Meet Your Maker: Keeping Your Enemies Close

Its launch was in spring 2023. Meet Your MakerThe keys to the post-apocalyptic wasteland are officially handed over to the players all around the globe.

If you’re new to the title, Meet Your MakerIt is completely powered by user-generated content. Behaviour Interactive has not created a typical FPS experience. Instead, they have provided a toolbox full of traps and guards that allows players to challenge one another and create new experiences.

Challenges come in the form of stand-alone levels called Outposts, which you’ll be both building and raiding. This huge, labyrinthine fortress hides deadly deterrents at every turn. They also house canisters of pure genetic material you’ll need to protect or steal to progress in the game.

Meet Your Maker’s Builder/Raider dynamic is one-of-a-kind, and today we’ll explore some of the ways it delivers uniquely connected moments for players.

Fair Game

For any strategic multiplayer game — even an asynchronous one like Meet Your Maker — keeping things fair is paramount. They have covered all bases, including Outpost selection and gameplay.

“Often user-generated content (UGC) games surface their content by focusing on the cream of the crop, perhaps through a rating system,” explains Creative Director, Ash Pannell. “Meet Your Maker differs from this approach by making sure any Outpost built will be raided by other players, which is much more rewarding for our Builders.”

Although a first-person viewpoint is an obvious fan favorite for shooters it has also been a crucial part of gameplay. “The FPS view for both building and raiding was a good fit for us,” continues Pannell. “For one, the claustrophobic view offers a great sense of immersion. There’s also a core rule: traps in the game can’t fire at a player without seeing them first and allowing time to react. This adds an inherent fairness to every death and leaves no room for ambiguity, which in turn helps Raiders to learn and not make the same mistakes twice.”

Keep Connected

Share an Outpost Meet Your MakerMillions around the globe will have access to your content. That’s a powerful prospect, and the game works to ensure that a constant link between creators and challengers is felt, even if they aren’t online at the same time.

“It’s very important for us to keep reminding Builders and Raiders that they are both UGC to the other side,” says Pannell. A world map that lists the Builder’s name is used by Raiders to select their Outposts. Raiders are encouraged to give praises to the Outpost after a raid by choosing words that best describe the experience and will be remembered for their efforts in the future.

On the Builders’ side, similar social features also carry a nice educational bonus. “Our Replay System lets you watch any Raider take on your Outpost and revel in the joy of their failure – or pound your fist on the desk as they breeze through. This is a real replay of real people, and you can totally tell,” shares Pannell. “There’s really nothing like watching a player fall for a clever setup you’ve built or come back to see a player who took thirty or forty tries to crack your Outpost.”

Meet Your Maker’s Skull System also lets Builders return to their Outpost to collect resources from skull markers where Raiders died. Each skull displays the Raider’s name, rank, and what killed them.

“We also have a Social Raids feature allowing any Outpost to be searchable and playable,” he continues. “Search a player name you know and access all their available content, anytime. Players can share their content directly with each other, via forums or within their own communities. Social Raids don’t provide direct in-game rewards, but they do provide replays and the ability for Outposts to remain alive forever.”

Meet Your Maker allows for asynchronous multiplayer but you can also play classic co-op. You can use your creativity to build with friends or team up as two players for raids.

Constant Evolution

It is important for the relationship between Builder and Raider to encourage each side’s growth. The Outposts in Meet Your Maker are not final. Builders will always be able to revise their work using the many new guards, traps, mods, and thematic-block types that will constantly be added.

“Sometimes things don’t go according to plan and returning to work on your masterpiece is a key part of the gameplay,” points out Pannell. “The Replay and Skull systems let you analyze every single detail of what you’ve built to understand what’s working and what isn’t. Then you can get back in there, learn from your mistakes and make a better Outpost.”

“Outposts stay online for quite a while and have their own progression system that can extend their lifetime,” he concludes. “There will be a lot of raids on your creation, and it was important to us to give everyone the freedom to improve. At the end of the day, if players make better content, whatever that means to them, then everyone wins.”

Meet Your MakerS.|S. Learn more at MeetYourMakerGame.com.