Dustgrave details its Stealth System and Dynamic World in recent Dev Diaries

Developer Innervoid Interactive and publisher Digital Tribe has shared two more development diaries for Dustgrave, their upcoming sandbox RPG. This time around, they've shared more on how players utilize the stealth system in Dustgrave and how the world state can be manipulated.

As detailed in their development diary entry on Steam, players have two factors to consider when staying hidden from NPCs - visual and audio. NPCs possess a cone of view that players must stay out of, if they intend to not be seen by them; plus, they have to minimize the noise they make around NPCs, as well.

NPCs can also notice if their belongings have been stolen or if nearby locks have been picked. They may alert guards and start searching around for the culprit themselves. It'll take a few hours for them to return to normal, but if a player repeatedly keeps stealing things from the same village, they may incur more long-term penalties.

Battles will have a stealth element, too. Ambushing enemies or taking them down silently one-by-one is possible.

Meanwhile, settlements, villages, and certain locations are described to be "dynamic entities", meaning that they "can be conquered by a different faction, see their population decimated, get destroyed and rebuilt, acquire new citizens, or host travelers sleeping in the local inn or camping in the residency." 

This means that the state of settlements and villages can always be in flux; the same place can be populated when players first visit it, then be struggling economically when they revisit it some time later. They can even cause it themselves, should they choose to kill off all a village's soldiers and such.

Dustgrave is set to release in 2024 for PC (Steam). Watch the new Dev Diary video about its dynamic world down below.