With hundreds of players on a single server, real meaningful character progression, an in-depth narrative, and a rich vibrant and changing world driven by the players’ actions, Population Zero will raise the bar for what it means to be a multiplayer survival experience.

Population Zero is a distinctive blend of survival and MMO set on the planet Kepler, an alien world far on the periphery of mankind’s own knowledge. As with all frontiers, the world will resist those who try to explore it, plumb it for resources, and vie to uncover its secrets. The creatures that inhabit Kepler will become for the player not just a source of valuable resources, but clever and skillful enemies, each of which is unique in its behavior and abilities and has its own role in the ecosystem of the planet.

Research a plethora of technologies to drive you and your faction’s fortunes higher. Uncover a deeply shrouded mystery of the world before you arrived. Develop your character to be unique among the thousands, in a world where the actions you take drive your progress in a multitude of skills. Population Zero is a survival game unlike any other, an MMO different from those before it, and an experience that will bring friends closer together over the shared goal of exploring and conquering the new frontier.

Throughout their adventures, players will upgrade their characters in many different ways, but one of the most unique is our Perk System. Each and every activity a player partakes in on Kepler could grant them a new perk to equip. The Perk system allows players to perform many actions much more efficiently.

There are conditions which need to be fulfilled in order to get each perk and they are hidden from the player. Besides this, perks vary in their value and obtaining complexity. In essence, how good or helpful a Perk can be is a randomized “drop” when it’s unlocked. And when you die or are killed by an enemy player, you can drop your perks. Of course, we are toying with ways for players to insure their perks, and finding new ones is always an option as well.

How do perks affect the character?

• Perks can change parameters and statistics
• Perks make new combat skills \ strikes available
• Perks make new recipes\ schemes available
• Many more uses will come in future builds

The conditions for obtaining these can be quite different and unexpected. From «kill 100 alien animals» to «stand on the highest mountain’s top of the initial biome for several minutes» (Are we serious? We’ll let you decide!). The same perk can be earned in multiple ways.

In general, the probability to obtain a perk is regulated by a complex system. If you don’t receive a perk for a long time your chances of obtaining one will increase.

Upgrading your perks

A Perk can be temporary, permanent and saved. What does this mean?

Obtained perks start affecting character instantly and the number of these perks is conditionally unlimited. Such perks are called temporary. The major difference is that character loses temporary perks when they die.

Perks that you consider the most valuable can be converted by the player into permanent. You will not lose these perks in the event of an untimely demise. The number of permanent perks is limited and you will have to think twice before making one of them permanent. Unneeded perks can be dismantled for special resources.

Saved perks are also will not going to be lost in the case of character’s death. Though these perks do not affect your character. They exist in the virtual storage because they’re not currently equipped to your character.

The Perk UI

Take a look at the draft of our Perk UI below. During the game process, the character acquired two perks: the yellow one «Accelerated Wound Dressing» and the green one «A chance to stun Kvar». Both perks are identified as temporary, but the player decided that «Accelerated Wound Dressing» would be useful in the future.

The player didn’t have any free yellow slot for a new perk, so he bought one using R1 resource and placed there «Accelerated Wound Dressing», making this perk permanent.

The player dismantled the temporary perk «A chance to stun Kvar» and received R2 resources.

Later the player went to chop some Bractus and got the violet perk «Thrifty Earner» that decreases hacking tool deprecation. But the player wanted to get «Axe Damage Increase», which is obtainable after completing the same requirements (the player got this information from the Database which was filled based on the results of other player’s researching).

At that very moment, the player didn’t need this «Thrifty Earner» perk while presence of this perk among temporary slowed down receiving other temporary perks of the same color. But the player didn’t want to lose this perk so he decided to spend R2 and save «Thrifty Earner».

Saved perks stop affecting the character, but cannot be lost after death.
The players continued to chop Bractus (he desperately needed resources!) and finally achieved the desired outcome.

The player had a violet slot that was occupied by something they didn’t need. The player freely dismantled this perk for R2 resources and replaced it with a «Axe damage increase» perk.

Secondly, we wanted to share some of our findings from the recent Alpha Tests, which players can still sign up now.

Last Friday Population Zero servers were open for another Pre-Alpha test session, where we introduced players to a new game build (0.04.02). Along with server and game optimization we introduced a new alien creature known as Kso, a new health regeneration system, equipment durability, a new building tier and a map expansion. The team has also worked on resource spawn points, character movement improvements, optimization and environment loading principles.

The next Pre-Alpha test will be held as soon as we are done with player’s feedback for the latest build. We hope that our players  will be able to dive back into the mysterious world of Kepler and continue the world exploration as soon as next weekend. Everyone who has taken part in the previous tests are eligible for the next one, and as usual we will also send out more invitations to those who applied for Pre-Alpha.

Key Features:

• Hand-crafted World
• Vibrantly realized factions
• A refined Guild system
• Easy to learn crafting and building
• Dangerous and smart alien creatures
• A deep, intuitive Perks and Technology tree
• Narrative storytelling - Solve the mysteries of the ancient planet
• A deep skill-driven combat system with both melee and ranged weaponry