Indigenous Windows, XONE, PS4 game

Multiplayer:
There will be roughly 3-4 player-driven tribes and 2 NPC-driven tribes on each island (depending on island shape and size). Indigenous will be instancing its multiplayer into zones as well, streaming a small percentage of the world at a time, which will allow for thousands of islands. We're also working on systems to completely automate island generation, from landscape geometry and materials to all the rocks, foliage and NPCs that go on top of it. The system will generate a new random island seed when the existing island database reaches a certain capacity.

Core Gameplay:
Indigenous centers around five main pillars of gameplay: Crafting, Cultivation, Combat, Communication and Exploration.

1. Crafting: Players will craft a wide number of items, ranging from tools and weapons to advanced crafting stations, bridges, walls and huts.
2. Cultivation: Players will grow their own crops, lessening the 'dwindling resource' problem and keeping their resources nearby and protected from outsiders. They may also experiment and end up growing entirely new crops not found on the island.
3. Combat: Players will need to learn how to hunt and kill animals as well as how to defend themselves against other tribes. Advanced combat tactics can be learned when fighting large-scale enemy encounters as well.
4. Communication: Tribes that are physically close to each other often have the same or very similar languages, but dialects and languages change when players start sailing to new islands. The act of reading, writing and speaking will be critical when working with other tribes. Players will not be able to understand you until they learn your language (or you learn theirs).
5. Exploration: Players will want to continually explore their island (and eventually, other islands) to discover new people, animals and resources, as well as chart their location in relation to the world and find strategic areas to grow into.

Player Growth:
Players will gain experience and learn new skills by the most natural means possible - trying and failing, or trying and creating something unintended.

Skill trees and player growth will be a big part of Indigenous, but they will also be primitive. Instead of investing 100 "skill points" into one deep tree (MMO-style), players can choose paths for the NPC's to grow towards by first selecting personality traits and then continually selecting certain job types (building, cooking, healing, fighting, exploring, liaising, etc.). Once the player learns how to craft an item, his entire tribe will also learn it automatically, but the duration to craft an item as well as the item's quality will depend on the skill level of each NPC crafting the item.

Resource Meters (Energy, Thirst, Hunger):
Indigenous will have energy, thirst and hunger systems. They will directly affect each tribe member's efficiency and effectiveness, and consequences lead all the way up to death. NPCs will automatically manage these systems on their own, provided they have the resources to do so. Players can also automate resource gathering for some tribe members to ensure balance is continually met. The character that the player directly controls will have to be manually taken care of by the player, but players can have other tribe members gather and cook food for them.

Death:
Players can task their tribe members to do basically anything, but island life is perilous. If an NPC is instructed to leave the safety of the village to explore, hunt, gather, or build things like a new outpost, there is a chance they will be injured or die from hostile tribes, hostile animals, or other players. If a tribe member dies, he doesn't respawn. The tribe's population decreases by one, which in turn decreases total output and growth rates. If the player controlled NPC dies, the player will assume direct control over another living NPC. If a tribe's population reaches zero, it becomes extinct. The player may then choose to restart his game on another island, while the remnants of his previous tribe will be left to be explored by other players, or consumed by the island.