How does the development team work? (Department wise)
For example - Are there set departments that work on specific things?
Like one set of developers works on killer balances and reworks.
Another set of developers works on survivor perks.
One set of devs work on killers perks.
One set of devs works on maps?
Etc….
Just a curious mind 😅🤔☺️
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This is gonna be pretty long winded as I quite enjoy game development, and who doesn't like to chat about things they enjoy? However for a quick answer, yes and no. Yes as in departments do focus on a specific area but no because no one department creates something from concept to finished product. Its multiple departments working together in smaller teams.
I don't work for Behavior and every company is different, however I do have a general knowledge on how this works and you have the right idea.
The "development" aspect of game design is kind of like a cube, it has multiple sides, each responsible for a different core element of the game. Generally these sides are Design, Writing, Art, Audio, Sound, and Programming. These are just the larger sections of the development process and are broken up further into specific areas of focus similar to what you suggested.
This is where things might change for Behavior specifically. Mostly this is broken up by new content and reworking existing content. Its also common that once a specific task has been completed that team may be assigned a new task that may not be in the same field. For example, If a team was tasked with creating a new chapter for DBD, after that chapters release, They may be tasked with any immediately fixes over the next couple of weeks. They could hand over the maintenance to another team and start working on the next new chapter. Or they could even jump to a rework of a previous chapter. How that specifically works changes from company to company.
For Example, While Alan wake was in development, One team worked on that, another was in charge of "All Things Wicked", a third working on this most recent midchapter that releases tomorrow, and probably even more teams working on 2 maybe 3 more chapters that are yet to come. The Devs have mentioned a few times that chapters releasing now have been in development for months, maybe even a year or more and this is pretty standard. As for how each team is broken down, in regards to the Alan Wake Chapter, this means some were working on Alan Wake and his perks, some were working on the Anti 3-gen system, another focused on Blights new add-ons, another on Onryo, and another on Billy, so on and so forth. These teams featured people form all the different areas who would work together to build each piece of the chapter.
As for the scope of each aspect of development :
Design
This is 2 rather large aspects, on one had you have the designers who "design" features and content for implementation, they create the blueprints for the other departments to follow when completing their tasks. But you also have designers who build physical objects in the game.
For the "ideas" designers: If we look at DBD specifically this department is probably broken up into teams that each focus on their own chapter or midchapter which is then further divided into the specific area of the chapter/midchapter they are responsible.
This means there was someone/multiple people who fleshed out Alan's perks and how they would work, as this is a license physical design wouldn't have been as big of a feature. Someone/a group designed the 3-gen system, designed the solution, how it comes into play, what it looks like in effect, and dictated how various perks would interact with the system. This would have been very similar for the Blight, Onryo and Billy in regards to their reworks as well.
As for the "physical" designers, level design, or map design in this case, is a really good example of what they do. They created the actual maps we walk on, chose the layout, designed the tiles that can spawn in it, placed the trees and rocks and other visual elements. Of course this isn't all they do, but its really good example to give you an idea.
Writing
These are the Narrators of DBD. They are in charge of writing killer and survivor backstories, dialogue, tome stories, perk and cosmetic descriptions and flavor text, etc.
This probably works similar to the design team and how that's split up as well as potentially having another team whose job it is to correct spelling errors throughout DBD and not just in content actively being worked on.
Audio
Chase themes, voice overs, the various killer and survivor vocals, map ambiance, SFX, and promotional commercials and videos are all handled by them. Generally these guys are working on new content unless there's an audio overhaul in the works for a map/killer rework (new chase music anyone?) These guys might also be broken down into slightly different areas, You have a team who works specifically on killer/survivor voicelines, Another that focuses on chase music/ lobby music, another that does SFX, things like that.
Art
These are the visual designers, rendering the killers, survivors, and maps, designing cosmetics and charms and even promotional art like collection and tome banners.
You'll have people who specifically design concept art for characters, maps and cosmetics. People who specifically design the 3D renders for in game use, You'll have your promotional team that does things like tome banners or other artworks for social media. You'll have people who specifically work on the 3D map visuals. And of course its not uncommon to have people that do all the work from the concept design to the in-game render.
Programming
This is where things get complicated. Programming is an extremely large umbrella with many many different things that fall under it.
You have your programmers who work specifically with the base game, these are the people in charge of things like maintaining source code and the games security as well as base game play mechanics, things not specific to a killer, survivor, item, and so on.
Animators (I'm just going to include this under programmers) these guys… animate. They are the reason your character moves their body when preforming actions or just moving. They also deal with things like physics, think about hair or clothes moving when you run or plants swaying when you brush against them.
You'll have people who specifically work with AI, Think Knight's guards or Nemesis zombies, they design the "brain"
for these characters. How they navigate, how they process information, and how they react.The other aspect of level design, these guys are the ones who create the map generation, the reason environmental objects have hit boxes, Why you run on the ground and don't fall through the map.
And then you have the programmers who do what most people think when they think of a programmer. They write the code for killer powers, add-ons, items, offerings, perks etc.
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thank you for taking the time to humor me and writing this out. It means a lot. 🥰
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