April Dev Diary (Episode Five, Visual Enhancements, Tales Recap, and More)

[Hinterland_Studio]

It has arrived!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/305620/view/512956388211687524

Please discuss in this thread. And a gentle reminder to respect the Community Guidelines.

[Capt. Latrios]

Glad i could be along for the journey~
It has been great watching the game come together since I first heard about it in 2016.

While I still don't approve of the Hinterland logo change, as I think it is boring and forgettable, I still eagerly look forward to what these final major updates to The Long Dark bring.

...I do hope mod support means people will mod the old logo back into the intro though because it it's ghastly, lol.

[Homosapien]

I also believe it is a good move to announce Blackfrost before The Long Dark is finished from a business perspective and also from a fan's perspective. We know that The Long Dark will be finished and completed with the game left in a good state after the game leaves Early Access. They will set us up for Blackfrost and then we will not have to wait too long to begin playing Blackfrost. The Long Dark has had a long development cycle, but also the game has come so far and improved so much since the initial release. I like the unique way that it has been supported and I hope they do the same with Blackfrost (And possibly The Long Dark 3). I look forward to more holiday events and the story coming to end for The Long Dark. I also hope that VR is considered for The Long Dark and Blackfrost because I think the game would be even more immersive and fun if that was the case. Congratulations to Hinterland for being dedicated to The Long Dark and making such a fantastic game.

Edit: I also forgot to mention that I am glad that The Long Dark will be back on GOG. The DRM-Free model is the best way for owners of the game to be able to have access to their games without worrying as much that they could disappear one day.

[QGirl]

Looking forward to Episode Five and Blackfrost!!!!!

[Civil Servant]

Really excited for the update to custom settings and QOL stuff. I think that's really the big bow on top the game needs. As a mainly survival player I was thrilled to finally have some customization brought into the game and the trader making more items renewable definitely makes long run players happy. Just gotta make sure things are balanced fairly for the players.

I was personally really turned off from the game when they added timber wolves to more areas as well as just more wolves in general. (Yes I loved abusing the summit loot carefree) I'm hoping the improved custom settings will help alleviate some problems I have with the game. PLEASE MAKE IT SO WE CAN HAVE AN INTERLOPER LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY WHILE STILL GETTING HIGHER TIER LOOT BUT AT A VERY RARE CHANCE.

Mod support is also huge. Though looking at the game now, many of the mods have been, or are being implemented. (Visuals, base building/QOL, and more food)

Very excited to see where this game and Blackfrost go into the future.

[Paya]

Late night dev diary!

I'm curious to see just what a 'more linear' experience for story mode looks like compared to the open world quests we've been given before. If more structured, streamlined narrative experiences work well both on the development end and on the player end, then I could definitely see smaller narrative experiences being something worth looking into for future The Long Dark content. I'm hopeful that future content (free, DLC, or otherwise) will be secondary to Blackfrost's development and be a smaller focus while still delivering on quality.

Looking forward to the graphical upgrade. The increased draw distance and weather effects will absolutely make me move my base to one of the firewatch towers for those great views. The avalanches looked great too! I can't only wonder where else those will be used, but that's why they're a surprise, I suppose.

Thanks for the blog post, but go to bed! It's nearly midnight!

[Scuba]

Absolutely amazing the changes and fixes you have all implemented to this game. The updates have been non-stop and always positive as well as exciting keeping the game fresh. Thank you devs for giving so much love to this game and focusing on the current Long Dark but also giving updates and hype to the sequel. Keep up the amazing work!

[Capt. Latrios]

Also hope this update fixes Sutherland's Tale so that it can actually be finished :/

[ike]

Yeah, I dunno but I feel like you guys have been delivering hard and are on a roll with the goodwill. The last few updates have changed my recommendation of the game from "you'll love it, but.." to "you'll love it." Specifically the safehouse customization and the first-person animation updates.

I hope we get some of those new zones from Ep5 in survival, even if they are a paid update (which probably won't be popular with the vocal crowd).

As for the visual updates I *love* the look of the terrain blending, but other than that the only visual thing I've noticed as a 1080p scrub is the look of the telephone lines, hopefully those new AA options will make them less sawtoothy. Anisotropic filtering will be great too, and the draw distances updates. Hope my potato PC is up to the task.

[Vrede]

I've been mad about you taking this long to finish the story. I mean, I havn't played since January 2019 because I wanted to wait until the game was finished.
But I have to thank you for opening up to us and telling us what's up.
My hype motor inside me is starting to rumble ever so slightly again.

[SkyBorik]

Visual Enhancements are huge. Great job, Hinterland!

[niinajama]

"We had planned to release a Quality of Life update with new content for the Trader and Safehouse customization, as well as some gameplay balance tuning, bug fixes, etc., before we shipped Episode Five, but the team felt stretched too thin between this work and completing Episode Five, so I’ve decided to push this update off until after Episode Five ships."

Do I understand this correctly? Visual enhancements and food fix will come soon, but for the glaring issues with the trader (bugs that literally break the quest) we'll have to wait until EP. 5 comes out, estimated end of the year? How are visual enhancements a priority over fixing this exactly? I understand that finishing Storymode is a massive priority and I have no problem with that, but people who have paid for the DLC are left with a broken product. It is currently impossible to finish the trader related quest, travois is broken, safehouse customization still has bugs, cougar needs to be added back to CH etc. If fixing the bugs in the DLC isn't a priority, I'm sure there's plenty of bugs to fix in base survival mode. Like corpses spawning under the terrain, beach combing not resetting when on thin ice (making it so new stuff doesn't spawn as much) and so on.

At the end of the year when EP 5 comes out and you start focusing on the fixes, please make sure they don't break the game. Starting to feel a little embarrassed that I recommended this game to so many people and got them to spend their money on it. Maybe I should send them a gift basket or something to apologize?

[great survivr]

all great news. hinterland are one of those rare studios who care about their players. on a side note, i am almost entirely a survival player so story mode isn't really a concern for me. the survival aspect of this game has set the standard for these types of games at least for me. replay-ability and the punishing grind i love. so all i hope is that they carry on supporting the survival side for a while. adding other long term hard to achieve goals and challenging mechanics that give the mid- to late game a purpose. the best time on every interloper run is getting established and surviving the early game. however once that is achieved then apart from crafting a few items theirs really not a lot to do in the late game except. hunt, fish and manage your dwindling supplies and repairing degraded items seeing the trader.

so i would like to see if hinterland carries on supporting the long dark survival mode. more items, more animals. late game activities/ challenges and quests. inaccessible early, late game locations example fixing a boat and sailing to a remote incredibly harsh offshore arctic island that has a unique loot table and crafting options etc. just as an example.

whatever they will decide to do i will still support the long dark as its an awesome game and hinterland is an awesome studio.

[Amber]

Raphael and Everyone in the Hinterland studio, I really want to thank you for all the work you have been doing all these years. The Long Dark is my favourite game and you are my favourite studio. The way you care about your people and the players is actually... incredible. I highly respect it. I wish you all luck for doing what you mean to do. Know myself how hard it is to manage something under preassure of others and to still keep going. I am with you and thank you for all that you have done.

[Faelyke]

I wish decay was made an optional setting like the cougar. I -like- hoarding items. It feeds my inner dragon especially on interloper. I'd rather it be an option, rather than be forced to a decision. Don't get me wrong I'm not angry, just disappointed because the only part of the long term game I enjoy has been nerfed in quite a large way. It kind of means less of my runs are going to make it past day 30 because well...I've survived, now what? I just don't play the games -TO- survive. I play them to hoard and grow my treasure trove. And it was such a wonderful and fun part of the game to me.

So it just makes me a little sad to see. It really kills my enjoyment of the game. Still, the rest of the news is great and I'm hopeful for the new game. But...I probably will only pick up the game for chapter 5 and then never again now. It's not that I don't love the game. It's just...not the same game I fell in love with now.

[rush_247]

Originally posted by niinajama:

"We had planned to release a Quality of Life update with new content for the Trader and Safehouse customization, as well as some gameplay balance tuning, bug fixes, etc., before we shipped Episode Five, but the team felt stretched too thin between this work and completing Episode Five, so I’ve decided to push this update off until after Episode Five ships."

Do I understand this correctly? Visual enhancements and food fix will come soon, but for the glaring issues with the trader (bugs that literally break the quest) we'll have to wait until EP. 5 comes out, estimated end of the year? How are visual enhancements a priority over fixing this exactly? I understand that finishing Storymode is a massive priority and I have no problem with that, but people who have paid for the DLC are left with a broken product. It is currently impossible to finish the trader related quest, travois is broken, safehouse customization still has bugs, cougar needs to be added back to CH etc. If fixing the bugs in the DLC isn't a priority, I'm sure there's plenty of bugs to fix in base survival mode. Like corpses spawning under the terrain, beach combing not resetting when on thin ice (making it so new stuff doesn't spawn as much) and so on.

At the end of the year when EP 5 comes out and you start focusing on the fixes, please make sure they don't break the game. Starting to feel a little embarrassed that I recommended this game to so many people and got them to spend their money on it. Maybe I should send them a gift basket or something to apologize?

It's my understanding that there are fixes that will be delivered along with the visual enhancements, whether or not one of those fixes is for the trader remains to be seen.