Boundary EA Launch Q&A – Devs Explain Long Delays, Confirm Removal of DLSS (and RTX) in Favor of FSR2 and XeSS

Yesterday, during the PAX East 2023 Digital Showcase, indie Chinese developer Studio Surgical Scalpels and publisher Skystone Games announced the Steam Early Access launch date of the zero-G first-person shooter Boundary.

This competitive multiplayer game first appeared on our radar at Gamescom 2019, where Chris Wray tried a demo. At that time, the developers were targeting an early 2020 release on PlayStation 4 with PC following later.

In January 2020, Boundary made the news thanks to an RTX technical demo that won NVIDIA China’s DXR Spotlight competition. A few months later, we interviewed CEO and Co-Founder Frank Mingbo Li to learn more about the game’s features and mechanics.

Later in 2020, Studio Surgical Scalpels even released a benchmark (still available on Steam) featuring RTX and NVIDIA DLSS. After that, the game went dark for quite a while, only resurfacing for occasional and brief test weekends.

With the early access release date at last in sight, we had another chance to speak with Frank Mingbo Li. Our lengthy conversation spanned the reasons behind the delays, the features and content available on April 13th, details on the Battle Pass and post-launch roadmap, the console plans, and the technical changes on PC (RTX and DLSS have been removed, at least temporarily, while FSR 2 and XeSS are supported).

Boundary was originally scheduled to launch nearly three years ago. What happened? Why was the game delayed for such a long time?

Three years ago, our main development platform for Boundary was PlayStation 4, but COVID-19 changed everything. We were forced to start working from home, and the transition was chaotic. Particularly in the early stages, the development team had no experience with remote work, and it took a considerable amount of time to establish this workflow. To make matters worse, the team found that developing the PlayStation version was exceptionally challenging in a remote work environment, and many tasks could not be completed. So we ultimately decided to switch the main platform to PC.

We thought the pandemic might last only six months to a year, but it ended up lasting for three years. During this time, the next generation of consoles was also released. When we were finally able to return to the office, we started developing the PS5 version. But as you can imagine, this was a huge challenge for a studio’s first project as an independent game development studio. Due to the change in development direction, some members left the team for various reasons.
There are almost no developers in the Chinese market who are proficient in developing for consoles, PC, and UE4 at the same time. We found many enthusiastic developers with limited development experience, but it takes a lot of time to become a team that can develop high-quality games. We went through a lot of twists and turns over the entire three years, and eventually, we focused mainly on the PC version.

Although we have limited development resources, we rarely compromise on many aspects of game quality and gameplay. This is another reason why it took us so long. When we moved to PC, we further improved the overall quality of the game’s visual presentation. We think that developing for PC first has actually helped us make a better game, and we’re thrilled to say that we’re still planning on bringing Boundary to consoles too.

What changes have been made to Boundary over the past three years? I know there have occasional tests on Steam, including one last month. What kind of feedback did you incorporate from testers?

Compared with three years ago, the current game is quite different in the completeness of features and the degree of polishing of details. In the test two years ago, we found some very big problems.

For example, back then, the game lacked enough content, it is difficult for players to gain a sense of growth, the playing experience is monotonous, and players will lose interest fast. Every shooter these days NEEDS that hook to keep players coming back.

We were also plagued by issues related to the game’s level design and balance. We didn’t have any real production-grade back-end server architecture, and our servers were always on the verge of struggling and catching fire and crashing and burning.

At the same time, we lacked a friend system, we didn’t have a mechanism to play with friends in a party, we didn’t have a real matchmaking mechanism, and our interactions were a bit confusing, and players often couldn’t find the options they wanted to adjust. In the previous development stages, we felt that bug fixing and detail polishing became more and more difficult because of the architecture.

Basically, a few years back – what we were facing at the time was a game that had an amazing first impression but lacked any real lasting power. In the past two years, we have carried out a major overhaul of the game. The changes involved operations, combat shooting, and the overall game cycle.

We have established a network service system that’s both stable and efficient. We optimized CPU usage, optimized network, and server deployment (dynamic expansion of loads and other features). We’ve included player records, a friends system, team formation, voice communication, and matchmaking are all now being finalized, optimized, and debugged for launch.

At the front end, we restructured the product. We redesigned and programmed the weapon system and shooting mechanics, material and penetration system, and the role partition injury mechanism. We referenced and absorbed the new technologies and designs of the industry in the past two years. Boundary plays so much better these days compared to when we first planned to launch – in a lot of ways, I’m very glad we were forced to delay the launch around COVID.

During this process, we are also constantly conducting testing and user research, and the feedback we have collected has also been corrected and revised in batches in the new version. We are very excited about the new version that will be brought to players and we sincerely hope you all can enjoy the fun of space zero-gravity combat.

In the meantime, we’re always listening to further feedback and stand ready to fix any issues we find. Even though we’re calling this “Early Access”, we’re treating Boundary as a live game, and we’ll be rolling out content updates, QOL fixes, and balance changes throughout the months leading up to the 1.0 launch.

We’ve seen some recent user feedback about changing the placement of the hit marker indicator in the User Interface. Are you considering this, or is it possible for users to modify the UI themselves?

Great question. We’ve noticed that in some games, players can customize their interface, which is a new and interesting concept for us, and we’re very interested in it. We are still in the process of exploring the best form of hit feedback in a gravity-free 6DOF space. The form observed by players is our latest iteration. At present, we believe that this version of the mechanic has achieved a better balance in terms of orientation. It’s a way of playing an FPS that takes some getting used to, but we think players pick it up really quickly, which means we think we’ve done a good job making it “easy to play, but hard to master.”

We hope to provide players with a baseline-level UI at the EA launch. In this system, we will employ some basic layouts and some basic problems that need to be avoided. But as EA goes on, we are happy to hand over the detailed adjustments to the players and let the UI be fully customizable in the future. It’ll just take some time to get there. So there is no immediate plan to have this feature in the game at this time, but obviously, we will factor in the community’s feedback as we progress through early access.

Why did you decide on launching via early access first? How long do you anticipate the game being in early access?

As mentioned earlier, this is the first game from Surgical Scalpels, and we still lack experience as a team in many aspects. It’s difficult for us to guarantee that we can meet players’ expectations in all areas, especially after so many years. We know that many Boundary fans have high hopes for the game, and we understand the enormity of the challenge ahead. However, waiting can only further disappoint our fans, which is the main reason why we decided to do an Early Access.

I believe that during the Early Access period, we expect a tremendous amount of feedback. We hope that before the 1.0 version is launched, we can satisfy most players. In a lot of ways, we think of Early Access as the best possible thing for the game – how else can we get our fans’ feedback on the day-to-day design of the game than by letting them in and letting them play it?

How many multiplayer maps and modes will be in the game at the early access debut?

A total of 9 maps will be in at the EA launch:

• 7×24 Shuttlement
• OS Station
• Solar Farm
• Circular X Complex
• Data Center
• Relay Station
• Oriolus
• Midway
• Museum

Due to the novelty of the game’s space tactics theme, as we explore the infinite possibilities of zero-gravity tactics, we will also launch a “virtual arena”, where we will bring you the latest ideas and experimental maps from time to time. These will be like “limited time” maps where we can invite players to try new ideas and give us feedback as we work to 1.0.

Can you share details on the post-launch roadmap? What can users expect in terms of content additions for Boundary? 

We have new operators, new weapons, new maps, new game modes, and some crazy fun skins all being worked on now to deploy over the EA period. We also have some large, potentially explosive technical features under intense development; we will report back on our findings as we get more results. We want to treat EA just like the full launch, so we’ll be engaging and bringing up new content and ideas throughout the lifespan of the game.

Will there be any Battle/Season Pass?

Yes, the battle pass will be the star and focus of our game, and we will also listen to the needs of players extensively to bring you a truly happy and lovable season pass. We expect to launch the Battle Pass during EA, but we don’t have any specific timeline yet – and the goal, as always, is to ask our players what they want from their Battle Pass. Expect more on this in the weeks ahead!

Will there be cross-play and/or cross-progression between PC and consoles once the latter becomes available?

We are working on cross-play at the moment. Cross-progression is also being considered, but we can’t firmly say one way or the other yet. Expect details as we get closer to the console launch.

Which consoles are you targeting right now for the full 1.0 release?

For full 1.0, we are targeting the PC and PlayStation 5, specifically.

Is there a chance for Xbox later?

There is.

Did you upgrade the game from Unreal Engine 4 to 5? If not, would you consider doing it post-launch to take advantage of features like Lumen and Nanite?

No, we will stick to UE4 and there is no plan to upgrade to UE5 at this time. Lumen and Nanite are amazing but work best in games where you’re not out in the wide open of space, we think. If this changes, we may look into it, but for now, UE4 works amazingly well for us, and you can get some incredibly high FPS too, which is crucial for the competitive shooter.

Boundary originally made headlines for its cutting-edge ray tracing and DLSS support. For the early access launch, which ray-traced effects are you going to include in the game?

Unfortunately, we need to remove Ray Tracing and DLSS from the EA version. The main reason is that our development resources cannot support multiple technical features, especially pure technical features, which means that this feature will not bring substantial improvements to gameplay. Therefore, we lowered the priority of this feature over the past year. After struggling for a long time, we finally decided to drop it from the launch version. This decision was not easy, as we are a team of technology-driven game developers, especially since we spent a lot of time doing ray tracing benchmarks for Boundary.

Are you adding support for AMD FSR 2/Intel XeSS?

Both technologies will be supported in the game. And specific thanks to AMD, who very much provided us with great technical and resource support to make sure FSR 2 performs extremely well in Boundary. AMD has been a wonderful partner these last few months.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about Boundary?

We will have some very exclusive founders packages that players can choose to purchase to show their support during early access. These contain all sorts of unique items, discord rewards, and various rewards that will come in the full release.

We all, at both Surgical Scalpels and the incredibly talented Skystone Team, are looking forward to working hand in hand with the community to take Boundary to the next level!

Thank you for your time.