Amplitude Studios, the developer behind the Endless Space series and Endless Legend, has been working for some time on their next strategy game, Humankind. Recently, Amplitude put out a call for community assistance in testing some of the elements of the game, with a trailer set to a disco version of “Also Sprach Zarathustra.”
As Romain de Waubert explained on the Amplitude Devblog, “Getting feedback as early as possible from our players has always been our way of creating the best games we can. In fact, we designed the GAMES2GETHER platform and program 10 years ago to fill that missing link between our dev team and our players. Today, we’re very excited to present OpenDev: a new way for players to get early access into our developing games so they can help us make sure we’re on the right path. We’re really excited to try this out with HUMANKIND™ — we’re looking forward to your feedback on our most ambitious game yet!”
The basic premise sounds much like a closed alpha or beta test, albeit one on a highly limited scale. Would-be testers (selected from the fan community who are signed up on the Games2Gether site) verify their machine’s specs meet the minimums laid out by the devs, fill out a questionnaire, and hope they get picked. Assuming one does get picked, they will be given a set of scenarios which they will be testing out. The three scenarios listed so far seem to be centering on different aspects of the game, such as fine tuning combat systems or exploration. Once players complete the scenarios, they will given feedback forms to help break down their impressions of how things played out, what works well, and what needs improvement. Whether the testers will be asked back for further scenario tests or even a final beta prior to launch is a matter of conjecture.
Currently, Humankind is slated for a tentative 2021 release on Steam.