Blight Solo Dev Sergei Bezborodko Explains Why He Choose Realism, Fallout-Like Radiation & More in his Post-Apocalyptic Survival Game (INTERVIEW)

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Blight Solo Dev Sergei Bezborodko Explains Why He Choose Realism, Fallout-Like Radiation & More in his Post-Apocalyptic Survival Game (INTERVIEW)

Blight Solo Dev Sergei Bezborodko Explains Why He Choose Realism, Fallout-Like Radiation & More in his Post-Apocalyptic Survival Game (INTERVIEW)

There’s been some a renaissance of sorts for survival games lately, after a long patch of mediocrity, but now fans of the genre can celebrate, as the likes of Manor Lords and The Last Plague: Blight, hit early access. Unlike the former, the latter hit pretty hard on the realism aspects of a post-apocalyptic survival game, and for better or worse, you’ll learn how to survive if the worst thing happens!

Thankfully, we got to speak to Sergei Bezborodko, sole founder of Original Studios and developer of The Last Plague: Blight, about the game, choices made, and what it could lead to.

[This was a written interview, some answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.]

The Last Plague: Blight is a Lesson in Surviving

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Firstly, thanks for taking the time to answer these! For the FandomWire readers who may be unaware, please explain who you are and what you do?

SB: Thanks for the questions! I’m Sergei Bezborodko, the sole founder of Original Studios here in Toronto, Canada. I’ve been working on The Last Plague: Blight for a bit over 5 years now, mostly on my own. Building a game has been a goal of mine ever since I was in school, so after an initial career in software engineering,

I have a fairly grand plan for features that I want to implement post-Early Access launch, which will take the game to a full 1.0 release-ready state.

I finally decided it was the right time to go all in on this game development journey. I handle all aspects of the game design and engineering, with some contract help for various assets, animations, and that sort of thing.

And a brief oversight of The Last Plague: Blight?

SB: The Last Plague: Blight is a realistic top-down survival game set in a fictionalized Medieval-era wilderness during the outbreak of a devastating new plague called the Blight.

You play as a character that arrives at their home village just as the Blight seems to wipe out all nearby civilization, forcing you to figure out how to survive and endure to prevent succumbing to the new disease. The game focuses on realism and authenticity when it comes to the various survival mechanics to help build a more immersive experience.

The Last Plague: Blight is joining a packed genre of gaming, how do you intend to make it stand apart from others in the survival genre?

SB: I wanted the game to go fairly in-depth with regard to a lot of the various mechanics involved in the game, something that I don’t see too often in many of the other survival games out there. I absolutely love a ton of detail in the systems of a game and adding steps to processes that more closely mirror how things work in real life.

I wanted to avoid a more streamlined and accessible experience where a lot of processes are simplified. I realize this focus may move the game towards a more niche audience but I feel that this is a choice that helps the game stand out more for those that appreciate this deliberate slower pace.

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What exactly is ‘the Blight’?

SB: It’s a fictionalized disease, and I wanted to give the game more purpose and be a driving force for many of the players’ decisions. It’s not necessarily fully true to life, but I wanted it to be somewhat plausible while giving myself some creative freedom to design its gameplay-affecting aspects in an interesting way. It’s designed to be a fungal infection that spreads rapidly, taking over cities and towns quickly and then slowly growing into the surrounding wilderness.

The Fallout inspiration seems obvious to me, but how did you allow that franchise to impact your own vision?

SB: Yes, I played a lot of Fallout 3 and New Vegas in the past and thought a lot about how to use the gameplay-affecting properties of those series’ radiation in my own game while keeping it consistent with the disease-based approach that makes sense here. I really liked how the radiation was always there in many aspects of the Fallout games, and I wanted the Blight to be even more of an obstacle to overcome.

The genre I picked for the game allows such a vast amount of unique features and gameplay elements that are exciting to think about adding, but at a certain point, I had to sit down and really think about identifying the game’s core features and what the game really is about.

Fallout’s nuclear contamination is felt throughout the franchise, is this how the Blight comes in, and affects the environment/animals present?

SB: Yes, exactly. I wanted it to be a constant threat to the player felt throughout the game world. A difference is that it starts off as a decent-sized threat but continues to grow as the days go on in the game, changing and evolving the threats the player encounters, making the animals more vicious, etc.

Food contamination is a staple of the survival genre, so how did you approach this with your own spin?

SB: I decided to make all food sources have at least a small amount of contamination in the beginning, given the outdoor nature of the game and continuous exposure to airborne fungal infection. These small amounts of infection don’t add up to much in the beginning but will build some urgency for the player to figure out a longer-term solution as the days go on and the overall contamination of the world grows. The game will eventually present the player with methods for decontaminating food and liquids but at a cost, adding more tradeoff considerations for the player as they continue to survive.

Crafting, Surviving and Needing Patience

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Another staple is of course the crafting, which we’ve seen extensively in the trailers released so far. How does your crafting differ and keep original compared to that of others in the Genre?

SB: I opted for a crafting system that goes fairly deep in terms of complexity. I wanted to avoid generalized resources like “wood” and “stone” in favor of more granular resources like short and long sticks, thick and thin logs, short and long planks, etc., that all serve a specific purpose that the player has to consider and plan for in advance for crafting and building.

tep. You can also detach the two later on to be able to reuse the handle and/or melt down the metal blade for use in another tool. I felt like small things like this really add depth to the game and help set it apart from other survival games.

And a follow on to that, what research did you carry out to ensure what you were asking of the players crafting-wise was at least somewhat rooted in realism?

SB: When I think about adding a new feature or game mechanic and how to implement it, I generally first consider what the real-world aspects are by Googling it or looking it up on Wikipedia quite a bit. I then try to think about what concessions I can make to simplify it enough to fit it into the game’s current systems and still retain the most true-to-life feel that I can while also being careful about not overwhelming the player with an overly obtuse or frustrating experience. Sometimes I don’t get it fully right the first time, and the player feedback really helps me dial in the proper gameplay fairly quickly.

In the release date trailer, we saw the player building a little, mostly with wood, and then stone. How technologically advanced can the player go?

SB: I think the main advancement in the game right now is going from the initial tools the player can get in the early game to bronze tool-making in the early-mid game and then iron and steel tool-making in the mid-late game.

I wanted to avoid a more streamlined and accessible experience where a lot of processes are simplified. I realize this focus may move the game towards a more niche audience but I feel that this is a choice that helps the game stand out more for those that appreciate this deliberate slower pace.

The wood, stone, mud, and clay shelter-building materials are actually not different tiers of materials as of yet, everything can be built from day 1 in the game. Later on, I plan on adding a higher tier of shelter building that requires large posts and frames that can only be moved via tooling that is unlocked with the steel tier metalworking.

With both solo and co-op modes available, does bringing a friend along for the journey affect the difficulty/gameplay compared to that of a solo run? If so, how?

SB: Currently, there is no game logic to increase the difficulty based on the number of players in the game, so there is no direct effect, but there is definitely an indirect difficulty increase due to the higher amount of resources required to sustain that many more players at one camp.

More players will need more food and water, of which food can be already tough to come by for solo players. Being able to split up various tasks and do them in parallel does help lighten the load a bit overall though, but it does require some solid coordination as well.

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With the heavy emphasis on the extra steps crafting-wise, do you think this is only for hardcore fans of the genre?

SB: Yes, I think the game will really resonate with players who want a gameplay experience that doesn’t shy away from complexity and potential superfluousness. Players who expect a more streamlined approach may find the experience a bit too much.

How will the game be supported post-launch?

SB: I have a fairly grand plan for features that I want to implement post-Early Access launch, which will take the game to a full 1.0 release-ready state. I’ll continue to push out updates every few months as I have since the game’s first alpha testing process began years ago. The only difference now is that save game compatibility will never break after major updates!

And linked to the above, are you likely to be bringing this out for any other systems going forward?

SB: My first goal would be to get the controller support fully implemented to get proper Steam Deck support for the game. Having controller support would allow me to then start porting the game to consoles, something that I for sure want to explore in the 1.0 release phase of the game, if not earlier.

You developed The Last Plague: Blight on your own, which is no small feat, that’s for sure. How did that change your approach to the whole development process, and did it mean you ended up cutting features and mechanics otherwise you’d have included?

SB: This solo development endeavor forced me to be prioritization-obsessed and, in general, be very mindful of how slow development can be just on my own.

For axes and other tools, you first need to create a handle along with the blade you want to use, then combine them together as a separate crafting step.

The genre I picked for the game allows such a vast amount of unique features and gameplay elements that are exciting to think about adding, but at a certain point, I had to sit down and really think about identifying the game’s core features and what the game really is about. I’d like to think I haven’t “cut” features from the Early Access release, just prioritized a certain set of features now so that I can implement others later.

Lastly, is there anything else you don’t normally get to share that you’d like to?

SB: It turns out that making a game is hard! I’ve been incredibly appreciative of all the content creators sharing the game with their audiences and the countless players who have found the game, checked out the alpha releases over the past three years, and provided amazing feedback, bug reports, and suggestions to really help me navigate the game through this process and make it the best it can be.

I’m excited for the game to continue to evolve during the Early Access period and even after the 1.0 release, and I hope it can really be a solid entrant in the fairly niche hardcore survival game sub-genre.

Thanks again for the great questions!

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