PvPvE Horror Extraction FPS Beautiful Light: Exclusive Developer Interview

It's quite striking to see just how influential Roadside Picnic has been on modern media at large and, more specifically, video games as such. On top of being at least partially responsible for contemporary Weird media (e.g. Alan Wake 2, SCP, Area X, etc.), Roadside Picnic has also indirectly led to the creation of numerous iconic video games. It was only a matter of time before we got a proper PvP(vP)vE extraction shooter in this niche, and Beautiful Light is here to lead the way.

Beautiful Light is, more so than anything else, a kind of a fusion between STALKER, Escape From Tarkov, and SCP. It's a tactical extraction shooter where you're not just duking it out with other players, but also exploring an anomalous exclusion zone, pushing back a whole roster of AI-controlled monsters, and dealing a player-controlled predator creature ready to pounce. As you can probably tell by now, Beautiful Light is a whole lot of things, and we're extremely excited for the sheer potential on show here.

Now, with that all out of the way, we're thrilled to announce that we've secured an exclusive interview with the studio working on Beautiful Light: Deep Worlds SA. Whether you're itching to learn about Beautiful Light for the first time or, perhaps, scouring the Internet for a new treasure trove of info about it, you've come to just the right place.

Beautiful Light: the tactical SCP shooter you never knew you wanted

For this interview, 2Game's editorial team spoke to Deep Worlds' Marketing & Communication officer Mattéo Vuillien, who some of you may know under the nickname of 'Matavatar'. Matavatar is particularly active over on the official Beautiful Light Discord, which you too can join using this link here.

It's quite notable that the Deep Worlds' CEO Eric Rajot began working on Beautiful Light back in 2019 all on his own. Since then, he's grown Deep Worlds into a veritable business, with a small but dedicated team of gamedevs now working hard to make Beautiful Light every bit as good as it deserves to be.

Please summarize Beautiful Light for us in just a couple of sentences. How would you describe the game?

"Beautiful Light (BL) is a horror PvPvPvE tactical first-person extraction shooter where you are tasked to enter, secure, and extract an artifact," Matavatar tells us. "The two main differentiation factors [from other games in this niche] are [that] BL is an asymmetrical game; In addition to playing a human pmc, you’ll be able to play as a monster called Anomaly. Playing anomalies will give players many other ways to play the game. The anomaly side will have its own progression as well and you'll be able to convert some of your earnings to the human side.

The second one is that Beautiful Light is an objective based extraction shooter. When most of the extraction shooters are loot based, the overall game is bound to the economy, and when the loot is generated infinitely, these types of games have no other choices than doing wipes as the game gets boring and loses its stakes. With a different objective to do on each map, we believe the replayability of the game will be much higher."

What is the central, core emotion you want players to feel while playing Beautiful Light? What sort of experiences do you want to offer?

"We want players to be fully immersed and deeply connected to their character, the world, and its atmosphere. Extraction shooters are high-stake, and when combined with horror, they create the perfect blend of tension and stress.

These are the best emotions a player can get in a multiplayer setting for a memorable and compelling experience. I believe only 3 types of multiplayer games were able to get these emotions to such an extent : Esport Games, BRs and Extraction Shooters."

Deep Worlds has a clear vision for what Beautiful Light ought to be, but what makes you so sure this vision will resonate with your targeted player-base?

"We have played, and still play, a lot of extraction shooters. We’re part of this community, we love these games, and we know what the genre is missing. We also know how to make our game different. But the most important thing for us is making a game we truly want to play.

Within the team, we often “fight” each other to make sure our vision comes through in the game. And that’s a good thing! We have a clear direction, but everyone’s past experiences and ideas help shape it. The fact that over 600,000 players have already shown interest on Steam, even in this early development stage, proves that the game speaks to some players just as much as it does to us."

Tell us how you feel about the current state of the gaming industry. How has it evolved? How did this evolution affect the production of Beautiful Light?

"Some things are better, others are worse. Studios make bangers, others make mistakes. What we know is that we're in an era where players want more transparency," Matavatar explains.

"They’re (we are) tired of being taken for ignorants or simple consumers. The gaming industry is an industry of passionate people. Transparency and honesty is the only way to ensure a good relationship with players. We always wanted more transparency from the games we played, so we try to be as transparent as possible with our community!"

We find the transparency behind the development of Beautiful Light particularly refreshing. There aren't many games with such open production pipelines, so we're wondering what do you see as the benefits and drawbacks of this approach?

"The main issue is that many people don’t realize everything shown is work in progress and subject to change. We are not always showing the game in its best light," Matavatar winks.

"But the benefits are far greater, we can share our vision very early in the development process and compare it with player feedback. We can better identify the game's weaknesses and what resonates less with players. Players also find it easier to share how they would like to see the game evolve. And we can adjust our priorities accordingly. It creates a deepest connection with the community even before [Early Access] release."

Diegetic design! Tell us about it, and why you've come to embrace this approach to UI for Beautiful Light.

"Diegetic UI is a user interface that exists within the game world. As a player, you're using the device's UI, but so is your character! However, our ambitions goes beyond just a diegetic UI, we want to create a fully diegetic experience," says Matavatar.

"For example, we plan to make your character’s heart rate increase based on what’s happening to you. Hopefully, we will be able to create an experience that can make your character stress levels match yours. It’s certainly challenging from a technical perspective and in terms of creating an intuitive experience. However, imagining it isn’t that difficult, you just need to think about how things would work in real life, how they would function, and then translate that into gameplay features without making them too complex or frustrating," he explains.

On that note, we reckon that this isn't very simple at all if you're a layperson, given how many shoddy UIs we've got surrounding us. Ever tried to update a smart oven? Yeah, we'd advise against doing that, if at all possible. Good thing Deep Worlds has a squad of excellent designers working overtime on Beautiful Light's in-game gadgets!

Beautiful Light is a dark, visually stunning experience that banks it all on its excellent atmosphere and vibes. Tell us more about this aspect of the game!

"From the beginning, we had a clear vision for the visuals, drawing inspiration from books, games, and films like Death Stranding, SCP, Roadside Picnic, The Book of Eli, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, F.E.A.R, S.T.A.L.K.E.R and more," Matavatar says. "If I say "Slavic grittiness" some of you will instantly understand the look and feel we were aiming for."

"As for sound design, to be honest, it wasn’t a major focus at first. But we’re lucky to have incredibly talented people who bring it to life in ways we couldn’t have imagined!"

Beautiful Light lets players take control over human QRF operators or one of two (confirmed) Anomalies: the Wendigo and the Juggernaut. What inspired you to incorporate this mechanic, and why did you specifically choose these creatures?

"The first idea of the game comes from [the SCP Foundation project]. Aherys [CEO] and Akaranir [Level Design] loved the game but thought it could be something bigger," Matavatar tells us. "So the asymmetrical aspect of the game comes from there. Then the vision made its way to something much more refined, well what Beautiful Light is."

"The Wendigo is inspired by Alien vs Predator, a creature that can jump from tree to tree and be stealthy. For the Juggernaut and the next anomalies we will have in the game, we just like to create mechanics we think would be cool to have!"

Tell us more about anomalies! We've already seen flaming ball hunter-killers and defusable electric hot-spots, for example. Are these elements designed as counter-camping features, perhaps?

"It’s a mix of a lot of things. Some of them force players to move, to take different paths, make noises etc… We see BL maps as big PvP arenas, not as places to look for scattered loot. Everything is kind of an excuse to make players fight."

Cheating is a major issue in PvP gaming. What measures are you taking to help minimize cheating in Beautiful Light?

"We’re not different from other studios, there are currently no proper solutions against cheating. And we will never promise we will not have cheating issues. However, BL being a non loot based extraction shooter eliminates some of the cheating problems other games of the genre have. Of course, we will have anti-cheats measures to reduce its effects on players. There are also plans we are currently exploring in case this becomes too much of an issue."

Beautiful Light is now ranking #39 on the Steam Wishlist board, with almost 60,000 followers in total. Has the growing popularity of the game affected your production pipeline?

"We went from being completely unknown in 2023 to reaching the top 50 on the Steam Wishlist pretty quickly, which of course adds a lot of pressure," Matavatar admits. "Some priorities had to be shifted, and we needed more time to create an experience that meets expectations:"

"As long as people don’t assume things and understand that our vision for the game is just that, a vision, not its current development state, we should be fine. Do most people get that? I’m not sure. Maybe not. But all we can do is be transparent about where we are, and that’s exactly what we’re doing."

Loot isn’t the core objective in Beautiful Light—mission completion and successful extraction is. The way you complete each mission will vary with every playthrough, and there will be different missions to tackle as well. What other aspects of the gameplay loop do you believe will keep players hooked? There will also be factions in the game. Can you explain more about how the faction system will impact players?

"The skill tree progression will be a big aspect for replayability. You’ll not be able to get all the skills and abilities, even at max level. You’ll therefore be able to create different “playstyles / classes”, maybe some will be more focused on solo play, others more on teamplay."

"Some players will also prefer being PMC main, others being anomaly main. But switching to the other gameplay can create a breeze of fresh air. We don’t really want to talk too much about factions for now because we first need to see how the game unfolds with a proper player base. But would like factions to really be impactful and not just about skins. Hopefully this is something we will be able to achieve. We’ll see!"

Terminal Hacking looks cool! We've learned that it's a core gameplay element, and far more in-depth than it seems at a glance. Tell us more about it.

"We want the terminal to play a significant role, something you can learn and master over time. Some players might find it a bit challenging to fully master, while others may pick it up easily. However, the basics will always be simple enough for everyone to complete the core gameplay loop on each map. Terminals will also have a lot of lore related information, quests that require their use, and tools that can give you small advantages over other players."

Did you hide any Easter eggs or references that players should look out for?

"A ton! Maybe too much. Can there be too many Easter eggs though?"

The game appears to focus on psychological tension, offering stark contrasts in player experiences—one moment in a peaceful forest, the next in a dark, eerie building, listening for players and anomalies while working to complete the mission. How did you balance storytelling with gameplay to craft such a dynamic experience? And how do you ensure that the added gameplay elements enhance the experience rather than detract from it?

"The thing is, there will be almost no storytelling in the game. At least no direct storytelling, you discover the game world as is. There will be no one to tell you what happened or what’s happening. It will be on you to understand where you are, what you’re doing and why. We build the lore around the gameplay, not the other way around."

We've heard that there's a huge chunk of Beautiful Light lore that players won't have direct access to. How will this play into the discovery process, and why do you choose to have lore hidden away from the player?

"[In] Early Access, the lore won’t [play as big of a role] as we would like. Because there are simply a lot of priorities we need to get right first," Matavatar admits.

"We think it's better for players to explore, make assumptions and uncover things themselves. At least for those interested in these kinds of things, we believe it is much more rewarding that way and makes you even more involved, part of the lore itself because you took the time to look for it instead of being told about it."

What has been the most surprising reaction or experience from fans so far?

"What surprised us the most is how many people mentioned the atmosphere as one of their favorite things about the game, especially at the stage of dev the game was in (mid-2023). The visuals and sound design improved a lot since then, and we still have many things planned to improve on it."

How can the community contribute to the development of Beautiful Light?

"With all the community playtests we do, it’s a constant back and forth dynamic. We create things, test it with players and then reshape / improve it based on their feedback. We basically refine our vision / features directly based on player feedback."

What about post-launch development? Similarly, can we look forward to Beautiful Light's Early Access release anytime soon? We've heard cookies might be the key to gaining access...

"We have a lot of plans, for sure. But it's still too early to talk about them, as things can change based on many factors including how successful the game turns out to be," Matavatar says. "We do some community playtests on our Discord from time to time, so join it and stay tuned. But we won’t give a date because we always end up being wrong about dates… Legends says cookies [do] help things go faster!"

Stay Tuned!

And there you have it - that's all we've got on Beautiful Light at this time. Huge thanks to Mattéo for taking the time to talk to 2Game and give us this wonderful wealth of information to share with our readers.

On that note, we obviously recommend that you go out of your way to tune into every possible newsfeed to learn more about Beautiful Light. Here's a bunch of handy links to check out whenever you can:

Beautiful Light is currently on track for a December 2026 Early Access release, so we've got a long road ahead of us still. Then again, years do go by quickly nowadays, don't they?

Don't forget to wishlist and follow Beautiful Light over on Steam!

Roadside Picnic? More like Roadside Gunfight.