Of the many outlandish ways developers have come up with to immerse players, to make the gameplay matter somehow, and to create hype among consumers, Dutch developer Vogelsap may have one of the best. Their game, The Flock, to be released August 21st, will have a shelf life in a very unique way. You see, when the game launches, a worldwide death counter will begin keeping track of every player and when the global count reaches 215,358,979, The Flock will cease to be.

Context is important in understanding this strange gimmick. The game is set in 3000 AD and Earth hasn’t been able to support life for a while. Succeeding life on the planet are ghoulish, skeleton-like creatures known collectively as the Flock. Standard matches place five players in the role of one of the Flock and the hunt for the item known as the Light Artifact begins. Players that pick up the Artifact transform into a more humanoid being called a Carrier, and the match becomes a game of keep-away with a twist. Carriers can defend themselves from the Flock with the Light Artifact. The Artifact shines a cone of light ahead of the Carrier and members of the Flock take damage when they move within the light.

When you put all these elements together, you get a combination of keep-away and red-light-green-light that demands that players move in a fashion similar to a stealthy and slinky creature of the night; like a horror movie villain. This set of mechanical elements is perhaps the most innovative way to bring the horror genre and multiplayer gameplay together in a way that is beneficial to both components of play.

If you have unanswered questions about the game, there exists a very handy FAQ regarding the whole experience.

Important to note is that there is a closed beta running currently and the deaths that occur there are included in the global count, so the population on launch will not be as high as the one stated above.

Assuming the goal was attention, the gimmick is working. Many interested fans and speculators have made a lot of interesting observations and have asked even better questions. When asked about the thought process behind this self-limiting mechanic in a recent interview with Wired UK, creative director and game designer Jeroen van Hasselt had the following to say:

Apart from it being interpreted as a business model, it’s actually more about creating an authentic experience that’s going to be one-of-a-kind. We aspire to write history, players can be a part of that…The extinction theme is part of The Flock and its gameplay and lore, however it’s also bigger than the game itself. I think there’s also a theme in it that’s about the dying population of players in multiplayer games in general. It was only when we tried to come up with a solution for a multiplayer games’ often anticlimactic ending that both ideas clicked. That’s how the population idea came to life.

With the thought in mind that most multiplayer games will eventually “die” over time as popularity wanes and newer and better games launch, the expiration date on The Flock seems less and less crazy. Vogelsap has also explained that once the population counter reaches zero, the game will go off the market and be removed from retailers, and only those that already own it will be able to experience its planned finale firsthand.

Once again, The Flock launches August 21st, so don’t miss out on this very unique event.