How to Develop a Game Like Black Desert Online
Learn how to develop, build, and create an immersive MMORPG like Black Desert Online. This guide covers essential architecture, key features, cost breakdown, and more, helping you bring an engaging, scalable game to life.
Growth Stats of Black Desert Online
To create a successful game like Black Desert Online, it’s essential to examine its growth metrics. In this section, we analyze the stats of Black Desert Online, such as its user base, annual revenue, and download figures. Understanding these metrics can inspire you to create a game that meets market demands and achieves similar success.
2023 Annual Revenue
Number of Users
Downloads
Downloads
The growth trajectory of Black Desert Online showcases the potential of MMORPGs when key elements are executed well. To make a sustainable and engaging game, focusing on user acquisition, revenue streams, and platform downloads is crucial. These metrics highlight the roadmap to creating a successful game.
Architecture of a Scalable Gaming App
Building a scalable architecture is critical for games like Black Desert Online to handle high traffic and deliver a seamless experience. Key components such as CDN, stateful servers, auto-scaling, and caching are foundational in this setup. This section explores how to develop an architecture that is resilient, efficient, and capable of supporting a complex MMORPG environment with assets like users, game assets, and databases working together to provide consistent and reliable performance.
As the core element, users need to experience consistent performance and fast load times, which this architecture supports with optimized routing and personalization.
Distributes content globally to reduce latency, delivering assets like images and videos quickly to enhance the user experience.
These servers store user session data, enabling smoother transitions and a more cohesive game experience without lagging or disconnections.
Automatically adjust server resources based on current demand, ensuring the game performs smoothly during peak and off-peak times.
Stores frequently accessed data locally, improving load times and reducing strain on primary servers for a faster user experience.
By setting up servers in multiple regions, the game can reduce latency and enhance the experience for global players.
Essential assets like models, textures, and sounds are managed efficiently to maintain quality and consistency across gameplay.
An in-memory data structure store for fast access, improving game responsiveness and user engagement.
Stores structured data, such as player profiles and game stats, providing reliable data management for game mechanics and interactions.
Manages data streams, enabling real-time updates and logs to improve in-game communication and dynamic events.
A well-designed architecture ensures a game like Black Desert Online can handle an ever-growing user base while delivering smooth gameplay. By incorporating components like caching, CDN, and auto-scaling, you can make a scalable and responsive foundation that adapts to player demand and minimizes downtime, ensuring your game is always engaging and efficient.
Features
A successful MMORPG like Black Desert Online includes key features that enhance engagement and provide a rich player experience. Here are essential features that help create an immersive and interactive game environment:
Offers extensive customization options, allowing players to create unique avatars and enhancing immersion.
A vast, explorable world with diverse landscapes and interactive elements encourages players to adventure.
Fast-paced, skill-based combat keeps players engaged and rewards strategy.
Adds realism and variety to gameplay, making each session unique.
Allows players to trade items and resources, adding depth to the economy.
Provides narrative-driven tasks that guide players and add structure to the game.
Regular events keep the game fresh and encourage player participation.
Process To Build
Creating an MMORPG like Black Desert Online involves a structured, multi-phase development process. Each stage, from planning to deployment, plays a crucial role in building a seamless, engaging, and scalable game. Below is a step-by-step breakdown of the essential processes to develop a high-quality MMORPG.
Conceptualization
Begin with a clear vision and concept for the game. Identify your target audience, unique features, and core gameplay elements, such as open-world exploration, combat, or character customization. This step establishes the game’s identity, which will guide design and development decisions throughout the project.
Game Design & Prototyping
During this phase, you’ll create preliminary designs, including characters, environments, user interfaces, and interactions. Prototyping allows you to test key elements in a simplified version to gather feedback on mechanics, ensuring they align with your vision and work smoothly before committing to full-scale development.
Development
This stage involves building the game’s core mechanics and features using a game engine like Unity or Unreal. Developers integrate essential systems, including player controls, combat mechanics, inventory, and leveling systems, ensuring that all components work together seamlessly. Network functionality for multiplayer is often included here.
Testing & Quality Assurance
Testing is essential for identifying and fixing bugs, optimizing performance, and enhancing gameplay balance. Quality assurance (QA) teams conduct various tests, such as functional, performance, and multiplayer stress tests, to ensure stability across different devices. This phase typically involves continuous feedback and iterative improvements.
Deployment & Post-Launch Support
Once testing is complete, deploy the game on target platforms, such as PC, console, or mobile. Post-launch support includes regular updates, bug fixes, and feature expansions to retain players. Additionally, monitor server performance, user feedback, and analytics to ensure the game runs smoothly and adapts to player needs.
How To Build?
To develop a game like Black Desert Online, you can choose to work with a professional game development studio, collaborate with experienced freelancers, or undertake development independently if you have the skills. Each approach provides flexibility and creative control, helping you build an immersive MMORPG with detailed graphics, rich storylines, and expansive open-world mechanics.
To successfully develop a game like Black Desert Online, consider partnering with companies renowned for their expertise in MMORPGs and open-world environments:
- SDLC CORP
- Pearl Abyss (creators of Black Desert Online)
- NCSoft (known for Lineage and Blade & Soul)
These companies excel in creating expansive open worlds, intricate multiplayer systems, and visually stunning environments that are essential for a Black Desert Online-inspired game. Their expertise in crafting immersive, scalable MMORPG experiences can help bring a large-scale, engaging game to life, captivating players and enhancing retention in this genre.
To hire skilled developers for a Black Desert Online-inspired MMORPG, trusted platforms are essential for finding top talent. Here are the best options:
These platforms connect you with experienced professionals to bring your vision of a large-scale MMORPG to life, whether you need freelancers for game design, 3D modeling, environmental art, or a full development team.
Here are some YouTube channels and resources to help you create a game inspired by Black Desert Online:
- Brackeys – Offers Unity tutorials on card game mechanics, UI design, and multiplayer basics, ideal for crafting immersive, strategy-focused card games.
- GameDev.tv –Provides courses on Unity and Unreal Engine covering strategy game mechanics, base-building, and weather effects, essential for a Frostpunk-like experience.
- Code Monkey – utorials focus on AI behaviors, procedural generation, and resource systems, key for building challenging and dynamic survival gameplay.
- Udemy: RPG Core Combat Creator –Covers in-depth lessons on building management systems, AI decision-making, and environmental challenges, perfect for survival-strategy games.
These resources offer valuable guidance for developing a Black Desert Online-style MMORPG, from creating rich environments and intricate combat systems to building multiplayer functionality and dynamic world interactions.
Cost Breakdown
The cost of developing a game like Black Desert Online depends on various factors such as design, development, testing, and deployment. Expenses can range widely based on the scope and complexity, from $10,000 for a basic version to over $100,000 for a feature-rich, immersive game.
Features/Services
Basic/POC
Advanced
App Design & UI/UX
User-friendly design with custom themes
Advanced UI/UX with animations, personalized design, and high-end user experience
Core Features (User login, team creation, scoring)
Full-featured fantasy gameplay: user login, team creation, real-time scoring, leaderboards
Multiple game modes, dynamic user dashboards, and highly scalable gameplay
Backend Development
Robust backend with database and APIs for handling moderate user load
Scalable cloud infrastructure, real-time data processing, load balancing, and microservices architecture
Third-Party Integrations (payment gateways, notifications, etc.)
Integrated payment gateways, push notifications, and basic analytics
Advanced integrations: AI-based analytics, real-time notifications, blockchain for transactions, and cryptocurrency payments
Post-launch Support & Updates
3-6 months support with minor updates
12+ months of premium support, regular updates, AI-driven user personalization, and advanced data security features
Pricing
$10,000+
$50,000+
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The development cost ranges from $10,000 to over $100,000, depending on features, platform, and complexity.
- Character Customization
- Open World
- Real-time Combat
- Guild System
- Dynamic Weather
- Trading System
- Quest System
- In-Game Events
These features elevate the game experience, and SDLC CORP can help implement them for an engaging and polished game.
Development time typically spans from 1 month to 12 months, based on feature set and complexity.
- In-game purchases
- Subscription models
- Advertisements
- Premium accounts
- Virtual items
- Exclusive events
- Season passes
- Merchandise sales
- DLCs
- Sponsorships
By integrating these monetization strategies, you can build a profitable game model.
- Database choice
- Backend framework
- Frontend framework
- Graphics rendering
- Audio processing
- Payment gateways
- Cloud services
- Real-time data streaming
- QA tools
SDLC CORP can guide you through the best technology choices and integrations for efficient, robust game development.
Technologies often include Unity, Unreal Engine, MySQL, Redis, Kafka, AWS, and other tools optimized for graphics, real-time data, and scalability.