawning was supposed to work, often trying to use a medical syringe or field med-kit item to heal a (very, very dead) body of a teammate, unaware of the location of their nearest reconstitution (clone) pod - so we’ve made a few changes which should help you get teammate, or more accurately their clone, back into the fray.

  • Clone pods now have a retractable holographic display. This screen shows information about the activation state of the clone pod, which player is in the clone pod ready to be respawned and how many respawns you have remaining as a team.

  • The spectator menu has been re-vamped, showing spectator mode controls, including a new ‘request respawn’ button, which will highlight the nearest active clone pod so that your team can bring you back from the dead.

  • We’ve also adjusted how many respawns players are given when starting a mission and when unlocking additional respawn rooms. This balancing change aims to make things a little more fair for solo players by granting them more respawns, and a little more challenging for teams by granting them fewer respawns.

  • 1-Player: Starting respawns increased from 1 to 3

  • 2-Player; Starting respawns unchanged from 2

  • 3-Player; Starting respawns reduced from 3 to 2

  • 4-Player; Starting respawns reduced from 4 to 3

  • All team sizes; Additional respawns granted from unlocking clone-pod rooms reduced to 1

• Players can now help up teammates who are downed without needing a healing item, and crawling speed while downed has also been reduced to account for this change. 

• Additional UI elements are now displayed when healing yourself, healing another player, or helping a player up from being downed.

• In future updates, we’re looking to include additional respawn-related items, such as:

  • The ‘field reconstitution kit,’ a defibrillator-style item which will allow you to revive players without the use of a clone pod (Assuming there’s a body left to revive) 

  • And the ‘reconstitution gel canisters’, which will grant additional respawns when collected.

• We’ll share more information on this in the near future.

Item interaction re-work

• As part of a previous patch, we adjusted how interactions are presented, increasing the interaction size, making items easier to pick up, and giving you more information via the UI when looking at an interactable item. We’ve made additional changes to improve this further.

  • All objects now display an animated pulse, similar to the one featured on the collectable items.

  • This change aims to make items and objects which you can interact with stand out more against the rest of the world, so that it is less frustrating to search for objects as part of a mission objective and far clearer what you can and can’t interact with at any given point.

  • This glow fades out as you move further away from an object, and In order to differentiate types of items, ‘distraction items’ and collectables blink once, ‘key’ items blink twice in rapid succession, containers and buttons blink half as often.

Audio occlusion and proximity chat updates

• Of course, audio is incredibly important, and getting it right is something which we’re taking seriously. We’ve been working on several audio tools and related systems which will help audio shine, alongside additional options for communication in-game.

  • Audio occlusion is one of the bigger systems we’ve been tackling and one of the bigger concerns players have raised. We’re working to completely remove the issue of sounds (such as raptor footsteps) being heard between floors or through walls using this new system without causing a major hit to game performance.

  • Proximity voice chat, and AI interactions around it, are highly requested features we’ve been working on since launch. Our core concern with this system is making sure it works into the far-future, without the need for servers or services which could go offline, causing issues.

  • We’re also considering gameplay balancing effects around this system carefully, as we want to keep it completely optional for those who’d rather stay off-mic.

  • These two system reworks are intended to appear as part of an update alongside several audio-adjacent features. We’ll share more information on this in the near future.

As always, thanks for your support and feedback,

Patch 7 is now live for Deathground! (Version 0.1.56b)

Hi Operatives, we hope you all had a fantastic festive season and a great start to the New Year! Thank you for jumping into the Epoch story mission and for all the feedback so far. We’ve seen a lot of helpful comments and have a quick patch ready to address some reported issues.

PATCH NOTES: (V 0.1.56b)

⚠ Important: Before launching, please ensure your PC meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics drivers are fully updated! For reference: 

• NVIDIA users: Make sure you have the ‘NVIDIA app' installed and that the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver is updated under the drivers tab. 

• AMD users: Make sure you have the ‘AMD app’. It will automatically detect your hardware and guide you through updating to the latest driver version.

Highlights and changes

• Bunker Festive Overlay and side-mission has now been removed as we exit the holiday season.

Quality of life adjustments

• Localisation has been added for the Epoch story mission.

(Developer's Note: There is a known issue with localisation for mission elements not currently displaying properly. We are looking into it. As always, the localisation is a work in progress so if you spot any further issues, please let us know.)

Bugfixes - General

• Fixed a crash issue related to some instances where picking up an item as the Medic caused issues.

• Fixed an issue that prevented the Raptors from ejecting players from barrels within the new Epoch story mission.

End of Year DevLog

We have a lot of great content and polish on the horizon. Here's a reminder of our DeathRoad to release: 

To view in full size, click here.

See FAQs and Discussions and we will do our best to get back to you!

Join our Discord and for Bug Reporting or search for teammates.

Thanks,

Happy Holidays all!

Firstly, thank you so much to every single one of you who have supported development and the game’s launch this year. It’s genuinely been an absolute pleasure watching your gameplay clips and reading your incredible feedback across Steam, our Discord server and various social media channels.

Your support means the world to us, whether it’s purchasing the game or wishlisting and sharing it with friends - your support makes Deathground possible!

End Of Year DevLog

To wrap up the year, we’ve put together a new Devlog that we’d love you to watch. Still trapped in the Bunker, Joe takes you through major changes made since we launched the game, along with details on upcoming updates heading into the new year - which includes some exciting new features and mechanics currently in development.

Latest Patch Update and Steam Winter Sale

Also in case you missed it, Deathground’s first story event, ‘Epoch’, as well as a festive side quest just dropped on Steam a few days ago. You can find the full details and patch notes here.

Finally, a quick reminder that Deathground is currently 20% off as part of the Steam Winter Sale. It’s a great opportunity to jump in if you haven’t already, or to share the experience with a friend at a discounted price.

We hope everyone has a fantastic festive season and a Happy New Year!

We’ll see you in 2026,

Patch 6 is now live for Deathground! (Version 0.1.55b)

Operatives, we’ve received some strange seismic and electromagnetic fluctuations originating from under the ‘Mission Control’ building.

Look, I know the Colonel won't authorise any additional reconnaissance in the area, but we can’t ignore readings like this, and I think it’s worth checking out, off the books…

Deathground's first story event, 'Epoch' is now available, alongside a festive side quest that's guaranteed to fill the Bunker with holiday cheer this Christmas. Please see the major update and patch notes below for the full details.

Return to ‘Mission control’ with your team and investigate the deep archives. However, because ‘Epoch’ isn’t being run by Colonel Wells, you won’t have as many resources at your disposal.

• Limited healing items

  • The more danger-prone amongst you might want to bring a medkit, because you won’t find any medical supplies in the archive room.

• Limited supply caches

  • Unfortunately, it looks like someone’s already pilfered the survivalist supply caches in the mission control building, so you’ll be limited to your starting ammo for the tranquilliser rifle.

• Limited Clone-pod respawns

  • There aren’t any clone pods this side of the mission control building, so all operatives will start without re-spawns, but maybe there’s still a working clone pod or two in the panic room?

We know everyone is excited for more new maps, full missions, sub-missions and content in general, we’re excited for you to tackle this first bite with even more on it's way next year!

Bunker has been decorated to celebrate the holiday season, and there’s a festive side-quest for you to tackle!

Just in time for the holiday season, a D.A.R.T. team member (probably Finn, the ‘observer’) has taken the liberty of decorating the Bunker. 

As a side quest, they’ve hidden a present in Geothermal, Agricultural, and Biomedical - Collect all 3, and you’ll unlock a little festive surprise!

PATCH NOTES: (V 0.1.55b)

⚠ Important: Before launching, please ensure your PC meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics drivers are fully updated! For reference: 

• NVIDIA users: Make sure you have the ‘NVIDIA app' installed and that the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver is updated under the drivers tab. 

• AMD users: Make sure you have the ‘AMD app’. It will automatically detect your hardware and guide you through updating to the latest driver version.

Please note: While our team is working to further optimise the game if your system does not meet the minimum requirements, your gameplay experience may not perform as expected.

Highlights and changes

• Epoch story mission

  • After seeing unusual readings coming from sensors near the mission control building, the operatives go to investigate - Venture back to Mission control to find what, or who in the deep archive is causing the strange signal

• Updated artwork for some archive room assets

(Developer's Note: This is the first of several short story missions which you’ll encounter throughout the Deathground. Things are changing, including the archive room itself, which is looking a little more overgrown than the last time you were here…)

• Bunker Festive overlay and side-mission

  • It seems that someone has hidden presents in each of the main missions (Geothermal, Agricultural, and Biomedical). Find all 3, and a new secret collectable and some holiday cheer await you in the bunker.

  • This festive overlay event will last until Monday, the 5th of January.

• Seasonal dinosaur cosmetics option has been added to the gameplay options menu

  • You can now toggle on/off seasonal dinosaur cosmetics alongside feathers in the gameplay options menu.

  • Enabling this feature during the festive overlay event will equip Raptors with a Santa hat.

  • This option is disabled by default

(Developer's Note: Unlike Halloween, this seasonal update will be launching on time, rather than after the season has finished for half the world…)

Quality of life adjustments

• All items have been reworked to make interaction, dropping, and swapping much easier

  • Medkits have now been re-added to medical shelf containers, now that item swapping as been adjusted

• The game now displays a ‘brightness slider’ on first startup

• Ultrawide support has now been added, and UI clipping seen while using some resolutions has been fixed

• The multiplayer lobby has received an initial overhaul introducing new poses and animations, along with visible equipped items on each character. 

  • This is an early pass and we'll be continuing to expand and improve the lobby in future updates.

(Developer's Note: We also removed that creepy 2D shadow silhouette which acts as a stand in when a player has joined the game, but hasn’t yet selected a character, and replaced it with an equally creepy 3D animated shadow silhouette)

Bugfixes - General

• Character ‘skinning’ updates to remove clipping and incorrect arm twisting (Still ongoing)

• Fixed an issue where swapped loadout items would clip through containers, now swapped items drop at the player's feet instead

• Fixed an issue where several loadout items would drop in incorrect orientation

• Fixed an issue where several loadout items would continue to use ‘held’ animations, even after being dropped/placed in the world

• Fixed multiple issues where items could not be picked up or could be picked up through containers

• Fixed an issue where some items would not correctly spawn inside of randomised containers

Bugfixes - Dinosaur / AI

• Fixed an issue where some compsognathus were unable to correctly spawn / despawn

• Several improvements to Raptor technical animation features, including:

  • Fixed an issue with the Raptor leg IK setup / control rig, causing animations to behave incorrectly, which should more reliably keep feet planted on the ground

  • Fixed an issue which caused Raptor's feet to rotate incorrectly on some surfaces

(Developer's Note: These are some of the first updates to technical animation, with additional improvements in active development.)

We have a lot of great content and polish on the horizon. Here's a reminder of our DeathRoad to release: 

To view in full size, click here.

See FAQs and Discussions and we will do our best to get back to you!

Join our Discord and for Bug Reporting or search for teammates.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Jaw Drop Games,

Patch 5 is now live for Deathground! (Version 0.1.54b)

PATCH NOTES: (V 0.1.54b)

⚠ Important: Before launching, please ensure your PC meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics drivers are fully updated! For reference: 

• NVIDIA users: Make sure you have the ‘NVIDIA app' installed and that the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver is updated under the drivers tab. 

• AMD users: Make sure you have the ‘AMD app’. It will automatically detect your hardware and guide you through updating to the latest driver version.

Please note: While our team is working to further optimise the game if your system does not meet the minimum requirements, your gameplay experience may not perform as expected.

Highlights and changes

• Improvements to the 'ping system' in the form of what we're calling 'smart-ping'!

  • Adjustments to the targeting threshold which make it easier for players to tag objects, especially at greater distances

  • Specific objects in the environment now feature unique icons when tagged (gameplay items, interactable containers and hiding spaces)

  • We plan to continue expanding this system with more unique icons as gameplay elements are added or adjusted

• Implemented a new 'Communication Wheel' with various icons for non-verbal in-game communication

  • Players can access the communication wheel by holding the ping input (Middle mouse button / R3 by default)

  • Players can communicate using basic icons for 'Hello', 'Help', 'Thanks', 'Yes', 'No', 'Group-up', 'Run' and 'Danger'

(Developer's Note: these are just the first of several community-requested features that we've been working on, and there are additional in-game communication options in development as we speak, so stay tuned operatives!)

• Miscellaneous updates to multiple levels / missions

  • Art dressing and lighting improvements to 'Agricultural - Spray the Greenhouse'

  • Art dressing, lighting and level design (layout) adjustments to 'Biomedical - Secure the Specimen'

  • Art dressing and level design (Layout) adjustments to 'Mission Control - Introduction'

(Developer's Note: You'll continue to see both small and large updates to levels, both based on your feedback, and in preparation for new missions / sub-missions / story events throughout development!)

Quality of life adjustments

• Adjustments to Interaction prompts

  • Interactions now clearly specify whether they are a 'press' interaction or a 'hold' interaction

  • Hold interactions now feature a progress wheel where applicable, for example, when swapping items

• Updates to multiple loadout items

  • The 'motion detector' now clearly displays range lines and distance measurements to better highlight the current scanning range

  • The Hacking Device now features additional UI elements, which aim to make the minigame easier for colour-blind players

  • An additional setting for sensitivity when aiming down sights has been added to the control settings menu

Bugfixes - General

• Collision fixes to multiple assets (particularly within the Biomedical and Introduction maps)

• Fixed an issue which caused FSR Frame Generation to not correctly enable when chosen in the settings menu

• Fixed an issue where re-equipping or aiming the tranquilliser rifle while reloading would cause a noticeable desync between the dart, rifle and player hand animations

• Fixed minor aiming issues on both the Hacking Device and Motion Detector

• Fixed an issue where the reduced movement speed effect would remain applied even after dropping the Dinosaur Egg

• Fixed players being able to "consume" other players items with certain interactions

Bugfixes - AI

• Fixed an issue where Raptors would become stunned instead of chasing the player

• Fixed minor technical animation issues which cause the Raptors' feet to slide while walking

• Fixed an issue where Raptors would not wait until the roar animation was complete, leading to roar audio playing without the correct accompanying animation

• Fixed an issue where raptors could sometimes attack players through walls or other solid objects

(Developer's Note: Whoops, that last one really is our bad! Raptors will now do a few additional checks when attempting to attack - and if they're blocked they'll continue to chase until they either lose you or get close enough to attack without a wall in the way!)

We have a lot of great content and polish on the horizon. Here's a reminder of our DeathRoad to release: 

To view in full size, click here.

See FAQs and Discussions and we will do our best to get back to you!

Join our Discord and for Bug Reporting or search for teammates.

Thanks,

Patch 4 is now live for Deathground! (Version 0.1.53b)

This past month has flown by! Thank you to everyone for your continued support, feedback, bug-reporting and reviews. We have a very small patch for you while we continue to work on our next major update and new features.

PATCH NOTES: (V 0.1.53b)

⚠ Important: Before launching, please ensure your PC meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics drivers are fully updated! For reference: 

• NVIDIA users: Make sure you have the ‘NVIDIA App’ installed and that the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver is updated under the drivers tab. 

• AMD users: Make sure you have the ‘AMD app’. It will automatically detect your hardware and guide you through updating to the latest driver version.

Please note: While our team is working to further optimise the game if your system does not meet the minimum requirements, your gameplay experience may not perform as expected.

Quality of life adjustments

• Localisation for Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese has been added for the interface and subtitles.

Additionally, we’ve now replaced the EFIGS with improved, professional Localisation. So there should be fewer issues, if you spotted any!

• This is a work in progress with improvements made over time. Please let us know if you spot any missing/incorrect translations!

(Developer's Note: We’re currently working on a major update coming shortly, as well as extra settings and are aware of the FSR issue which should be resolved in the next patch. Thanks for your patience!)

See FAQs and Discussions and we will do our best to get back to you!

Join our Discord and for Bug Reporting or search for teammates.

Thanks,

Patch 3 is now live for Deathground! (Version 0.1.52b)

Thanks everyone for your continued support, feedback, bug-reporting and reviews! Just a small update today in time for Halloween but we have some exciting and larger updates coming for you soon.

PATCH NOTES: (V 0.1.52b)

⚠ Important: Before launching, please ensure your PC meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics drivers are fully updated! For reference: 

• NVIDIA users: Make sure you have the ‘NVIDIA App’ installed and that the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver is updated under the drivers tab. 

• AMD users: Make sure you have the ‘AMD app’. It will automatically detect your hardware and guide you through updating to the latest driver version.

Please note: While our team is working to further optimise the game if your system does not meet the minimum requirements, your gameplay experience may not perform as expected.

Highlights and changes

• Seasonal Update for Halloween - The Bunker’s had a spooky makeover! Head inside, explore the eerie new look and celebrate the season with some pumpkin-hunting.

• Level bugfixes and asset improvements, including collision updates to the Agricultural, Biomedical and Geothermal maps.

Quality of life adjustments

• Localisation for Japanese has been added for the interface and subtitles.

  • We are currently working on Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Korean, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese localisation too.

  • This is a work in progress with improvements made over time. Let us know if you spot any missing/incorrect translations!

• Provided a fix for the raptor ejection sequences, namely the intro blending and camera offset, as well as the outro quick camera rotation that could previously cause motion sickness.

(Developer's Note: We’re currently working on additional settings and languages, and are trying to resolve certain issues such as FSR. Thanks for your patience!)

Bugfixes - General

• Provided a fix for the Loading screen issue (where players are getting stuck trying to load into a map).

  • If you’re still experiencing issues, we’d love your help gathering more information so we can track it down and push a further fix if needed. Please use this form to share any details you can with us.

• General Raptor pathfinding fixes and hiding space fixes.

• Various and minor bug fixes.

See FAQs and Discussions and we will do our best to get back to you!

Join our Discord and for Bug Reporting or search for teammates.

Thanks,

Patch 2 is now live for Deathground! (Hotfix Version 0.1.51b)

Thanks everyone for your continued support, feedback, bug-reporting and reviews! The team is hard at work on bugfixes as well as working on many new, highly-requested features and mechanics...

See our first patch and important development details here in case you missed it.

PATCH NOTES: (V 0.1.51b)

⚠ Important: Before launching, please ensure your PC meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics drivers are fully updated! For reference: 

• NVIDIA users: Make sure you have the ‘NVIDIA App’ installed and that the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver is updated under the drivers tab. 

• AMD users: Make sure you have the ‘AMD app’. It will automatically detect your hardware and guide you through updating to the latest driver version.

Please note: While our team is working to further optimise the game if your system does not meet the minimum requirements, your gameplay experience may not perform as expected.

Highlights and changes

• AI balancing adjustments

• Level fixes such as Agricultural collision fixes and hiding spaces

Quality of life adjustments

• FOV slider has been added

• Headbob option has been added

  • This is a work in progress feature with most work on the player locomotion and animations

  • For tips on how to avoid motion sickness, you can combine headbob intensity, motion blur slider, FOV slider and windowed mode options

• Base Localisation for EFIGS (English, French, Italian, German and Spanish) has been added for the interface and subtitles, with more languages to come soon

  • This is a work in progress with improvements made over time. Let us know if you spot any missing/incorrect translations!

• Any DLSS issues should now be fixed

• FSR option has been added

• XeSS option has been added

(Developer's Note: We’re currently working on additional settings, such as further localisation and added languages plus support for different resolutions and other user preferences)

Bugfixes - General

• Provided a potential fix for the regional lobby connection issue (where players are unable to see games in ANY and other regions). This should help to improve connectivity across different regions

  • If you’re still experiencing issues, we’d love your help gathering more information so we can track it down and push a further fix if needed. Please use this form to share any details you can with us

• Please be aware that public lobbies are a work in progress

• General Raptor pathfinding fixes

• Various and minor bug fixes

Don't forget...

Our killer launch discount of 15% off will only be around for another day or so. So, if your friends have been thinking of entering the Deathground with you, make sure they grab this discount before it goes extinct!

See FAQs and Discussions and we will do our best to get back to you!

Join our Discord and for Bug Reporting or search for teammates.

Thanks,

Hi everyone, just to let you know that Patch 1 is now live for Deathground! (Hotfix Version 0.1.47b)

A titanosauric thank you to everyone who’s picked up and played, shared, streamed or fed back on Deathground in the last few days! We are so pleased to finally get the game into your hands and the response has been absolutely incredible!

To view in full size, click here.

Firstly, our small but dedicated team has been working hard to fix as many bugs as possible since launch.

Thank you to everyone who’s left a review, given us feedback, reported a bug, jumped into the Steam discussions or helped others. Keep it coming!

For those that haven’t had a good time, we hear you. Thank you for all of your critical comments, we are trying to be as active as possible in our responses and bugfixes - all feedback and suggestions are paramount to improving and evolving the game throughout Early Access. 

The project has been re-built from the ground up in the last 18 months due to losing publisher support, where we’ve pivoted to self-funding/self-publishing and a small team again. Whilst this was a major setback, we wanted to get this initial version out and then expand the game with the community as well as deliver on the full vision for the game by v1.0.

Please see our roadmap below and remember, this is only the beginning…

PATCH NOTES: (V 0.1.47B)

⚠ Important: Before launching, please ensure your PC meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics drivers are fully updated! For reference: 

• NVIDIA users: Make sure you have the ‘GeForce Experience app’ installed and that the latest GeForce Game Ready Driver is updated under the drivers tab. 

• AMD users: Make sure you have the ‘AMD app’. It will automatically detect your hardware and guide you through updating to the latest driver version.

Please note: While our team is working to further optimise the game if your system does not meet the minimum requirements, your gameplay experience may not perform as expected.

Highlights and changes

• Motion Detector improvements - The Motion Detector now indicates whether the detected enemy is at the same height or below/above in relation to the player

• New music - New lobby music has been added

Quality of life adjustments

• Multiple fixes to DLSS Implementation - further improvements are in progress

• If you have issues after resetting to "Off", please increase the resolution scale percentage up to 100% then back to where you want it

• A new bloom quality slider has been added to the graphics settings

• The default Anti-Aliasing method has been changed to TAA, with TSR no longer supported

• Mouse behaviour has been improved for full-screen borderless mode

(Developer's Note: We’re currently working on additional settings, such as FOV, View-bobbing, and more.)

Bugfixes - General

• Partially fixed an issue where public lobbies were unavailable for some players

  • Please be aware that public lobbies are a work in progress.

Bugfixes - AI

• Fixed an issue where Raptors stunned during a kill sequence, or hiding space ejection would behave incorrectly, causing the raptor and the attached player to become stuck in place

• Fixed an issue where Raptors would get stuck entering the ‘search’ state, repeating the entry animation and vibrating in place

• Fixed an issue where Raptor damage was not correctly timed to attacks and kill sequences

• Fixed an issue where Raptors would appear misaligned when waking up from the ‘sleeping’ state

• Fixed an issue where Raptors could be despawned at the incorrect time after completing the pump-station section of ‘Spray the Greenhouse’

• Fixed an issue where some stair collisions were misaligned, leading to Raptors being unable to navigate those surfaces

• Reduced Raptor avoidance range, allowing raptors to get slightly closer to one another while moving through the environment.

We have a lot of great content and polish on the horizon: 

To view in full size, click here.

See FAQs and Discussions and we will do our best to get back to you!

Join our Discord and for Bug Reporting or search for teammates.

Remember, if your friends want to jump in, there’s still 15% off, so grab the discount before it goes extinct!

Thanks,

Attention, operatives. The day has come! We are thrilled to announce that Deathground is OUT NOW in Steam Early Access!

The game is $14.99 / €14.79 / £11.99 with a 15% launch discount. This is your best chance to pick up Deathground at a killer price!

The game is $14.99 / €14.79 / £11.99 with a 15% launch discount. This is your best chance to pick up Deathground at a killer price!

Help us grow and expand the game further!

ICYMI, check out our Roadmap below, which details upcoming features and fixes.

• This is a one-off purchase which will include all Early Access content free of charge.

• This is an Early Access build and does not represent the final version of Deathground. 

• You may encounter issues which the team are working hard to resolve.

• Your feedback is valuable and will help improve the game further.

Steam reviews play a crucial role in helping us to shape the game, get in more players and keep improving the game experience. This will go a long way, and we really appreciate the extra time!

Don’t forget to join our Discord, where you can report bugs, get direct help from other players, chat to us devs, share feedback, and of course, find other teammates to play with. You don’t have to go through the Deathground alone…unless you want to!

To view in full size, click here.

Until next time…

THANK YOU FOR READING, BUT WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? GO AND PLAY NOW

What a journey this has been, Operatives. And really, this is only just the beginning.

Before we launch, here's a quick FAQ hosted by Jaw Drop Games Artist & Designer, Joseph, who's coming to you (not so) live from the bunker in the heart of the Deathground - so you know what to expect!

Oh dear, well fingers crossed that Joseph doesn't get eaten by raptors before he can get back to work on Deathground's upcoming early access updates. On that note, does anyone have a spare Pteranodon-proof helicopter we can use to go and fetch him?

In case you missed our previous updates (Which would be fairly difficult, considering there have been 4 of these mini showcases!), the game will be launching into Early Access on the 7th of October, at an initial price of $14.99 / €14.79 / £11.99. We also mentioned that there will be a discount for the first two weeks.

Deathground will be launching tomorrow (7th October, 2025) at the following times:

10am PDT

1pm EDT

6pm BST

7pm CET

With these final prices: (+ an initial launch discount)

$14.99

€14.79

£11.99

Help us progress the game further!

Steam reviews will be a major way that we can address and improve any issues, and essentially, progress the game further. We need to put our best foot forward to get to work on these.

we aim to expand our one-person departments, as required, to give these areas of the game far more support and attention in the near future.

If you’re enjoying the game, please try and leave a fair review tomorrow or as soon as you can! You can pass us additional feedback through Steam discussions, Discord or elsewhere, and we’re committed to taking it on board to improve the game.

A reminder as to what's next!

Early impressions are so incredibly important. Hopefully, you have good context on what's to come, what we want to fix, and what we're trying hard to improve.

In case you missed it, here’s a quick reminder of our Early Access roadmap:

Until next time…

Cheers for checking in! This update may feel a little final, but we're only just getting started and we’ll see you tomorrow for the official 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!

Making a real dinosaur from scratch isn’t exactly an easy task, but making a digital one - okay, well that’s perhaps a slightly easier task, but it’s still no walk in the T. rex paddock!

So how do you go from idea to concept to creature chasing you down and biting your head off?

How it’s made - Deathground Dino edition!

The answer is: ‘With the help of some incredibly talented illustrators, artists, animators and programmers.’

The following post barely scratches the surface. We won't be showing off every single piece of concept art or all the work-in-progress screenshots, because if we did, this post would be significantly longer.

Instead, we’re just going to include a handful of the work done by Bobby Rebholz (Concept Artist), Damien Guimoneau (Creature Artist) and others who had a hand at creating the dinosaur assets.

Step 1: Concept artwork

The first step to making anything is to have some idea of the thing you’re making. 

This starts with collecting reference images and long discussions with your creative director about exactly how they picture the thing looking in their head. In the case of Deathground, a lot of that early discussion focused on scales, feathers, and scary toothsome grins.

Next is getting that down on paper, which in this case was done by Bobby Rebholz, who created the concept art for what would become Deathground's final Raptor designs.

The first stage of that concept artwork is the head of the dinosaur. Here, we’re trying to get a picture of the personality, and in the case of Deathground, that was about creating something which Bobby called “Dark and sinister” that would put the player on edge.

Many of these concepts include scars, and while the standard Utahraptor doesn’t feature these same scars in-game, we’ve got plans for a secretive Raptor variant you’ll face off against in later missions!

What’s a head without a body, which coincidentally is the next step!

You can see our artists are considering the silhouette and scale of the creature, after doing a not-insignificant amount of research into the bone and muscle structure of each specific dinosaur.

It's here where we quickly tackle the topic of scientific accuracy. It's important to recognise that much of this concept artwork was done during the relatively early days of Deathground, and since then, many leaps have been made in how we view these beautiful, if not terrifying, creatures through the lens of reconstructions.

The goal was to create something different, but familiar - accurate to some degree, but not tied down. Very much our version of each dinosaur!

Getting slightly ahead - we’re also considering colour at this stage. In the above image, you can see some of the avian influence mentioned previously coming through in the form of feather patterns and shape, with multiple birds being used as reference for specific details.

We’ve been asked why our dinosaurs share a colour palette; are they genetic clones? Brothers and sisters of a single-parent genome? Well, we actually covered this in a short behind-the-scenes video a while back. If you missed that, you can find it here, and you’ll learn more about this through various collectable items and environmental details as the story of Deathground progresses through early access.

Once each design has been approved, equivalent reference artwork is created for 3D artists to follow!

You can see in the above image that feathered and featherless concepts were produced as reference. This was for two reasons: the first being that the underlying geometry needed to be available for reference before feathers could go on top, and the second is that we’ve long wanted to include both feathered and featherless versions of our dinosaurs in Deathground. (Something which we talked about earlier this week!)

Step 2: 3D Character sculpting

These concepts were then taken into the third dimension by Creature Artist Damien Guimoneau (Prehistoric Planet, Alien: Covenant).

The first step here is creating the underlying 'blockout' character model based on the orthographic perspective concept artwork. This must remain as accurate to the concept art as possible, as this concept artwork will also be used during the texturing stage, and the initial 'A-pose' will be used for rigging later.

Using digital sculpting tools, the Damien artist begins fleshing out the broad anatomical elements with core details, such as large muscle groups and skeletal landmarks, added to give the creature its familiar silhouette.

Once the major anatomy feels correct, the workflow shifts to mid-level detail: tendons along the neck, folds of skin under the arms, or the way muscles bunch beneath the surface.

Once the main form is locked in, next comes the fine detailing pass, carving in scales, adding wrinkles based on real-world reference images - or rather, as close as you can get to real living dinosaurs, but using birds, crocodiles, and other avian or lizard reference images collected during the concept art stage.

And that's before feathers are added!

While it would be incredible to keep this sculpt at its peak resolution, the model must then be retopologised and UV unwrapped with the details ‘baked down’ into textures. This reduces the overall polygon count, allows for future texturing efforts, and makes the model significantly more performant - meaning that the game will run far better than if the original one-hundred-bajillion-polygon model were used!

Step 3: Texturing and feathers

Once the baking process is complete, the art team gets busy creating the textures for each dinosaur, as well as adding feathers to the model to complete the feathered look.

This process was incredibly involved, carefully following the initial concept artwork and colouring - with numerous revisions and team discussions on feather size, colour, and distribution, as well as eye colour and iris shape, until each dinosaur was looking just right.

Deathground’s dinosaurs were also set up so that we could potentially swap alternate colour palettes in at a later date. If there are any colours you’d like to see in future, let us know in the comments below!

So that’s it, you’ve got a dinosaur and it’s ready to start chasing players, right? Wrong!

Step 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 : Rigging, Animation, Technical Animation, AI setup and- 

This post covers specifically the process of creating a dinosaur, from concept to artwork - but there’s so much more that has to happen after you’ve done that, including everything in the title for this section.

If we included all that here, this post would be about 3 times longer - and we’ve already written enough text to fill a book on the subject over the course of development!

Each one of Deathgrounds' core dinosaurs has gone through this process and creating custom assets has been essential to capturing their unique personalities and making them feel like living, breathing dinosaurs.

We can't wait for them to chase you all down when Deathground launches, and we hope you've enjoyed this look into the process behind the scenes!

Would you like to hear even more details we didn't have time to cover here?

Let us know in the comments below! 

Until next time…

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!

WOW! We are thrilled to announce that Deathground has surpassed 300,000 wishlists on Steam! This is a huge milestone for our team, and we could not have done it without your support.

As many of you know, Deathground is an independent game made by a small team here at Jaw Drop Games. It's a passion project for everyone here, and it's been a rocky journey with lots of unexpected hurdles along the way - but we're so glad you're all along for the ride.

We're getting closer to launch day on the 7th of October, and your enthusiasm keeps us pushing harder.

If you haven't already, wishlist Deathground on Steam to help us hit even more milestones and to be notified right away when the game launches!

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!

We’re asked plenty of questions about Deathground every day, often serious and important ones like: “When game?” - “What price game?” - “Roadmap for game?” - and of course “Can I pet the Compy?” 

The answers to those critical questions are:

Deathground is launching on the 7th of October (Finally!)

The launch price will be $14.99 / €14.79 / £11.99 (With a launch discount for two weeks!)

Here's the first teaser roadmap - which we also showed off earlier this week!

FULL SIZED VERSION HERE

And finally, no - or, yes, maybe? I guess you’d better buy the game when it launches to find out!

With the big questions answered, we wanted to try something a little different. Instead of just talking patch notes and features (which you’re getting plenty of this week, with this being the third in our lead-up-to-launch showcases), we’re here to give you a peek behind the dinosaurs at the team working on the game.

We’ve rounded up some fun, informal, and hopefully telling questions for the dev-team - we’re going to talk development, we’re going to talk dinosaurs, and most of all, we’re going to talk develop-ers!

Credit to Beate for illustrating these fantastic developer portraits!

Now you've met the dinosaur food - or, uh, developers who will be answering these questions, let's jump straight in!

If you had to choose: sneak past the dinosaurs or go loud and run for it - what’s your play-style, and why?

What’s the scariest dinosaur encounter you personally have had while testing the game?

Interviewer's note: Joseph and Stroudie liked to keep things secret from the team whenever they could, which resulted in the team being startled by a new raptor behaviour, or jumpscare, more than once!

Which Deathground character do you most relate to and why?

What's your favourite dinosaur not (yet👀) included in Deathground?

What’s the one gameplay mechanic or element you always have fun interacting with?

Out of all the maps and missions, which one do you enjoy the most, and what makes it stand out for you?

What’s one small detail most players might not notice at first, but that you’re really proud of?

Interviewer's note: Sarah provided multiple voices for Deathground, as both the Medic and the voice of the AEON intercom in multiple maps.

If you could give players one ‘pro-tip’ for when they first venture into the Deathground, what would it be?

Do you have any other questions for the development team? Let us know in the comments below! 

Until next time…

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!

People often ask us, “Hey, what’s the story behind Deathground? Who do we play as, when and where are we, and what are our goals?’’ and we always tell them the same thing;

\, \ and of course, \.

And that’s for good reason - you’ve likely seen the ‘AEON technologies group’ logo around the place, and they’re very secretive about what exactly went on in the complex and why it all went wrong.

Well, we’re here today to reveal a few of those secrets, leaking classified information from the D.A.R.T. team, which will give you a better understanding of the setting and story of the Deathground.

Let’s tackle the Who, What, and Why

In Deathground, you and your friends take on the role of a member of ‘D.A.R.T. ’ (the ‘Deathground - Asset - Retrieval - Taskforce’), a specialist group of operatives composed of The Scout, The Engineer, The Survivalist, The Medic, The Hunter, and The Observer - each one closely connected to AEON in some way.

After some sort of catastrophic systems failure, the AEON facility became overrun with prehistoric creatures, leaving no survivors. You’ve been sent into the complex, which has now become known as ‘The Deathground’, to recover valuable research, samples and data left behind by the long-dead scientists and workers.

But things aren’t always as they seem, and AEON haven't told you the complete story - so questions remain:

We’ve all got an image of what a dinosaur is supposed to look like in our heads...

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.

So, which version is better?

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!

You’ll be able to toggle between feathers on, and off at launch!

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!

Setting a standard for settings.

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)

Tell us below what other customizable options you would like to see in future?

Until next time…

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!

Watch this…

That’s right! Deathground is coming to Early Access next week on 7th Oct! Here’s a little breakdown of some of the big FAQs.

How much will Deathground cost?

Deathground will be launching into Early Access at an initial price of $14.99 / €14.79 / £11.99. And there will be a discount for the first two weeks!

We want to make this game as accessible as possible. We hope that this starting price helps you and your squad enter the Deathground sooner and get stuck into our starting missions straight away. 

We will be evaluating Deathground’s price later down the line, and it will most likely increase as we develop towards 1.0 and introduce some major updates. Essentially, this is going to be the lowest base price Deathground will ever be. With early buyers getting the most value - as Deathground is a one-time purchase, you’ll be getting all future content throughout Early Access at no extra cost!

What’s included in Early Access?

Here's our roadmap where you can see the base content provided in this Early Access release and a little teaser of the journey ahead...

FULL SIZED VERSION HERE

Early Access allows players to jump in early, experience the tension, and help shape the game's future. Your feedback will be essential in guiding the expansion of new features, dinosaurs and maps as well as refining the balancing difficulty and overall horror experience.

We're really looking forward to getting the game in your hands next week!

Until next time…

Cheers for checking in! 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!

Watch this…

We hope this teaser whets your appetite. Deathground is releasing into Early Access on Steam (PC) in October 2025!

Early Access Release Date - October 2025

Now, if you’re all thinking ‘Wait, October isn’t in Q3?!’, well then you’d be absolutely correct! So, why the last-minute shift in the date?

Our original target release date had been set for a while, but as we moved closer, various factors including the timing of the Steam build approval process and our marketing plans didn’t quite align. Given the tight schedule and rather than rush things or launch without the proper visibility and support, we decided it was better to shift the date slightly (only just!) and avoid the Autumn Sale to give the game the launch it deserves.

With all that said, our Early Access release date is going to be announced later this week in our Official Early Access Launch Trailer!

The Silver Lining

We’ve been fixing bugs left, right and centre at a rapid pace thanks to the fantastic feedback and bug tickets submitted over on our Discord - and we’re not going to slow that pace any time before launch. We’ll be using this extra time to add a little more finesse and some features that we were going to include post-launch. More news over the next week!

Speaking of news…

The Raptors are going on a press tour!

Excitingly, content creators and press will finally be getting their hands on Deathground soon. We’ll be anticipating their reactions but we’re very much committed to taking onboard open and honest feedback and previews, and want to give these groups time to play and produce their respective content before launch.

Alongside all that, we’ll be posting a daily Deathground mini-update here in our Community Hub, leading up to launch. In these mini-updates, we’ll pull back the curtain on development progress and showcase lots of different things, including gameplay details, behind-the-scenes, developer interviews and Q&A. Additionally, what’s in store for the future of Deathground on the road to V1.0 with the reveal of our official Early Access roadmap. Exciting stuff, right?!

DevGround Episode 6!

And if you haven't already seen it, our latest Devlog is also available to watch in full on YouTube!

Until next time…

Cheers for checking in! We truly appreciate your support throughout the years and especially during this time as we race down the Deathroad to release!

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!

Wishlist!

Hey everyone! Before the highly anticipated release date, we have a final gift for you!

The operatives roster is expanding!

We’re thrilled to announce that two fan-favorite characters are making their way from Kickstarter concept art into the Deathground. And they’ll be available to everyone.

That means you’ll now have six unique operatives to choose from at Early Access launch, giving you more variety and more ways to face the carnivorous dangers ahead.

Finn Voss – “The Observer”

 Once a military photographer and war correspondent, Finn knows how to keep her cool in the face of chaos. Her expertise in documenting wildlife threats makes her the perfect witness to Deathground’s living dinosaurs. Armed with the Motion Detector, she spots danger before it spots you (hopefully).

Cooper Calloway – “The Hunter”

Hailing from the Australian Bush, Cooper is a specialist in tracking and neutralizing high-risk fauna. Where Voss observes in silence, Calloway acts decisively, ready to get his hands dirty when survival is on the line. His weapon of choice: the Rifle.

And this is just the beginning. We’re planning additional items and loadout options in the future to keep your strategies fresh and exciting.

This expansion was made possible thanks to the incredible support of our backers. Bringing these two characters to life - modelled, textured, animated, and fully playable day 1 - was our way of honoring that early support and making the launch even stronger.

We can’t wait for you to experience them when Deathground enters Early Access. Stay tuned! Wishlist Deathground today and don't miss the release!

Attention, Operatives - Stand by for instructions

We’re excited to bring you a fresh batch of intel directly from the depths of Deathground. It’s been a little quiet recently, but that radio silence is because we’ve been hard at work during the closed Beta, in preparation for the upcoming launch. Buckle up operatives, things are about to get deadly!

Release Date Looming – September 2025

The number one thing you’ve been asking: When is the game launching? Like a ravenous Raptor chomping at the bit - we know you’ve been patient! But, well, here it is: Deathground is launching into Early Access this September. The exact release date reveal is just around the corner and we’ve been working on a brand new trailer, a final pre-release episode of ‘Devground’ and an update to the Steam store page - which will showcase the tension, the atmosphere, the chaos and of course - the release date. (Finally!)

Content Creators can even apply to get their hands on a pre-release preview build of Deathground. If you’re a streamer or gaming influencer you can still apply for ‘Phase 3 - Closed BETA’ access using this form.

Early Access: What to Expect

We want to be clear: Deathground is launching into Early Access. This means:

• It’s already shaping up into a tense, atmospheric survival experience.

• But it’s also still in active development. There will be bugs, rough edges, and constant updates.

• Early Access is just the beginning — we’ll be building this game alongside you and have already added several fantastic suggestions and ideas from our wonderful community.

• Most importantly, we’re a small team focused on developing and improving Deathground, as such we’re really excited for you to get your hands on it.

So, how’s that Beta been going?

Since the Deathground closed Alpha period concluded at the end of July (more on that here), testing with our Kickstarter Beta-pledged backers has been going strong.

Over the Alpha and Beta periods we’ve come a long way, and that's thanks to the invaluable feedback and suggestions across Steam, Discord and social channels - your input has helped us shape the gameplay experience while we balance, fix bugs, and polish the release build of the game.

In recent months especially, we’ve made performance a high priority with our goal being to make sure the game runs smoothly for as many players as possible. This remains a core focus, and we’re committed to pushing performance further as development continues.

Take a peek at some screenshots from across the Deathground:

The Road Ahead

This is just the start of the journey. Expect patches, updates, new dinosaurs, and more terrifying challenges after launch.

Stay alert, operatives. The dinosaurs are waiting.

Cheers for checking in! 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!

Wishlist!

Clawing Closer

We’ve reached a huge milestone: Deathground Alpha is complete! Our Alpha-pledged Kickstarter backers received their final Mission Debrief at the start of this month. They’ve been playtesting all available maps for the Early Access launch, one last time, before we head into our private Beta playtesting period.

We’ve got some further fixes and exciting updates to get into the Beta build. But before we dive into Beta updates, check out episode 5 of DevGround, Deathground's DevLog, to see how the Alpha build ended up.

New DevLog Episode

Chapter breakdown:

0:00 Welcome back! 0:46 Lighting the Way 1:45 Compy Chaos 2:26 Mouthbags?! 3:20 FAQs

New Screenshots

In case you missed these captures on Deathground's social media recently, here's a few tasty treats!

Until next time…

Thank you for your continued support and patience as we head closer to Steam Early Access release. Once we've finished up adding some exciting updates to our Beta build, we'll be sharing a roadmap of what will be available from Early Access. Plus, what to look forward to between Early Access and 1.0!

We've been listed as one to watch in the latest edition of Edge Magazine!

Cheers for checking in! 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 and YouTube. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, Threads and Bluesky. See you there!

Wishlist!

Down-low with the Devs

In case you missed the Future Games Show Summer Showcase, take a look at some new Deathground gameplay, unseen environments and mechanics - all coming in Q3 2025 for our Early Access launch!

Dan, Joe and Sarah also address some community-submitted questions, offering fresh insights into dinosaur threats, map variety and missions. Hit play!

New screenshots!

Wanted to hit pause? Here's just a few of our favourite jaw-drop moments!

Until next time…

Cheers for tuning in! As always, join us and the rest of the community over on Discord or watch more behind-the-scenes on TikTok. Don’t forget, you can find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter too. We're still working out Threads and Bluesky but hey, we'll see you there too.

Wishlist!

New DevLog Episode

DevGround Episode 4 is now ready for you to catch up with Deathground's developments! We're breaking into the Biomedical Facility in this latest episode, as well as giving you a little Deathground lore-drop. We’re also giving you a glimpse of some Raptor updates, plus a couple of announcements. Catch up now and hit play!

Chapter breakdown:

0:00 Welcome back! 0:16 Break into the Biomedical Facility with me... 1:14 Stand off, with a Raptor?! 2:15 Playable Character update 3:26 Announcement time

Future Games Show

Thanks for reading and watching. As announced in our DevLog above, Deathground will be featured in the Future Games Show TOMORROW!

The Summer Showcase will be live-streamed at 9pm BST (1pm PT/4pm ET) on Saturday 7th June. Our Dev Feature gives a first look at new gameplay, unseen environments and mechanics. Dan (Studio Head), Joe (Art & Design) and Sarah aka Gee (Community) also address some community-submitted questions, offering fresh insights into dinosaur threats, map variety and missions.

Set a reminder to watch here: https://bit.ly/FGS-Summer-Showcase-2025

Until next time…

Cheers for tuning in! As always, join us and the rest of the community over on Discord or watch more behind-the-scenes on TikTok. Don’t forget, you can find and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter too. We're still working out Threads and Bluesky but hey, we'll see you there too.

Wishlist!

New DevLog Episode

Until next time…

We'll see you at the Spring Showcase

Until next time…

New DevLog Episode

Until next time…

We’ve started a DevLog!

Until next time…