Upsilon Circuit gives players only one life…forever
Permadeath is not a new concept in video games. Several titles have a “hardcore” mode or something equivalent that gives players only one chance to beat a game, and if their character dies, they stay dead with no continues.
But for games that have that option, such as Diablo III or certain Minecraft servers, players can always create a new character or move to a different server and start over. Newly announced indie game Upsilon Circuit takes permadeath a little more seriously. If you die in Upsilon Circuit, not only does your character stay dead, but you can never play the game again. At all. Even stranger, Upsilon Circuit is designed to only allow eight players in the game at a time worldwide.
How could such a ridiculous concept possibly result in anything but a spectacular failure? Livestreaming.
Dubbing itself “part gameshow, part action RPG,” the idea behind Upsilon Circuit is not to create a popular game played by millions, but rather one that could be watched by millions. The eight players are either supported or hindered by the audience, and audience members can spend XP to improve player abilities. The audience will also have the ability to buy boosts or items that can help the players they like, or they can buy monsters to hurt the players they don’t. Whenever players die, their replacements will also be chosen from the audience.
“We’re making this because we want to watch it,” Calvin Goble, co-founder of the studio making Upsilon Circuit, told PC Gamer. “And we’re excited because, oh my gosh, what could happen when somebody really cares about their one life in a game? And that’s what we’re really interests me in it.”
Goble says that his game is an action RPG version of this concept, but he hopes that it becomes its own genre that spreads out into other game types. With the growing popularity of esports and game livestreaming in general, Upsilon Circuit could fill a unique niche that would have been unimaginable 10 years ago.
Upsilon Circuit is still in very early development, and there is currently no projected release date for the game.
Image credit: Upsilon Circuit (c)
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