Dr Disrespect’s Midnight Society reveals more details about Project Moon
Just this week, Midnight Society revealed more information about its first upcoming video game title Project Moon. The studio’s blog post on July 8 confirmed that Project Moon is a “vertical extraction shooter (VES)”. Along with that, the developer team also revealed the first look at Project Moon with what appears to be early in-game screenshots.
Previously, the gaming studio, which was co-founded by professional streamer and former developer at Sledgehammer Games Herschel “Guy” Beahm IV aka Dr Disrespect, alongside three other industry veterans, had teased the gaming world that Project Moon will be a “competitive PvPvE first-person shooter” and a battle royale title, featuring an extraction feature similar to Battlestate Games’ genre-defining title Escape from Tarkov.
However, the studio’s new blog post left more questions than answers about the project’s viability, NFTs, and how exactly its Founders Pass would work. In addition, various gaming industry hitters and developers argued that Project Moon’s idea to have Founders Pass holders the right to vote to steer development only seems good on paper.
More on Project Moon
Project Moon has been making its name known across the gaming industry. Some of Dr Disrespect’s fans welcomed the idea, while some did not approve of the project’s clear direction of implementing NFTs.
Midnight Society confirmed in March that the studio would give privileged access to those who purchased the Founders Pass and activated the NFTs found within the package, which will cost $50. Only in this way players may get themselves involved with the game’s development by voting.
Aside from this, the blog post also confirmed the release of Snapshots, a playable feature that will be released once every six weeks.
“We will release Snapshots, which are playable experiences focused around specific milestones, every six weeks. Every milestone has feedback parameters around weapons, player abilities, gameplay, and play spaces within the game. Our team will be collecting feedback, prioritizing it, and applying it to upcoming Snapshots,” Midnight Society wrote.
The developer added that these Snapshots are not the full game version of Project Moon. Instead, they are key aspects of the community’s discussion related to in-game mechanics, which could shape the game’s trajectory via a player-driven philosophy.
“Snapshots aren’t the full game, but rather vertical slices of key aspects of the game meant to focus the community’s discussion around specific features or mechanics we’re actively building. Every six weeks, these Snapshots are updated with additional features, mechanics, and assets based on the discussions with the community,” the developer team continued.
Slight disturbance, concerns
Forbes’ video games writer Paul Tassi shared his two cents on Twitter that Snapshots’ window frame is too short and community voting seems not viable. Tassi’s tweet sparked a huge discussion where gamers and developers joined the thread, with many showing their skepticism.
Dr Disrespect replied to Tassi, saying that the team forgot to discuss their plans with the “Gamedev folks”.
Destiny 2 game developer Joe Blackburn shared that Project Moon’s development cycle seems “too fast for new meaningful changes”.
“Innovation comes from trying stuff that others think won’t work, so maybe they’ll discover something cool. My 2 cents are the cycles seem too fast for meaningful new changes. Games are bad for a long time, I’d worry most features get panned before they get a chance at iteration,” Blackburn said.
While Midnight Society’s intentions to focus on community engagement and player testing with Snapshots sounds very noble, it remains to be seen how it would work out for Project Moon.
