Well its april and no update news yet.

[Supermarioman1]

Is it possible that the game will be updated this year ? i have been looking forward to some more content, is there going to be any ? is this game going to die unfinished and unsung ? please put us out of our misery and tell us the awesomeness we can expect to see SOON !!

[Snake Doctor]

We've had complete silence since the dev notes in February. I'm not trying to push anyone to reveal details, but I'm afraid the lack of any news at all hinders rather than helps Hinterland's cause. No one is expecting regular updates to the game every month, but dead silence for two months is worrying. I know you guys at Hinterland are hard at work, but what happens when there's an echo chamber is that people get fed up of the silence and leave the game, never to return.

As bad as the roadmap was, at least it gave us something to talk about. Now, we're waiting for some little snippet to keep the interest burning. Last time, Raph mentioned tidying up Episodes 1 and 2 of the story mode in anticipation of Episode 3 and 4, but nothing was revealed about either episode. He also intimated about a new region for survival mode and quicker region development, but nothing was revealed about either.

I fear Hinterland are going to lose more players than they gain by keeping tight-lipped about all of this.

[MueckE]

Last year, there was a countdown in early April and before that a countdown for that countdown. And because it wasn't well received, this time you get just silence

I think we will get some info when everything is done. They will use the time to try to minimize bugs and for polishing. So i don't expect something really new or innovative. Maybe it will be August 1st again. Then there will be episode 3 together with the reworked episodes 1 and 2.

Or they have enough of TLD and just push out all episodes together, first day patches and bug fixes right after, and then bury tld for a few years and start a new project.

[MrJade]

It's already insane. I'm fretful the game is abandoned, but we need to wait a month more. Then I'll be convinced. 

[AZHockeyNut]

Not abandoned at all. They keep posting job openings which means they are either losing staff and need to replace or they are expanding. Supposedly there is some new stuff coming shortly

[moistsack]

There's a link to a GDC talk Raph did last month in the last dev diary thread, that sort of thing might interfere with some of their community engagement. Although I wish they were more present at the moment, it's clear the game is not dead.

Raph sent out a tweet today that they have a survival mode update coming soon.

I'm looking forward to seeing what they have in store. My guess is it's still a month away, but we'll probably hear about what's coming before then.

[EricTheGreat12]

On 4/21/2018 at 6:00 PM, Snake Doctor said:

We've had complete silence since the dev notes in February. I'm not trying to push anyone to reveal details, but I'm afraid the lack of any news at all hinders rather than helps Hinterland's cause. No one is expecting regular updates to the game every month, but dead silence for two months is worrying. I know you guys at Hinterland are hard at work, but what happens when there's an echo chamber is that people get fed up of the silence and leave the game, never to return.

Hinterland and Dev Diaries don't mix well together. I think that Raph overestimated how much effort he had to put in by making dev diaries, and therefore has decided to do one every few months. This is not to insult the game's creator- only that Hinterland has jumped right in when trying to develop the Long Dark without thinking about the consequences, herego the Countdown incident from last year. I think that they're starting to realize that they need to stop pouring gasoline on the fire and to just not say anything at all.

I'm not worried because I know that'll be 5-6 months till we hear anything; they seem to want to do updates in Feb and October, hereby splitting the update cycle into two yearly updates. Whether or not this strategy works is debatable, but I think that we're not going to get any strong community interaction with the development team ever again in this game's production. From the lack of moderators (They refuse to want to bring more people on board on these forums) to a simple lack of communication between the team and the players (besides for a dev diary every few months), Hinterland's community performance has been really poor. This will most likely never change, and although I understand that they have a schedule that they wish to abide by, Hinterland is a one game company- they need to put more effort into their star product.

23 hours ago, MrJade said:

It's already insane. I'm fretful the game is abandoned, but we need to wait a month more. Then I'll be convinced. 

I get it- you're unhappy with the game's development- a lot of us are. But have you done anything on these forums yet besides for critiquing the game's development? I given my fair critique as well, but I also try to be on the Wishlist Forums and General Discussions; maybe try interacting progressively with other members of the community? 

[Patrick Carlson]

The game isn't abandoned, in fact Hinterland is growing. We're hiring, forming new partnerships (like with Skybound) and forging ahead on new Survival Mode content as well as work on the remaining Wintermute episodes. 

But as we've explained in great detail over the past years, and in our post-launch Dev Diaries, we're not going to speak specifically about new updates until we're ready to. This is to make sure that when we do communicate about updates to the game, we do so clearly. This ensures expectations among our current community of players, as well as future players, are realistic instead of speculative. And as Raph mentions in the tweet above, things are very busy right now! Which means we hope to have some more concrete details to share soon. As always, we appreciate your patience as we continue our work. 

[Mortan1234]

If we are being honest the only update i am looking for is mod support. it would be really benefit the game if the community were able to optionally modify it to their desires. In any case have patience, updates are always slow (after all we have been playing the waiting game for the past three and a half years, whats a few more months)

[odizzido]

I am pretty new here, but I've been watching this game for a while. I see no evidence that things are going to be abandoned and I see evidence that work is continuing. I purchased the game recently because it is already good and maybe my little contribution will help make the story mode better. I think it could be really fun and I am glad they're redoing parts of the first two chapters.

And I don't think losing players is a thing in a game like this. It's not an online one where you need a solid player base to make it work. People have purchased it and they can choose to not play it until its finished. I did the same with Dreamfall Chapters. It was years after I had purchased it that I finally played it. They never lost me as a player, I just wanted the best experience and I didn't mind waiting.

It's the same with this game. The survival mode was fun to play around with until I learned it and found it too easy. The challenges were nifty and different(they should do more of them). But I am pretty much done until they release the story. I don't mind waiting for it, and it doesn't make me lost as a player. Just a player who chose to support development of something and is waiting for it to be done so I can get the best experience possible.

[CaveDweller]

Flipping the conversation on its head - if I bought this game off the shelf right now I'd be over the moon. Its cost vs hours of play ratio is off the scale. It's in our nature to want more, but let's get real for a second - we've already got far more out of the game than we paid for. Other games that want to continue to develop and release new content at regular intervals, in the open-world and module-based categories, tend to charge monthly subscriptions.

Ever wonder why? TLD is a great example, how big is the market for this genre? Certainly not as big as the tried-and-true cookie-cutter MMOs we see being released every month. And yet we expect them to regularly release new content? It's great that they are planning updates, but at some point they will reach market saturation and then who pays the dev wages?

My 2 cents? @Patrick Carlson This started as a kickstarter with strong community support. Revive that if you can and open the doors to ongoing Patreon-style contributions from those of us who understand the value of the game your team has crafted. Ideally, and in keeping with the spirit of the game, have a portion of these contributions go to Canadian conservation groups.

[Dan_]

I'm also not a regular to these boards but, to put my 0.02 out there, with two more substantial updates to expand sandbox and allow them to finish story mode ( Perseverance Mills, for instance) we might finally be done with the regular game development. That will still take a while (12-18 months, perhaps?) but worth it to be honest, my only gripe with the current version is the lack of craftable headgear, still enjoying the game to the fullest otherwise. 

Then, I would just urge Hinterland to follow up with substantial sandbox mode DLCs to keep on expanding the game. I know I might be speaking as a minority here, but I would be thrilled if the game keeps growing after the story mode is done and dusted. Considering how much playing time I put in this game, this was a complete bargain. Look no further than Euro Truck Simulator as a business model, complete different game style but similarly engaged community and small studio which keeps supporting the game through DLCs and as a result it is still relevant and enjoyable to this day. 

[MrJade]

On 4/23/2018 at 9:37 PM, EricTheGreat12 said:

 

I get it- you're unhappy with the game's development- a lot of us are. But have you done anything on these forums yet besides for critiquing the game's development? I given my fair critique as well, but I also try to be on the Wishlist Forums and General Discussions; maybe try interacting progressively with other members of the community? 

Not much to talk about, considering that everything has been static for months now. My wife and I have finished story mode, sandbox is dry after years of playing it incrementally, and so I'm just waiting.

The dev coming in here and saying anything is refreshing, but I'll just refer them to Paradox. They may get a lot wrong, but weekly updates on each game is something that they do to engage the community. 

[EricTheGreat12]

1 hour ago, MrJade said:

Not much to talk about, considering that everything has been static for months now. My wife and I have finished story mode, sandbox is dry after years of playing it incrementally, and so I'm just waiting.

The dev coming in here and saying anything is refreshing, but I'll just refer them to Paradox. They may get a lot wrong, but weekly updates on each game is something that they do to engage the community. 

And if you've played Paradox's games, you know very well that they have frequent updates, but they have very little content.

 

It's either to have a game with little updates but large amount of content, or a game with many updates but little content 

[odizzido]

It doesn't have to be like that. You can make a short little update like for example if the people working at hinterland had a stickied post here and they could just write a quick "Worked on chapter 1 progression scripts this week" or "started working on some new 2d art for a new clothing recipe today" or whatever people could get an idea of what's going on without it being a big thing.

edit-------------
They could also write "the new clothing we were working on was not fitting into the game well so we ditched it" as well so people won't be wondering what happened to it years later.

[MrJade]

3 hours ago, EricTheGreat12 said:

And if you've played Paradox's games, you know very well that they have frequent updates, but they have very little content.

 

It's either to have a game with little updates but large amount of content, or a game with many updates but little content 

I completely disagree with that, considering that Crusader Kings II went from being able to only play Western European Catholics to being able to play Muslim, Orthodox, Jains, Hindus, Tengri, Pagan, etc. The map now stretches to India. The Aztecs can invade.

Are we talking about the same studio?

What about Stellaris?

[EricTheGreat12]

Just now, MrJade said:

I completely disagree with that, considering that Crusader Kings II went from being able to only play Western European Catholics to being able to play Muslim, Orthodox, Jains, Hindus, Tengri, Pagan, etc. The map now stretches to India. The Aztecs can invade.

Are we talking about the same studio?

What about Stellaris?

Crusader Kings 2 released Monks&Mystics, a boring and rushed DLC in which the more important features were added into the patch. The most recent expansion, Jade Dragon, released the Taoist religion with little depth.

 

Stellaris, nonetheless, is probably their best title.

[odizzido]

I really like 4x space games, have since I played the original MOO. I think stellaris is the best space 4x ever made.

And it's not that I don't like older games. I think the original x-com is far superior to the console reboot which is barely okay.

[MrJade]

Point being, keeping the community in the loop does not impact the studios preferred way of making the game. 

A weekly dev diary would not change anything about the game. 

[romerabr]

It april and we have great news...