News

May 9, in the year of our Lord 2022 -- Small Indie Studio Puts Their Twitter Account Up for Deletion to Celebrate Permadeath. Unexplored 2 releases May 27, and the developers believe so strongly in their twist on permadeath that they are betting their Twitter account on it.

Unexplored 2 adopts a classic roguelite progression for most player deaths. If you die in Unexplored 2 that character is lost forever, but the world is not. You can restart a few years later and retain much of the progress you've made. Special legacy items are passed on to the next Wayfarer.

When you enter the last area, however, dying means true permadeath for your world: your save file gets deleted. Gone. Forever.

“No matter how big the story, your save file is a safety net,” Joris Dormans, Head of Ludomotion, explains. “The final battle is a key moment in a hero’s journey, but as a player, you know you have another chance if you fail, so the true tension of that moment is lost. UnExplored 2 takes that safety net away.”

It hasn't been controversial. Maybe: Dormans admits that permadeath is controversial with players and reviewers outside the roguelike genre, but he believes in it so much that his team is putting their Twitter account (@PlayUnexplored) up for permanent deletion: "We're asking players to trust us that this creates a better experience, so why not make a leap of faith ourselves?"

The challenge is simple: Be the first to beat UnExplored 2 with a fresh save file on Wayfarer difficulty live on Twitch, and you get to decide between being immortalized inside the game forever or destroying a Twitter account that Ludomotion has been growing since 2017.

“It's up to that player, but we really hope that player is a hero,” Dormans says.

As of this writing, @PlayUnexplored has 2,433 followers.

No word on a physical copy version of this game on this system(s) in the US at this time. Families are required to pay for Internet usage fees to download this game. For more information click here.

Do you appreciate stories like this one? Have you ever considered helping Family Friendly Gaming? For more information click here.