VGTimes Interview with Pioner Developers

Pioner — a game from Russian developers will send players to the Zone, which is full of mutants, warring factions, anomalies and artifacts. But will it be interesting to play? We interviewed the developers and discussed many interesting topics. Is Pioner worth following? Read the interview and find out!

Pioner is a shooter, RPG and MMO at the same time. Gamers will find themselves in a large area where something terrible happened. The area is full of monsters like forest spirits. People who have retained their sanity are fighting each other. Artifacts have become the desired prey for every fighter. Anomalous devilry is happening everywhere.

It is not surprising that gamers drew analogies with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series — however, in fact, Chernobyl has nothing to do with the game. In the world of Pioner, the root of all troubles was the terrible experiments of the USSR. What happened? Is the whole world in danger? How to survive here? This is what you have to figure out.

It is unknown how the hero ended up in the Zone, but the area greeted him unfriendly: he lost his squad. Now he needs to assemble a team, choose a faction and stop the disaster.

We have already written about everything we know about the game. The developers themselves will tell you more about Pioner. We talked with the co-founder of the GFA Games studio Alexander Nikitin and game director Alexander Petrov.

VGTimes: Hi! Thanks for stopping by for the interview. Can you tell us about your role in the team?

Alexander Nikitin: Hi! I am the co-owner of GFA Games and the Marketing Director.

Alexander Petrov: And I am the Game Director. I directly manage the development of the game.

VGTimes: Some people don't know what Pioner is. Can you tell us about the project?

Alexander Petrov: It's hard to describe Pioner in a way that would make everything clear. In short, it's a very wild and interesting experiment in which the story campaign is tied to a new take on MMORPG. It's a full-fledged MMO shooter. Of the closest analogues, perhaps only Far Cry 6 can be named. Pioner is almost the first full-fledged MMO shooter with a normal modern combat system.

At the same time, Pioner has a unique setting. It resembles games related to disasters, but many things are so intertwined within the game that together they create something special.

VGTimes: So the shooting will be at the level of the latest Wolfenstein and Doom, and the MMO component, like in WoW?

Alexander Petrov: Yes. Moreover, we already have shooter mechanics, and the second... We will soon be able to achieve the second.

VGTimes: In the post-Soviet space, they love single-player games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Metro. Why did you decide to make an MMO, and not a story-driven linear adventure?

Alexander Petrov: When I joined the team, the task of implementing a network game had already been set. We are a new studio of people who have no experience in this. Before that, we made single-player games, so we decided that the easiest way was to implement the story first. In the process, we found out that we could transform a single-player campaign with network functions into an MMO.

That is, the game will have a single-player campaign, which will become a full-fledged story for players who are not interested in MMOs at all. Many people initially look at the game as a simple adventure. That's why I say that Pioner is a unique mix. We are trying to interest and satisfy a huge layer of players.

Alexander Nikitin: I will add that we wanted to see an MMO in the post-apocalyptic genre. Where did this idea come from? There is simply nothing close in the genre. For example, Fallout 76 is not an MMO shooter, but rather an RPG that poses as a shooter.

We were initially interested in things in a setting closer to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the works of the Strugatsky brothers. We decided to stop at this format, since many have played similar games and understand the difference in the setting.

VGTimes: The cause of the disaster in the world of Pioner was mysterious experiments of the USSR. Can you tell us more about the setting of the game? What is happening in the plot of Pioner?

Alexander Nikitin: The name Pioner hints at the plot of the game. In view of the fact that there are not members of the camps, but pioneers as discoverers. We are talking about a little-studied Soviet territory, an island. There are indigenous peoples there who have not yet been assimilated.

To understand what is happening in this story, you can imagine, for example, Soviet Tajikistan, where communication with the outside world is suddenly cut off. At the same time, people cannot leave the territory, because it is surrounded on all sides by a giant anomaly. People begin to panic, and in the background, various horrors occur.

A strange disaster occurs at the station in the center of the island. No one can get there. We are not saying what exactly is happening, but the island begins to change against the backdrop of the incident.

There is a total difference from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. here — it lies in the consequences of what happened after the man-made disaster. Here we are closer to Fallout, because we have more changes. More unique locations, types of anomalies and everything in that spirit. At the same time, not all anomalies are aggressive. And experimental zones and biomes look more unusual.

At the same time, the USSR plays a distant role in the plot. In order not to offend anyone, we do not talk directly about power and anything like that. We have factions that broke away amid panic: they have their own ideals, and they are based not on political views, but on a vision of how to get out of a difficult situation and suppress the anomaly.

There are political views too, but they are not in the first place. After all, one of the main themes of Pioner is survival. People do not think about anything lofty when trucks with corpses in huge quantities are unloaded nearby.

VGTimes: And when does the game take place?

Alexander Nikitin: The collapse of the Soviet Union. Late eighties-early nineties.

Alexander Petrov: We have a story related to time. The character has various PDAs on his hands that he can use. They show the exact time, but not the year. Plot points that will affect the character's motivation are tied to this.

VGTimes: According to the main plot, the hero must find the lost squad and find out the cause of the disaster?

Alexander Petrov: Yes, this is one of the main motivations. However, finding a squad is more of an attempt to recruit new people to a previously destroyed organization. That is, it is something like finding companions in Mass Effect. You find a person, and he has a quest. Without completing this task, you cannot attract him.

VGTimes: Quests in MMOs are often built on the «go-fetch-kill» principle. What will it be like in Pioner?

Alexander Petrov: We can't make a game completely filled with hand-made quests, but we should have enough of these tasks. They have cutscenes, different outcomes and small choices. This is one of the things that we position as advantages of our game.

VGTimes: How long will it take to complete the main storyline?

Alexander Petrov: The main storyline is not too long. It will most likely take about ten hours. This is provided that the player listens to the dialogues and does not skip them. We will also have episodes with gatherings around the campfire and conversations about life. Accordingly, if the player skips them, the time will decrease.

VGTimes: There will be four factions in the game. Can you tell us more about them?

Alexander Petrov: We cannot detail their motivations, as we plan to introduce them later. We can only say that there are local tribes that we call «Istoviki» — they stand at the origins of the island. And there is the «Brigade»: this is the former Soviet army, which has transformed, but retained some discipline. In addition to them, there are two main factions that are fighting for influence on the island.

The hero can become part of one main faction and choose one of the side organizations, which are similar to guilds in Skyrim. They have their own quest lines and offices in various settlements. There are leaders and character growth on the career ladder.

VGTimes: The trailer showed a strange flying girl. Who is she?

Alexander Petrov: I don't know if we can talk about it. She is both a possible boss and a possible companion. In Pioner, there are different ways to resolve conflicts: you can either kill her or attract her to your side.

Alexander Nikitin: But, again, she will be a character in an additional quest.

VGTimes: Who will we shoot at? Will the enemies have levels?

Alexander Petrov: It's a complicated system. There will be no levels, that's for sure. We've been following Far Cry and we see that players don't like it. People don't like numbers that pop up when you shoot at someone. It works fine in MMOs, but it doesn't work in games like Far Cry.

There's a system we're working on right now. We don't want to give players the feeling that there are high-level mobs and low-level ones. We want it to be like a story where you come across a checkpoint and there are either newbies or professional operatives there. You can tell the difference by the voice acting, their behavior patterns, and how they coordinate.

VGTimes: You need different weapons to kill monsters and people. Is it something like Geralt's regular and silver sword?

Alexander Petrov: This is one of the features of the combat system. We made a special gameplay video: it says that there is a weapon that shoots energy charges. Electricity interacts well with metal. A person equipped with metal armor will lose consciousness or die after receiving a discharge.

There are also types of shells and calibers that work better against monsters. There are artifact weapons — they will also allow you to fight creatures more effectively. It is problematic to spend them on people, including for economic reasons. Such weapons and shells cost a lot of in-game currency.

VGTimes: There were complaints about shooting and recoil in the comments. What do you think about this?

Alexander Petrov: We have already reworked the shooting on almost all the weapons that were in the demo videos. It has improved and is closer to the standards that we see, for example, in Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare.

In addition, recoil is adjusted thanks to modules, if the hero has them. Weapons can be equipped with various modules that affect the indicators. We have not only sights and laser pointers. There are different types of cartridges that can be inserted into the same Kalashnikov assault rifle: regular, incendiary, and so on. In some variations, the weapon will shoot with a crazy spread, and in some it will shoot more accurately.

VGTimes: You said that the gameplay changes depending on the change of day. Is it like in Dying Light, when everything is calm during the day, and dangerous in the evening?

Alexander Petrov: Yes, the system resembles Dying Light. The most dangerous creatures wake up at night. One of the most dangerous mobs is the Leshy: it moves around the area at night. Plus, there are fewer patrols of peaceful factions at night.

Most of the territories in Pioner are peaceful. There, players complete quests and explore the area. Patrols roam these places, which go to checkpoints at night, which makes the location dangerous.

At night, the gameplay changes towards survival, but there are some tricks here too. For example, the «Istoviki» faction feels better at night. But during the day, on the contrary, it is more difficult for them. That is, we give players maximum freedom. Let them solve problems as they want.

VGTimes: Will the gamer be able to skip the time of day?

Alexander Petrov: No, this is impossible. Time in the open world is tied to the conditional time that occurs on the server.

VGTimes: How will the hero's leveling be implemented?

Alexander Petrov: Leveling up is, first of all, getting economic profit and access to more advanced equipment. This includes developing the hero in a variety of ways: from assembling weapons to finding certain items. That is, leveling up affects the hero's activities and interactions with the game environment.

Leveling up does not strengthen the character, as in Skyrim, but simply opens up more opportunities for the player.

VGTimes: There will be artifacts in the game. What do they give?

Alexander Nikitin: We have a new approach to artifacts. This is not just a thing that strengthens you. We will tell you more about this later, but for now I can say that artifacts have a variety of uses. As we said, there are artifact shells and artifact weapons. There is energy that is concentrated in these artifacts. There are many ways to interact with them.

VGTimes: Can you tell us more about the PvP mode? What will it be like?

Alexander Petrov: There are several ways to organize PvP. The easiest one is to open the menu and select the necessary settings. This will take you to the arena where you will fight other players. This is a standard network match.

You can go to a large area on the map. For example, there are «empty lands» and «infected forest». In these biomes, PvE rules disappear — gamers can kill each other there. In the main Pioner territory, you cannot fight without mutual approval, but there are no restrictions on the special one. It's something like the Dark Zone from Tom Clancy's The Division.

There are also duels between players, which can be held under different conditions. You can place a bet and risk some item. The winner will take the thing that the loser placed.

One player approached another, pressed the «Interact with the hero» button and challenged him to a duel. In the same way, you can challenge to a duel in a simple way: shoot once, wait two seconds, shoot a second time. This is a hint that you «bullied» someone. If the opponent accepts the duel, the players move on to betting.

VGTimes: Will there be something like faction battles or team battles?

Alexander Nikitin: Yes. Factions send operatives on special missions. For example, in the «Empty Lands» you need to find something, capture, deliver, and so on. You can also fight with other factions. You are rewarded with additional resources for victory.

VGTimes: The game will have an in-game store. What can you buy there?

Alexander Nikitin: Initially, we had thoughts of making a free-to-play project. Then we settled on the fact that the game would be buy-to-play. I don't want to point fingers, but free-to-play is much more expensive today than paid games. They turn the concept of «play for free» into «suffer for free» and «donate to play normally». We decided to abandon this concept.

To combine ideology with financial profitability, we decided to go with buy-to-play. Well, since we are selling the game, it would be incorrect to send things to the store that somehow affect the balance. Therefore, only cosmetics will be sold.

And even cosmetics will be within the setting. There will be no acid-green «Kalashnikovs», pink body armor, and so on. Everything should be organic, understandable and accessible. Customization should not be colorful. It's just that if a person plays for a long time and decides to diversify the visuals or additionally support the development, he will have such an opportunity. Nothing more.

Alexander Petrov: I can add that the setting supports us. We have different tribes, and the coloring of tribal weapons can be in different styles. One tribe paints weapons one way, another — another. Also, the supporters of the «Brigade» have different divisions with their own logos and symbols.

VGTimes: How did the idea to make Pioner come about? How many people are on the team now?

Alexander Nikitin: The idea came up a few years ago. Another issue is that we had a long process of creative search, team selection and experiments. As a result, we abandoned most of the developments, with the exception of moments with lore. We started working on the technical base from scratch in April last year.

If we talk about the staff of developers, not counting HR, accountant and so on, there are ten of us so far. Now the studio is in the process of strong expansion. We are tripling the staff that will be in the development department.

Alexander Petrov: So that we don't look crazy, it's important to add that ten people is an average number. We don't take into account the large number of services that we outsourced. We're talking about people who work for us full-time. But there are a large number of people who helped us and performed individual tasks.

Alexander Nikitin: If you count the team for creating videos, voiceovers, our HR, accountant, SEO, then the number increases by an order of magnitude.

VGTimes: How much has the development cost so far? Who financed the work?

Alexander Nikitin: The development has cost, how can I put it more gently, an eight-digit figure.

Alexander Petrov: We had a long creative search. At some point, the investors despaired and did not want to continue the development. To prove to them that everything would work out, we assembled an initiative group and said that we could retool the game. In April, our employers received an interesting working build that could be played normally. Then they decided to continue funding the project.

Alexander Nikitin: A small clarification. We do not have any third-party investors at all. That is, Pioner is financed by our resources. Because of this, we don't have the restrictions that investors impose. We can afford to follow the chosen path.

VGTimes: Do you already have a publisher?

Alexander Nikitin: This is classified information, but we already have clarity on the choice. I can say for sure that it is not Mail.ru.

VGTimes: When is the beta test planned?

Alexander Nikitin: Due to our own financing, we have the opportunity to make a good game, and not on time. That is why we have strong quality control. Making a game raw in order to sell it faster is not our method.

And in terms of timing... According to preliminary estimates, we will be able to play Pioner next year. I'm talking about the initial things, but in general, we're planning for the next year so that people can get a feel for the project.

Alexander Petrov: Before this, the preliminary date was the end of 2021 or the first quarter of 2022, but these dates are shifting due to the increased quality standard.

Alexander Nikitin: Yes, in terms of the quarter, we are definitely shifting by at least two quarters. It's still 2022, but the quarter will be the third or fourth.

If you believe the developers, Pioner promises to be a great MMO with an unusual setting, cool shooting, and interesting activities. Will GFA Games cope with its ambitions? Will the project be a failure with bugs and dull gameplay? We'll find out during beta testing, which is scheduled for the second half of 2022.

Do you believe that Pioneer will be a cool game? Or will the MMO fail? Write in the comments!

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VGTimes has been operating since 2011 and during this time has visited dozens of exhibitions and festivals, where our journalists have collected many exclusive materials. For example, in 2019 we got to a closed screening of Cyberpunk 2077 at gamescom, in 2017 we prepared a photo report from WG Fest, in 2020 we were at the largest gaming event in Central Asia CAGS, and also visited IgroMir several times, where we saw Hideo Kojima and other famous developers.