Depersonalization news & patch notes

The competition in this space is extremely fierce Requiring long-term balancing, voice environments, identity/faction design, post-death gameplay, and needing extensive match testing etc.

It didn't suit "Depersonalization" as a narrative game Our core remains storytelling—the branching choices characters make during events, the uncertainty brought by dice rolls. Players don't join to eliminate each other, but to investigate events with friends and experience the chain reactions of their collective choices.

So we ultimately decided: rather than creating bigger multiplayer, we should create multiplayer that better suits us.

Thus multiplayer returned to PvE narrative modules.

Multiplayer count adjusted to maximum 3 players

In earlier plans, we did consider larger player counts, even designing for 4-12 players, because we wanted multiplayer to accommodate hidden identities, faction conflicts, voting, deception, and post-death participation.

But when actually implementing this within "Depersonalization"'s narrative structure, we found numerous problems:

• More players meant more waiting, and story communication became more easily disrupted

• Combat, voting, trigger events, and quest chain progression all became lengthy and difficult to manage

• Players would shift from "experiencing the story together with friends" to "waiting for others to finish their actions"

So in the 2.0 adjustments, we've decided to first reduce the maximum player count to 3.

This keeps the group size small enough to enable discussion/disagreement and cooperation/surprises while ensuring every player remains visible within the story.

The above is the old version, and the below is the new version↑

Interaction adjustments: Request to speak, voting, and dice

We also considered freer interactions like real-time trading, talking over each other, and arbitrary triggering, but within the current game framework this easily became chaotic:

• Who gets to represent the party in NPC dialogue?

• Who can take key items?

• Who is currently occupying a plot node?

When two people try to trigger the same event simultaneously, whose action should the game prioritize?

If not handled properly, this leads to blocking and arguments.

So to make interactions understandable and allow story progression even when requests are denied, we adjusted the rules:

• To request an action from others, use "Universal Request"

• During group dialogue, use "Request to Speak"

• For key decisions requiring group input, use voting or player polling

• When conflicts remain unresolved, let the dice decide everything

• Item exchanges don't use real-time trading but rather gifting, requesting, and shared storage

From parallel development of multiple new features to focusing on completing a multiplayer module

After the official release, we always had ideas for new content. For a while, new content and multiplayer work did proceed in parallel.

However, due to limited resources, some previously planned modules ultimately had to be temporarily shelved.

After all, new scenarios require art assets, configuration, and testing resources—but multiplayer also demands significant manpower and affects core systems.

Continuing parallel development risked doing everything poorly, so we're now concentrating all efforts on first making multiplayer work properly.

What the Adjusted Multiplayer Will Feel Like

Our vision is that when multiplayer launches, players should experience:

When you and friends enter a story together...

After entering a module, players should naturally form relationships:

• Social players can choose to communicate verbally

• Exploratory players can freely investigate While maintaining cooperation, everyone has more freedom—rather than joining the same room only to do their own thing We want every player to have their own place in the story.

When conversing with NPCs...

The most chaotic aspect of multiplayer narrative is everyone trying to talk at once. So to ensure each conversation has a clear representative, we've added the \ system.

• When a character has speaking rights, they'll represent the current dialogue progression

• Other players can see their choices and understand how the conversation unfolded

• If you wish to take over the conversation, you can request speaking rights (This becomes an in-game request rather than relying solely on yelling "Let me handle this!" in voice chat) We hope this design preserves the feeling of group discussion while preventing narrative chaos.

When opinions differ...

This is often multiplayer's most interesting aspect. So we've prepared voting, player polling, universal requests, and—letting the dice decide everything!

When deciding to split up!

Multiplayer won't forcibly keep everyone together at all times. Instead, we'll use shared quest chains, actionable hints, party chat, map signals, and multi-party interaction nodes to ensure key objectives remain group-understood. This helps maintain the feeling of collectively uncovering the truth.

During combat or crises...

We want emergencies to involve more than just individual actions—multiplayer combat shouldn't simply be single-player combat copied three times.

In multiplayer, each player controls their own character—action choices, waiting states, positioning, speed, support, buffs and skill synchronizations all need to be visible to others. For Sanity Checks, KO states, rescues, and support actions, you'll know when teammates have made choices and can see their results.

When someone makes a choice, it gets noticed and remembered

One thing we care deeply about in multiplayer is whether player actions will be remembered by the story:

• If a character triggers a key event, their name can appear in the text

• When a player makes a choice, it may enter global records

• If story direction changes due to someone's action, the party might later notice lingering consequences This is why we want to implement "Iconic Moments"—we hope the system can record these instances.

Other Progress: Art

This month, we completed artwork for 6 new scenes (base versions without lighting configuration) ↓↓

We're also continuing CG artwork (shareable version) ↓↓

And have completed all current UI optimization requests ↓↓

Other Progress

1.Multiplayer Development & Optimization

• Improved multiplayer combat flow optimizations

• Implemented multiplayer story skip functionality

• Fixed KCP forwarding errors caused by overly long messages

• Completed network layer data change update adjustments

• Fixed story synchronization issues

• Adjusted voting functionality

• Tested multiplayer combat features

• Modified multiplayer room entry switches, optimized module entry flow

• Currently addressing remaining multiplayer issue list items

2.Combat & Core System Optimization

• Optimized general combat parameters

• Completed Skill tool workflow

• Adjusted enemy combat mechanics

• Modified module entry NPC loading flow

• Optimized Sanity Check presentation

• Implemented dispute resolution system (including event selection interface)

3.Content Features & UI Iterations

• Chat UI optimizations (quick chat etc.)

• Character overhead indicator modifications

• Character switching during preparation phase

• Completed design for combat, items, mythos artifacts, spells and companion systems

• Currently developing mythos artifacts

• Finalized character overhead indicator UI changes

• Completed player name extraction functionality

Closing Words

This concludes our Monthly Report. 

Questions or suggestions?

Please share them in the comments - we'll respond to constructive feedback.

Discord: https://discord.gg/As7JFHXHS2

Google docs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/181XJdypLrqmH7_XLNXtuljfNafG7J2HQCtFD5E54tjE/edit?pli=1#gid=1698557684