【Depersonalization】Monthly Report - 2026.05

Hi Investigators,

Since the official release of "Depersonalization" in August 2024, we've devoted all our efforts to the development of the multiplayer functionality.

However, even now, the multiplayer feature still hasn't been released, which has led many investigators to ask questions like:

• The tentative "Hello? Is the studio still alive?"

• The sentimental "Ah...will I live to see multiplayer release in my lifetime~~"

• Or the accusatory "Hey! Did you guys go out to play again? (◣_◢)!!!"

Although we've been regularly posting weekly and monthly reports, we've always wanted to publish a special report to more comprehensively showcase the multiplayer development process. Therefore, in addition to the latest multiplayer progress, this month's report will also cover some directional adjustments in multiplayer, design ideas, as well as some of the pitfalls we've encountered.

(Note: Some UI and interface mockups in the following images are still in development and do not represent final effects.)

Overall Progress

• We are working at full capacity on development, targeting a release in Q3 this fall [synchronized PC and mobile release]

• Supports cross-platform multiplayer: PC ↔ mobile, and multiplayer between different mobile games

• Expected in mid-June: We'll post an [interim gameplay demo video] on social media

Some Detours During These Two Years of Development

We have to admit that multiplayer functionality has indeed taken much longer than we initially expected, and has proven more difficult than we first imagined.

During development, we've cycled through this process countless times:

Wanting to do too much → hitting a wall → acknowledging our limits → unwilling to give up and try to break through → making progress, trying hard → wanting to do too much → hitting a wall again

We initially wanted to do too many things, such as:

• Post-release maintenance

• Community creation ecosystem activities

• Mobile port operations

• Second crowdfunding campaign

• New module preparation

• Return of old systems

• Multiplayer backend development ...and so on.

We did indeed take some detours along the way.Here's a summary of this process ↓↓

August 2024 (Post Release)

Our public progress:

• "Depersonalization" transitioned to official release, with continued game maintenance

Actual work behind the scenes:

• Handling post-release feedback, fixing old issues, improving experience, defining system boundaries

Impact on multiplayer:

• The multiplayer version couldn't start immediately—we first needed to ensure the official version itself remained stable and could continue moving forward

Second Half of 2024

Our public progress:

• Follow-up directions were successively discussed, and the community was awaiting new content

Actual work behind the scenes:

• Attempting to create a multiplayer gameplay demo with limited resources while preparing new content directions

Impact on multiplayer:

• Multiplayer was initially imagined as a lightweight gameplay breakthrough rather than a complete narrative module

Steam post image This is a design project we did before↑

February-April 2025

Our public progress:

• Second crowdfunding campaign launched; subsequent content and multiplayer directions became more concrete

Actual work behind the scenes:

• Designed a "social deduction game" direction: identities, voting, factions, 4-12 players, post-death participation, etc.

Impact on multiplayer:

• We realized it was looking more and more like an entirely new social deduction game, far more complex than expected

An abandoned design↑

May 2025

Our public progress:

• New version direction announcement began discussing multiplayer adjustments

Actual work behind the scenes:

• Abandoned plans to expand competitive gameplay multiplayer, refocused on PvE narrative multiplayer modules

Impact on multiplayer:

• First major directional calibration: no longer just pursuing "having multiplayer functionality"

The idea of adjusting the direction↑

Second Half of 2025

Our public progress:

• Mobile version, community creation, crowdfunding fulfillment, and new content plans all progressed in parallel

Actual work behind the scenes:

• Mobile porting, testing, performance optimization, compliance, old module debugging, community creation support, second crowdfunding follow-up work all competed for resources, forcing some new module plans to be temporarily shelved

Impact on multiplayer:

• The team realized continuing to spread resources thin would push multiplayer further away

February-May 2026

Our public progress:

• Multiplayer-related content began frequently reappearing

Actual work behind the scenes:

• Team formation, universal requests, speaking permissions, voting, combat synchronization, chat, quest chains, conflict resolution via dice, room processes, networking layer all began systematic implementation and refinement

Impact on multiplayer:

• Multiplayer transitioned from directional discussions back into implementation, testing and issue resolution phases

Although these were detours, they helped us realize that many features we "hoped to have" or "should have"might not be suitable to implement initially.

Looking back at these iterative processes of repeatedly overturning and redoing work, they did indeed waste quite a bit of time.

What players saw externally was: the multiplayer feature being mentioned repeatedly but never actually materializing.

We're truly sorry for keeping everyone waiting so long.

Feature Updates & Directional Adjustments

During the actual development process, we've also made some functional adjustments. The overall direction has shifted from the early "We want it all!" to the current "Create multiplayer that better suits us."

Gameplay shifted from social deduction back to PvE narrative

As previously mentioned in announcements, we initially wanted to create a "social deduction RPG" inspired by Werewolf and Among Us.

We worked in this direction for quite some time, but the more we developed, the less it felt like multiplayer that "Depersonalization" should have.

There were two main reasons:

1. The competition in this space is extremely fierce Requiring long-term balancing, voice environments, identity/faction design, post-death gameplay, and needing extensive match testing etc.

2. It didn't suit "Depersonalization" as a narrative game Our core remains storytelling—the branching choices characters make during events, the uncertainty brought by dice rolls. Players don't join to eliminate each other, but to investigate events with friends and experience the chain reactions of their collective choices.

So we ultimately decided: rather than creating bigger multiplayer, we should create multiplayer that better suits us.

Thus multiplayer returned to PvE narrative modules.

Multiplayer count adjusted to maximum 3 players

In earlier plans, we did consider larger player counts, even designing for 4-12 players, because we wanted multiplayer to accommodate hidden identities, faction conflicts, voting, deception, and post-death participation.

But when actually implementing this within "Depersonalization"'s narrative structure, we found numerous problems:

• More players meant more waiting, and story communication became more easily disrupted

• Combat, voting, trigger events, and quest chain progression all became lengthy and difficult to manage

• Players would shift from "experiencing the story together with friends" to "waiting for others to finish their actions"

So in the 2.0 adjustments, we've decided to first reduce the maximum player count to 3.

This keeps the group size small enough to enable discussion/disagreement and cooperation/surprises while ensuring every player remains visible within the story.

The above is the old version, and the below is the new version↑

Interaction adjustments: Request to speak, voting, and dice

We also considered freer interactions like real-time trading, talking over each other, and arbitrary triggering, but within the current game framework this easily became chaotic:

• Who gets to represent the party in NPC dialogue?

• Who can take key items?

• Who is currently occupying a plot node?

When two people try to trigger the same event simultaneously, whose action should the game prioritize?

If not handled properly, this leads to blocking and arguments.

So to make interactions understandable and allow story progression even when requests are denied, we adjusted the rules:

• To request an action from others, use "Universal Request"

• During group dialogue, use "Request to Speak"

• For key decisions requiring group input, use voting or player polling

• When conflicts remain unresolved, let the dice decide everything

• Item exchanges don't use real-time trading but rather gifting, requesting, and shared storage

Steam post imageSteam post image

From parallel development of multiple new features to focusing on completing a multiplayer module

After the official release, we always had ideas for new content. For a while, new content and multiplayer work did proceed in parallel.

However, due to limited resources, some previously planned modules ultimately had to be temporarily shelved.

After all, new scenarios require art assets, configuration, and testing resources—but multiplayer also demands significant manpower and affects core systems.

Continuing parallel development risked doing everything poorly, so we're now concentrating all efforts on first making multiplayer work properly.

What the Adjusted Multiplayer Will Feel Like

Our vision is that when multiplayer launches, players should experience:

When you and friends enter a story together...

After entering a module, players should naturally form relationships:

• Social players can choose to communicate verbally

• Exploratory players can freely investigate While maintaining cooperation, everyone has more freedom—rather than joining the same room only to do their own thing We want every player to have their own place in the story.

When conversing with NPCs...

The most chaotic aspect of multiplayer narrative is everyone trying to talk at once. So to ensure each conversation has a clear representative, we've added the [Request to Speak] system.

• When a character has speaking rights, they'll represent the current dialogue progression

• Other players can see their choices and understand how the conversation unfolded

• If you wish to take over the conversation, you can request speaking rights (This becomes an in-game request rather than relying solely on yelling "Let me handle this!" in voice chat) We hope this design preserves the feeling of group discussion while preventing narrative chaos.

When opinions differ...

This is often multiplayer's most interesting aspect. So we've prepared voting, player polling, universal requests, and—letting the dice decide everything!

When deciding to split up!

Multiplayer won't forcibly keep everyone together at all times. Instead, we'll use shared quest chains, actionable hints, party chat, map signals, and multi-party interaction nodes to ensure key objectives remain group-understood. This helps maintain the feeling of collectively uncovering the truth.

During combat or crises...

We want emergencies to involve more than just individual actions—multiplayer combat shouldn't simply be single-player combat copied three times.

In multiplayer, each player controls their own character—action choices, waiting states, positioning, speed, support, buffs and skill synchronizations all need to be visible to others. For Sanity Checks, KO states, rescues, and support actions, you'll know when teammates have made choices and can see their results.

When someone makes a choice, it gets noticed and remembered

One thing we care deeply about in multiplayer is whether player actions will be remembered by the story:

• If a character triggers a key event, their name can appear in the text

• When a player makes a choice, it may enter global records

• If story direction changes due to someone's action, the party might later notice lingering consequences This is why we want to implement "Iconic Moments"—we hope the system can record these instances.

Other Progress: Art

This month, we completed artwork for 6 new scenes (base versions without lighting configuration) ↓↓

We're also continuing CG artwork (shareable version) ↓↓

And have completed all current UI optimization requests ↓↓

Other Progress

1.Multiplayer Development & Optimization

• Improved multiplayer combat flow optimizations

• Implemented multiplayer story skip functionality

• Fixed KCP forwarding errors caused by overly long messages

• Completed network layer data change update adjustments

• Fixed story synchronization issues

• Adjusted voting functionality

• Tested multiplayer combat features

• Modified multiplayer room entry switches, optimized module entry flow

• Currently addressing remaining multiplayer issue list items

2.Combat & Core System Optimization

• Optimized general combat parameters

• Completed Skill tool workflow

• Adjusted enemy combat mechanics

• Modified module entry NPC loading flow

• Optimized Sanity Check presentation

• Implemented dispute resolution system (including event selection interface)

3.Content Features & UI Iterations

• Chat UI optimizations (quick chat etc.)

• Character overhead indicator modifications

• Character switching during preparation phase

• Completed design for combat, items, mythos artifacts, spells and companion systems

• Currently developing mythos artifacts

• Finalized character overhead indicator UI changes

• Completed player name extraction functionality

Closing Words

This concludes our Monthly Report.

Questions or suggestions?

Please share them in the comments - we'll respond to constructive feedback.

Discord: https://discord.gg/As7JFHXHS2

Google docs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/181XJdypLrqmH7_XLNXtuljfNafG7J2HQCtFD5E54tjE/edit?pli=1#gid=1698557684