A New Region: Little Bear Island

[Glflegolas]

As everyone here knows, The Long Dark takes place on a large island known as Great Bear. There are all kinds of smaller islands that surround it, but all the islands that have been added so far are quite small. I suggest that it's time to add a much larger offshore island (roughly the same size as the Mystery Lake map) to the game. Because the main island is called Great Bear, It's only logical that this smaller island should be called Little Bear.

Why do I think an offshore island would be a good choice for a new region? While we've had some great new regions over the years, each with their own theme, the offshore island is a theme that's not been featured in any map to date.

If the island is offshore, that begs the question: how might you get to it? The most obvious answer would be the boats near the Desolation Point lighthouse. Clicking on them would offer a menu saying "Travel to Little Bear wil coast XXX calories, XXX hours" (similar to firewood harvesting). Calorie cost and time required would vary depending on weather, with high winds making the trip very slow and hard, whereas clear, windless conditions would make the trip fast and easy. If the trip is attempted in fog or a blizzard, a message (similar to that seen when mapping) would pop up, of "You cannot row in low visibility conditions."

What might Little Bear look like? My current thoughts are something like this (I'll draw a map later if people ask for it):

• A small settlement in a partially frozen cove. There would be a few ice fishing huts on the ice. There would also be a wharf here, from which it's possible to return to Great Bear. Maybe have a small coal mine behind the settlement?
• A few small islands scattered just off the coast, which you can walk to over the ice. One of the larger ones might have a cabin on it.
• A high central peak of volcanic origin, which requires rope climbing to access. I'm thinking that the crater at the summit should have a lake in it (maybe with a fishing hut), with a small island with a cabin inside that lake. Inside the cabin would be something new and useful, though I'll leave it up the community as to what should be in there. A brook would lead from the lake to the settlement.
• Between the settlements and the summit, I'd say leave the island mostly wild, with a couple of cabins scattered throughout.

As for climate, I'm thinking something like Coastal Highway; fairly mild temperature-wise, since it's surrounded by non-frozen ocean water. Due to it being an offshore island, I would expect it to be quite windy, however, making windproof clothing important.

Thoughts?

[Hotklou2404]

An alternative to using boats to get to the island would be a land bridge made of ice. It is very cold out there, so why not? This Land Bridge would be a transition zone that exists between some Great Bear coastal region and the Little Bear island. Now what could be inside this transition zone to make it interesting? Well, one thing I can think of is ship wreckages. You could find abandoned, broken husks of ships which you can enter and explore. The ships would not only provide valuable shelter, but also good loot. To encourage exploration of the ships, and to make the crossing more difficult, the Land Bridge transition zone could have strong winds and dangerously low ambient temperatures. There could also be some spots on the Land Bridge where the ice is thin and weak enough for you to break a small hole through to the water underneath, allowing you to catch fish. But beware, these fishing holes do not have little huts over them that provide shelter against the wind.

[Glflegolas]

Update: I've hand-drawn about 60% of the map. It should be done by the end of the week.

[Dancewithknives]

Cool idea, but if i could make an addition, i’d make it a degenerate tech mogols private island. The dude owns the entire island, the “settlements” are his worker’s quarters, and the different sub areas are just monuments to affluence and ego; things like a private mansion, rec areas, hunting grounds etc. 

I think it would be an interesting idea to have a large amount of animals on this island, but are super attentive being that they were hunted for sport so their AI is sharper. Also, the vast amount of stuff on the island is impressive but ultimately useless in TLD ( IE, a gold statue of yourself is cool... but you can’t eat it if you’re starving.)

 

finally, one think i would actually like to see is that the Mansion has a ton of loot in it, but is locked tight and the only access is through  the frozen oceanside grotto.

 

[Glflegolas]

Here's the hand-drawn map of the island I made.

[Glflegolas]

@The Orange BirbWell, the map was meant to be a combination of Coastal Highway + Desolation Point + Hushed River Valley, so I think it fits that bill pretty well.

[oplli]

wow great work @Glflegolas

I like the drawing. its an interesting region taht i would shurely try to stay as long as possible. 

Although i would add something else that i think would be nice:

Being able to actually play on t he boat during the travel from great bear to small bear island. 

you would need to pack water in advance beacause we cannot drink salted water. You would also need to get a lot of warm and WINDPROOF clothes to have enough protection from the elements. Could even be able to catch fishs directly from the boat and they could be even bigger than what we are used to catch in mystery lake or coastal highway. it would be nice if we could also make a small fire in cooking pot from wood that you collected before. 

I think a small but dangerous trip of 2 to 3 days depending on the weather would be better than a simple time warp where it tells you how much calories it will take. 

 

[Omnijack]

I like the idea for the Island. I would have suggested the map be 3 small islands linked together by frozen ice. Named "the 3 cubs" so that we have Great bear + cubs.

Perhaps make one of the islands more industrial themed, give it a deep sea wharf and heavy cranes: it's a former loading on point for coal barges to export the Coal from the mines. Access is granted with a Dangerous railway bridge that connects to the mainland. That'd add some element of backstory fir how heavy machinery (dam, railway) was transported to Great Bear without using shallow draft boats.

 

If Hinterland later releases mod tools, will the community be able to create custom maps to where?

[Sammida]

Very good thread. This kind of region would honestly be Great.

[Megaloceros]

I have been wanting a more oceanic map for quite a while, and this seems to do nicely!

I just had a thought that this could be an opportunity to add new wildlife to the game. 

Puffins was my first thought; some kind of iconic shore bird that you could potentially raid the nests of. Arctic Terns might also be cool to add, in that they are both very aggressive and also would only appear seasonally (though this could easily be ignored and explained away by the shifting geomagnetic conditions). 

Seals was the next. Harbor seals, as opposed to the truly arctic seals that would not frequent a boreal region such as this, are a clear choice in my mind. I wonder how seal hunting would work... I do not propose it would be easy, and certainly you would only be able to do it with seals that had come to rest on the shore. But seals seem like a natural thing to add, and could provide some useful materials (and at very least, some blubber to munch on!). 

I've added some pictures which I think fit well into the game's aesthetic. 

Great thread, keep it up!

[Glflegolas]

On 5/24/2021 at 2:00 PM, Sammida said:

Very good thread. This kind of region would honestly be Great.

Thanks, I really enjoyed drawing this map.

I've also drawn another related map. If you like this thread, you will likely enjoy this other map: