![]() ![]() so that every time we make a change in Survival, we don’t have to retest the entirety of the rest of the game, and vice versa. ![]() What splitting the game into Story and Survival will mean for us is that we’ll be better able to compartmentalize content, features, cinematics, etc. It’s also limited the kinds of things we can update, and we feel that many of the architecture choices from back in 2014 and onward have now become detrimental to the game’s growth and evolution in 2021 and beyond. As a result, over time we’ve had to spend an increasing amount of effort on testing and validating our existing content and systems every time we want to release something new, and this has prevented us from updating the game as frequently as we would like. One illustrative example of this is that every time we change an element of UI, or a foundational art asset or system that is shared between the modes, we have to then test all the episodes, all the survival mode regions and content, and all the Challenge modes against this change. ![]() This was a fantastic decision for us earlier in the project when the game world was smaller and we had less episode content, but as the years have passed it’s become harder and harder for us to maintain this structure, and we feel it’s become overly limiting to our ability to continue to grow The Long Dark for the future. ![]() Until now Story content has been a layer on top of the core Survival Mode foundation, which has allowed us (over the years) to share the world and mechanics between the two modes, then using tuning variables and a complex system of scene layering to keep the two different experiences separate but relatively cohesive. This split is mostly about how we structure content and data in the game on the development side. In fact depending on how we handle this, the split may be mostly on the back-end and invisible to you as player. This won’t affect your ownership in any way - everyone who currently owns The Long Dark will automatically have both games. One of the first stages we’re working towards is splitting Story Mode and Survival Mode into two separate games and executables. But as a high-level direction, based on the guidance we’ve received from many of you in our player community through our community poll earlier this year - and after providing nearly over 7 years of free updates to Survival Mode - our plan is to move to a more sustainable paid update path. I’ll share more details about our plans in the new year, as there are a lot of technical aspects we’re still figuring out. We’ve been working on a plan for how to tackle ongoing support for Survival Mode between now and Episode Five’s launch, and beyond. We want to know more about what you need in terms of tool support, documentation, and also to provide you a clear path to communicating with us as we grow this area of The Long Dark’s community. Until then, we’ll be active in the new Modding & UGC section of the official forums, and we’ll also be proactively reaching out to many of you who have been busy modding the game over the past years. In the Spring, we’ll be sharing more info about our Creator Hub, which will have documentation, some tools, and other resources for modders, and other types of fan creations for The Long Dark. We’ve also set up a new email alias, “ which you can use to contact us with any requests or information you’d like to share. We’ll have dedicated focus from our Community team on this area, so please focus your mod discussions here so we can best support you. Our initial focus will be on supporting The Long Dark, but we plan for this to be a long-standing investment in time and resources, and the things we learn and the modding community we build with you, will hopefully become a strong foundation of more things to come in future Hinterland games.Īs first steps, we’re setting up a Modding & UGC section of the official Hinterland forums. We’re setting up a small internal team dedicated solely to supporting Modding and User Generated Content at Hinterland. ![]()
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