DEVELOPER DIARY
OCTOBER 2024
Hello players, As the end of the year approaches, we have many many things to update you on, so I’m going to dive right in. This dev diary is a big one, as in addition to news about THE LONG DARK, I’ve tried to answer some commonly asked community questions relating to the game, and other things we’re doing at Hinterland.WINTERMUTE, EPISODE FIVE
You may have noticed that we haven’t announced a release date for Episode Five. Our last update on progress was last December when I said we would launch it by the end of this year. Unfortunately, the episode is not quite ready yet. Wrapping up TALES for the end of this year took up much more time and resources than we originally planned for, including the time needed to redo the Cougar. The good news is that with Part Six of TALES coming out in December, that will wrap up our work on the DLC, and from that point onward the *entire* TLD team will be heads-down focused on finishing Episode Five and releasing it ASAP next year. Everyone on TLD will be working on finishing and shipping this final part of our story.
[i]Caption: Along the frozen shore near the hamlet of Perseverance Mills. [/i]
As a recap, Episode Five, titled “The Light at the End of All Things”, concludes the WINTERMUTE storyline, and wraps up all the various threads introduced in the previous four episodes. The Episode takes us to the Suzuki Radio Telescope, the enigmatic Atwood, Perseverance Mills, reveals the contents of Astrid’s mysterious hardcase, and brings to a head the conflict between Mackenzie and Mathis. You play as both Astrid and Mackenzie in this episode. It’s our biggest episode to date, and will be the end of the Story Mode for THE LONG DARK. Episode Five also reveals what is *really* going on with the Aurora, and sets up the fiction and IP for future stories, in more games, film, television, and beyond.
You’ve waited a long time for this, and we’re well aware of all the delays that have got us to this point. This puts all the more pressure on us to make sure that what we release at the end is worth the wait. There’s enormous pressure. The team is handling it by staying focused on doing their best work, and only putting out an episode that we are proud of and believe lives up to all the time and effort that has gone into THE LONG DARK until now.
COUGAR 2.0
We’ve nearly completed work on the revised Cougar, taking on board all the feedback from players who wanted to see this predator as a more active presence in the world. The revised system removes a lot of the previous game mechanics around territory control and timers, and instead builds the Cougar up as a dangerous hunter in the world. It can be avoided by players, but will become increasingly hostile if players seek to encounter them. You can choose to hunt them, but you may find yourself hunted instead. Rather than relying on in-game HUD elements and map counters, the new Cougar systems will put the information in the world, and you’ll have to pay close attention to the sounds and signs that warn you of its presence. It’s a much more dynamic system, but still designed so that the risks can be avoided by making good decisions. Since every release requires Test and Release Management effort, to avoid creating redundant work by splitting the launches of Cougar 2.0 and the Part Six release, we’ve rolled the updated Cougar into Part Six, and they will release together. This will ensure the team can keep their focus on validating the system and ensure it launches in the best shape possible, along with the rest of the Part Six feature set.NINTENDO SWITCH
We’ve been struggling with various memory issues and crashes on the Switch since releasing the first four Parts of Tales. We’ve had programmers and technical artists working on finding ways to optimize further and to solve the crashes. Unfortunately, we have really pushed the Switch hardware to its limit and it’s proving very difficult to address the issues. We are deep into the guts of the game and the system, trying to find where to extract more performance headroom. Our plan is to release a Switch update ASAP that fixes as many of the performance issues and crashes as we can, so that our Switch players can enjoy TLD and the first Parts of TALES without crashing. This means the Switch release of Parts Five and Six, along with the revised Cougar, have been pushed out until the new year, as releasing more of TALES before these issues are addressed will only make matters worse on the Switch. We’ll share an updated timeline for Parts Five and Six on Switch once the crash issues are resolved. We’re hoping to be able to release a fix to the crashes before the end of the year, but it will depend on our success in identifying and addressing the issues. As with the other platforms, the revised Cougar will be included in Part Six, although our plan for Switch is to release Parts Five and Six together, so it all comes in one big release. I apologize to any Switch players who have been impacted by the crashes -- it’s not the quality or experience we wanted to give you.TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY, PART SIX
We are releasing TALES Part Six in December, on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Epic Game Store. This final release will conclude the TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY DLC for THE LONG DARK’s Survival Mode.
[i]Caption: The new manual instant camera, with B&W, Colour, and Sepia film stock.[/i]
Part Six has some of the most significant features in the entire expansion pass campaign:
- [b]The Trader. [/b]An enigmatic figure and a voice on the radio. They’ll trade with you, but getting access to their best items might require you get comfortable with some questionable demands. What has this survivor been doing on Great Bear Island since the Quiet Apocalypse? Note that this system also includes a variety of new items that are only available via the Trader. (Players who don’t want the Trader in their game will have the option to exclude it.)
- [b]Safehouse Customization. [/b]Move furniture and decorative props around your favourite locations in the game. Repair broken items and clean up the mess. Craft items from an entirely new series of hand-made furniture and decorative props. Collect and move every framed pancake photo in the game to one place. Make pretty much any valid interior in the game your personal Safehouse with this powerful system. Note that “valid interiors” in this case include any interior space that has a separate scene load (ex. Trapper’s Cabin, Quincy’s Quonset, etc.), and most of the structures connected to the region scenes (like the Lookouts and the Mountaineer’s Hut). The possibilities are (almost) endless. There are also some new Safehouse-centric gameplay tools included with the release.
- [b]Cougar 2.0.[/b] As described above -- a major revision on the Cougar we originally released in Part Five (then immediately removed based on player feedback). The new version is more present, more dangerous, and entirely avoidable if you make smart decisions, but you’ll face a relentless stalker if you don’t. (Players who don’t want the Cougar in their game will have the option to exclude it.)
- [b]Instant Camera.[/b] Discover an old manual instant camera. Take photos anywhere in the world and add them to your Album. Craft photos into wall-hangings for your personal Safehouse. Find Colour, Black & White, or Sepia-toned film stock. Be a photographer at the end of the world.
- [b]Global Wildlife Refresh.[/b] Now that the Cougar is finalized, the team is able to complete the Global Wildlife Refresh. Every wildlife spawn in the entire game has been redone, including all predator and prey animals, so you’ll need to find some new play patterns as you move through Great Bear Island and the Far Territory. It’s a whole new world of wildlife out there.
[i]Caption: Trapper’s Cabin redecorated using Safehouse Customization, before and after.[/i]
With these final features completed, we conclude the development of TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY. We didn’t get it finished in the originally expected time-frame, but we’re happy to have completed it for you and we hope you have enjoyed the journey so far. And if you’ve been sitting on the fence about TALES, waiting for it to be finished before you jumped in, now’s a great time to do so. Also remember: we’re heading into Steam Sale Season.
[i]Caption: New craftable Safehouse items.[/i]
VISUAL ENHANCEMENTS
As part of TALES, the team has completed a suite of visual enhancements to the base THE LONG DARK game. These are targeted at higher-end platforms like PCs well above recommended spec, and PS5 or Xbox Series S/X, although some of the improvements will also be available on lower-end systems. To give the team breathing room to focus on finalizing the rest of the Part Six features, I’ve pushed the release of the Visual Enhancements out to the new year. We’ll share a full list and some comparative screenshots or videos along with a Visual Enhancements update in the Spring. These will be available for free to everyone who owns THE LONG DARK.NOW WHAT?
With TALES now coming to its conclusion, and the team’s focus shifting to Episode Five to finish it ASAP in 2025, you’re probably wondering what’s next for THE LONG DARK, beyond that. We have some plans to continue supporting THE LONG DARK into 2025 and likely 2026, depending on what happens with our new projects. For 2025, the current general roadmap for TLD is:- Finish Episode Five, and conclude the WINTERMUTE storyline.
- Ongoing content-focused updates to key game systems, including targeted additional content for the TRADER and SAFEHOUSE CUSTOMIZATION, in the form of new Trade Items, and additional craftable furniture and decorative items. The emphasis will depend somewhat on how many folks buy TALES and whether players are excited about these new systems.
- Visual Enhancements for high-end systems, as mentioned above.
- A completely overhauled Custom Settings system, exposing as many tunables as we can beyond the current offering, so that you can customize your TLD experience along very specific lines of gameplay settings and whatnot. This should be a very powerful set of tools for fine-tuning the TLD experience to your liking.
- Proper Mod Support, including tools, documentation, and a community hub dedicated to Mods. A lot of the modifications we’ve made over the past two years, to the core game structure and content needed to support the development of TALES, will now become useful in providing tools for you to create your own content for THE LONG DARK.
