PIONER: Mechanics, platforms and support plans - interview with developers

The studio's CEO Alexander Nikitin and PIONER game director Alexander Petrov talked about the current state of the game, the reasons why the release date has not been announced so far, and the release plans in different countries.

StopGame: Alexander Petrov mentioned in his text that the development of the current version of PIONER started in 2021, and before that the game from the shown materials "did not exist". What is the difference between the game before 2021 and the current version? What decisions helped to restart the project rather than cancelling it?

Alexander Petrov: The new team prepared a prototype, which was made promptly and proved that the studio is capable of rolling out a complete large game if it has the resources and opportunities. This very thing helped to raise funds and launch large-scale work on the game.

At the same time, the differences between the current version of PIONER and the original are substantial. Now PIONER is a hybrid between an MMO and a single-player campaign. And the previous concept of PIONER was an online survival game. We've done mainly single-player games before and so we immediately realised what we would be stronger at. As you can see, conclusions were drawn.

SG: For those who are not familiar with PIONER - is all of the content published on the game's website and social media from 2021 up to date? And the mechanics from those trailers will be in the game?

AP: Yes, of course. Except that everything has already undergone an upgrade and is done better now.

SG: According to publications on the project's website, in December 2021, 20 people were working on the game, apart from outsourcers. How big is the GFA Games team now? Do you still work remotely or have you switched to on-site working?

Alexander Nikitin: At the beginning of the development of the new prototype, when I joined the project (even before the search for an investor and the deal with Tencent), there were 8 people in our development team; by the end of 2021, the staff had increased to 20. Now we have over 100 people working for us, over 50 of them are directly involved in the development of PIONER as full-time employees on a permanent basis.

We have two offices (head office and in Russia, one office under one corporate body), but they are mainly needed for administrative purposes, there are accounting and legal departments.

In pandemic 2021 we did, and in the future optimised, remote working and it is now at a very high level. Today we have employees from seven different countries, including European countries, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Russia, and Armenia. We had a choice either to open offices in these countries (as industry giants do), or to leave the remote working, as it was impossible to gather everyone in one country. I'm not going to refuse to co-operate with excellent specialists because of their location.

So we still have remote work. I like it more than the conservative system if you build a good system of control, reporting and time management. Employees don't have to spend time travelling to the office every day, and they can spend it more productively on the right tasks, and the company can make better working conditions for its staff instead of wasting money on extra rent.

I would be happy to expand the network of representative offices and offices in other countries in the future, but at the moment it is unprofitable for both the company and the employees.

SG: Fans have been waiting for the release of PIONER first in 2021 and then in 2022. How confident are you and your team that there will be no need to reschedule the release in 2023? At what stage is PIONER at now, can we already play the game from start to finish?

AN: In many areas, PIONER is already going through a polishing stage and is getting more detailed. We've made significant progress in creating combat systems, player abilities in hub areas, we're already expanding the list of weapons and activities and adding more interaction where we hadn't originally planned it.

As an MMO the game already feels good enough and people can play it with passion and joy, but as a single-player adventure PIONER still needs to be improved to reach the desired standard of quality, especially in the story campaign. So, yes, you can play it all the way till the end. But we need you to crave to play it, not just play it.

About the release date. We don't get specific for a reason. It depends greatly on many external factors - once a game is ready, it goes through porting, licensing, preparation for distribution, marketing analysis for release window selection by the publishing company and a lot of similar formalities that take a lot of time. Yes, during this time the game gets updated and evolved, not just waiting for its hour. But everything takes time, and we will announce the release window as soon as we are sure of it, in order not to deceive our future players.

Our strategy in communication with the audience after the relaunch of the project and my arrival to the company is that we do not show the pre-render and other "promotional materials" without live recording. So what you see in the videos is what is already in the game. It's a result of our strategy of transparency and honesty.

At the moment, a small part of the locations is still in development. At the same time, we haven't shown yet many locations and biomes that are ready or almost ready. I understand that this may make you feel like the game doesn't have enough variety, and to remedy that, we'll reveal new locations soon.

SG: PIONER will be available on PC and consoles. Can you tell us the exact list of platforms? Does it include PlayStation 4 and Xbox One? Will the game be released at once on all platforms? Will it be a cross-play game?

AP: The game is guaranteed to come out on the entire current generation of consoles and PC. PS4 and Xbox One are in some of the game's development plans, it's just not our priority at the moment.

SG: One of the most common questions from players is related to the distribution platform. It's clear that GFA Games, like many russian developers, is in a difficult position right now. Will the game be available on your website, Steam, VK Play or other platforms? What risks are involved in choosing one or another platform?

AN: This issue is much easier for us than for many of our colleagues - due to our access to international markets and financial and legal logistics, we have the opportunity to release on any platform.

Here we rather had the opposite difficulty - we need to make an effort in order to provide comfortable and open access to the game from the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation. We are negotiating with publishers who will be able to help us with distribution in these countries without any problems. Thus, the game will be published in Russia/RB by a company from Russia with experience in similar releases.

There are no risks; we have a separate publisher for RF/RB and a separate one for the other countries.

SG: Can you share at least a release window?

AN: We are not ready to give a public window yet, in order not to put our partners and developers to a deadline and not to let down future players. If something that doesn't meet our standards comes up during polishing and scaling up, we definitely don't plan to sacrifice quality for time. The golden mean for us is to announce the release window and date after all the initial stages of polishing up.

SG: Is there any information about open beta testing? On which platforms will it take place and will the progress made be saved?

AN: Yes, we are planning to do an OBT. The first OBT will be for PC users only, and we don't plan to save the progress of the very first OBT, the testing will not be long.

SG: You've already mentioned that PIONER has areas for PvE exploration and missions and areas with PvP gameplay. Do you have to participate in PvP to progress through the main story?

AP: No, players don't need to get in touch with PvP in general. The story activities and the activities where you can get kicked around by other players are separated by both distance and organisation.

SG: What does the player character lose when dying in PvP and PvE zones?

AN: In any case, the player's "health" of items decreases - they will need to be repaired manually or at the workbench. There are also certain restrictions imposed on the player after death.

AP: In general, PvP and PvE deaths differ in the loss of loot. In PvE you don't lose it (except for quest items), but in PvP you do. Not all of it, but definitely the most "upsetting" part of it.

SG: Players familiar with classic MMOs are interested in how many users will be on the map at the same time? What systems are responsible for ensuring that there are no queues for quests or killing certain bosses?

AP: This is exactly the direction we focused a lot of innovative solutions for MMOs.

First of all, the whole party can participate in a dialogue if it has one quest. And our dialogues are role-playing, we just recently demonstrated them.

Secondly, quests with a strong bias towards adventure, role-playing or staging - in general, "normal, human RPG quests" are played with a special mode. This mode brings the game closer to the experience of a single-player adventure: in this mode other players can't interfere with you - you simply can't see them and have no contact with them in any way (except for your group).

We will tell you more about it later, closer to revealing the features of the story campaign and role-playing part of the game.

SG: What content do you plan to add after the game's release?

AN: We plan to release small balance patches and large content patches that include locations, weapons and bosses. We will also be expanding the story of the world, adding new mechanics to the game and technical updates to keep the project on track. In this aspect we are following The Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy XIV - we see certain strategies there that are acceptable for us and quite friendly to the players.