Drawn to Death

• Title — Drawn to Death • Developer — The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency San Diego Studio • Publisher — Sony Interactive Entertainment • Director — David Jaffe • Engine — Unity • Released — April 4, 2017 • Genre — Third-person shooter • Modes — Multiplayer • Platforms — PlayStation 4

Drawn to Death was an arena shooter set in a teenager's high school notebook. The world and action embodied the juvenile tone of the child's illustrations. Players would pick a sketched character and drop them into environments drawn upon the book's pages. Each character had its own behaviors, passive tendencies, buffs and special attacks. Like previous games by David Jaffe, especially the Twisted Metal series, the arenas were made to feature multiple secrets to be used as weapons against enemies. Weapons and gameplay mechanics represent a juvenile tone. One weapon was "a lizard that doubles as a flamethrower," a power-up in the game summons the child's hand to interact in the game world. The action is said to be "fast and frantic, allowing players to sprint, double-jump, and reach high vantage points with ease". Regarding the potential of a weapon progression system, Jaffe says "skill should be the only determining factor. If you've been playing this for a year, and I just come in and I'm awesome at these types of games, the only reason you should win is you know the map better and are more comfortable muscle memory wise. It should never be because you have better weapons."

Drawn to Death was pitched and has been in development since early 2013. It was announced at the PlayStation Experience keynote opening ceremony on December 6, 2014. Drawn to Death is David Jaffe's first project at his new studio The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency. where he acts as director. A trailer was shown with its announcement, and a playable alpha was available. A second promotional video was released on December 11 on Jaffe's YouTube account, where a game character reads through Giant Bomb negative user comments about its announcement and insults them. The game's development budget was $12 million.