Divergence: Year Zero on Greenlight!

Well it's finally time to let the cat out of the bag on our super secret project and clue you all in to both what we've done and why we've done it.

After much careful consideration and debate, about one and a half months ago we

Divergence: Online simply does not make enough profit for even two adults to live on (while sharing a single apartment mind you) let alone be able to hire anyone new. The other complication we've had is that this game is a niche of a niche. Not only does it draw only the sci-fi audience, but only a very small sect of that audience in itself. We knew this going into it and honestly are amazed that such a few people can come so close to supporting it enough to be self sufficient. Almost, but not quite I'm afraid.

So after a lot of back and forth, weighing our options and trying to find out what we could possibly do to increase the profitability of our project so that we could continue to do what we love and improve on our game solution every day, we arrived at the answer you see today; an answer that we've named;

Divergence: Year Zero

Divergence: Year Zero was an idea we came up with to market and sell that thing which we believe is the core of our game's soul; Our MMO system. While Sci-Fi and Hardcore Sci-Fi have a very small following, modern survival draws a much larger crowd and exposing those players to "The Divergence Experience" we believe is the best chance we have of making the business more profitable.

Divergence: Year Zero ("Year Zero" for short) is a prequel to Divergence: Online and exists at a place in time I'd long planned to explore years from now but we simply do not have the time to wait. Year Zero centers around the catastrophic abduction of the San Andreas Fault shortly after the year 2020 which obliterated west-coast civilization and released the unfinished form of the virus being designed to wipe-out solitus humans. The resulting quarantine essentially rendered the shattered landscapes of California, Oregon, and parts of Washington state no-mans-land, ruled only by wild animals and even wilder human survivors... And other things.

Year Zero contains not just "everything Divergence: Online has", but all our new advancements as well, first and foremost not only rideable mounts but more than a dozen vehicle types as well. In the badlands, power belongs to those who control the harvest, refinement, and supply of fossil fuels such as coal and crude oil. Our systems completely embrace the life of a "road warrior" scouring the wastes in his junker, dodging bandits and stealing what he can.

Oh, and did we mention the best part? All vehicles are also hoppers! That's right, check the video for proof - Virtually any item you can craft and place to a hopper (AKA Claim/Property) you can bolt onto a vehicle! You can actually load up your truck with resources, oil and salvage and drive it around, or armor it up! Be forewarned though, adding stuff adds mass to the vehicle and will raise its center of gravity, causing it to tip over more easily?

Cars. Trucks. SUVs. We're even working on motorcycles and helicopters as well.

How is this possible? Didn't we just get done saying that we don't have the money and resources to develop Divergence: Online any faster?

The reason is both simple and tragic; Nobody wants to work (for free) on "someone elses sci-fi game". 100% truth. Oh, there are TONS of people out there willing ot line-up to "get involved with a survival game", because they have a much better chance of earning those people money, but getting them to work on something that isn't even made for profit (Divergence: Online) has been virtually impossible. If you can't get people to help out on principle, then you need to pay them to do the work, and if you can't pay them, well then you're fucked aren't you.

So this is that solution. Take what we've built, use it to make something additional with a much broader appeal, end up with two products putting funds into the project instead of one.

Don't approve? Tough shit, you aren't the one putting your electric bill on a creditcard are you.

The only thing (existing) Divergence players need to understand is this simple truth; If you want Divergence: Online to survive and grow, THIS is what has to happen. We feel there's a good chance you'll like it, but even if you don't, you don't have to, but you need to understand that supporting Year Zero means Supporting Divergence: Online.

Both games have the same core features.

Like the fact that we're finally spawning real creatures in the game world in Divergence: Online now? Guess what, we wouldn't have that if we hadn't been able to get some extra help in creating "zombies" for Year Zero, that we were able to immediately copy over to Divergence: Online.
Ridable mounts and vehicles? We had virtually zero chance of having those in Divergence: Online in the next six months before Year Zero, and now that's completely a reality.
Looking forward to our "can't get inside other peoples bases" fix? Guess where that's coming from also? You guessed it, Year Zero.

I could say more but i think you get the general idea. Obviously all modern content lingering around Divergence: Online is removed.

So where does this leave people who bought Divergence: Online?
Pretty fucking well off actually, because everyone who bought Divergence: Online is entitled to a free key for Year Zero. Obviously since we're doing this to make money for the game, we'd like some people to buy the damn thing please, but if you ask for a key through the regular channels, you'll get one no sales pitch and confidentially.

People who've bought larger and more expensive perks already get larger and more expensive perks in Year Zero, such as a companion island (because the shattered west coast is full of islands that used to be called "Portland" now), or (if you own either the Vindicator or Verrator perk), your own "Extendable Electrified Riot Baton" (Meaning, a theta-blade) in Year Zero. Think that's rare in the future? Imagine how rare they are in 2020 :)

That's all I have to say for now. Before we can even launch Year Zero on Early Access it still has to go through greenlight, so we hope you'll head on over to our greenlight page and show your support for both this game and our project as a whole!