Like DayZ? How about Rust? Okay, final question – how do you feel about ducks with automatic weapons? If your answer to any of those three was “Ye-wait, why do the ducks have automatic weapons?” then I have great news for you.
DUCKSIDE is a brand-new effort from publisher and developer tinyBuild that was first revealed at the beginning of this month, where it tantalised the world with the mystery of whether or not it was an overly-produced April Fools jokes.
Well, now it’s very real with a public beta running on PC as we speak (well, as I write and think about how good “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” from Taylor’s new album is). If you’re up for a taste of PVP, PVE, crafting, base building, shooting and hat-wearing with an army of ducks, you can register and get playing via Steam right here.
And in case you need any more convincing – trailer:
From the developer:
Welcome to DUCKSIDE: persistent world survival… on QUACK
Over 10 million ducks get killed per year by hunters, a statistic that would be much lower if ducks were combat trained. Enter DUCKSIDE, a persistent world survival game like DayZ or Rust… but you’re a duck, and so is everybody else.
It’s a hard Duck life
Put those webbed feet to use or take flight across an expansive island, where valuable resources and treasures await any ducks fortunate enough to discover them. But remain vigilant, as both fellow player ducks and the featherless (who refer to themselves as “humans”) will stop at nothing to prevent you from laying your wings on any valuables at their expense.
Get your ducks in a row
Harvest resources, craft weapons and tools, and build shelters to protect your loot and your life.
How do Ducks even hold weapons and tools, you ask? Who cares? With a crafting system as deep and robust as this, they were wise to adapt, else they’d just be hanging around in ponds all day waiting to be added to that “10 million” statistic.
The sky(box) is the limit
Are you really a Duck if you can’t fly? No, you’re a penguin or something. So in order to fully immerse you in your role of a duck, we’ve introduced a groundbreaking player controller with sophisticated flight mechanics allowing you to glide, hover, accelerate and dive, even whilst shooting and fighting!
A world of fowl play
An alive Duck can keep his gear safe and his teammates alive. A dead duck however, is much less useful.
So get yourself equipped, build nests for safety, storage, survival, and strategic advantage, but be warned: nothing is truly safe. Every structure can be destroyed, every stash of loot raided, and every migration could end in death.
There’s no such thing as too many ducks
Play alone or create a flock with other ducks to build, explore, fight, and survive together. Ducks are fiercely territorial, so encounters with opposing ducks can and will often result in some feathers being ruffled. Not to mention all those “humans” stationed around the island that don’t seem to think it’s as fun being shot at by ducks as it is shooting ducks, you’ll need to deal with them too.
Are you a chicken? No, you’re a DUCK
DUCKSIDE isn’t just about surviving; it’s about getting into the mind of a duck. Being a duck. Feeling the cold steel of a machine gun on your feathers. And the peace of mind that comes with settling down after a long day, in a house you built out of trash that you’d looted off some guy’s corpse.
