December 2023 Dev Diary

[Admin]

Hello Survivors,

Just a quick message to bring the end of the year to a close. In my November Dev Diary and in the recent update video for TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY, Part Four, I promised to post one last message before the end of the year, and that it would include an Episode Five teaser.

So today I’m happy to share the title reveal for Episode Five:

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF ALL THINGS is the final episode of WINTERMUTE, our story mode, and it brings to a conclusion the story of Mackenzie and Astrid, the hard case, Perseverance Mills, and the mysterious aurora. 

You’ve waited many years for this, and we’re excited to get to the point where we can share this last, most ambitious episode of the story to date. It won’t be the end of THE LONG DARK, but it’ll be the end of this major arc of the story. 

Episode Five is slated for release in late 2024, so we won’t be saying too much more about it in the near-term, but expect us to release more details over the course of next year in the lead up to launch.

A couple more things while I have your attention…

We haven’t had much news to share about the Switch version of TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY to date. I want to assure you that the team is working on this, and our current goal is to release it — with Parts One to Four, and all the free updates included with those Parts — by the end of April 2024. After that, Parts Five and Six of TALES will likely trail the other platforms by up to a month, based on the 4-week minimum certification time required by Nintendo. We’ll share more details about how that’s going some time in February.

And finally, a small reminder that Hinterland will be closed for winter holidays from December 22nd to January 8th, to give the team a chance to rest up for the year ahead. Please note that community and support folks will still be monitoring our various channels, but that response times will be reduced over the holidays. So please be patient when reporting bugs or issues to our Support portal, or in our forums or social channels.

On behalf of the entire team at Hinterland, I wish you a safe and happy winter holiday with your loved ones. And all the best for 2024. Our thoughts are particularly with those members of our player community who are living through hardship and suffering this season, in many different parts of the world.

Until next year!

– Raphael

[Leeanda]

Thank you for all the hard work you've all put in to the game  this year...

I hope you all have a happy and peaceful Christmas and new year..

🎄☃️💗

[deviro_verity]

Thank you for the amazing year of content!

(The tweet said this included a teaser for TFTFT Pt 5 btw 🧐)

[stratvox]

First off, top of the season to all you folks. 

Now on to the real nut graf: Would it be irresponsible to speculate? It'd be irresponsible not to!

1. Those trawls on the sailing ship look interesting, like they might be being energized by the CMEs that cause these auroras.
2. Also, looking at the terrain, does this mean that they end up north of the tree line? That seems hard to credit as the tree line is north of where the BC coast ends and the Alaskan coast begins... a long way north of there. And yet...
3. Is that a fire burning on the shore, or is it a fumarole or geyser of some kind? Will there be new terrain hazards?

I will say I'm looking forward to the region, and I hope it also makes it into survival; exploring the sailing vessel could be very very cool... though I'd also not be surprised to find that the sail vessel's not in survival if in fact Will and Astrid sail off into the aurora together... also cool would be to find a ruined version of the vessel on the shores of Perseverance Mills; after all, survival mode is some years after story, giving lots of scope about how/where things end up.

[Admin]

18 minutes ago, Max21 said:

"We haven’t had much news to share about the Switch version of TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY to date. I want to assure you that the team is working on this, and our current goal is to release it — with Parts One to Four, and all the free updates included with those Parts — by the end of April 2024. After that, Parts Five and Six of TALES will likely trail the other platforms by up to a month, based on the 4-week minimum certification time required by Nintendo. We’ll share more details about how that’s going some time in February."

I didn't understand what they were trying to say. Please explain. It says here that the update from part 1 to part 4 will be released before the end of April 2024. But the updates have already been released.

This is specific to Switch console version of TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY. 

[Valuable Hunting Knife]

oh my god- that poster!!!

and also this:  It won’t be the end of THE LONG DARK, but it’ll be the end of this major arc of the story. 

One very happy hunting knife!

is that a latin phrase written on the boat?  the British flag also raises a lot of questions... woo hoo!

Edited December 20, 2023 by Valuable Hunting Knife
more stuff

[xanna]

Happy holidays Raphael, and the whole team. Hope you have a wonderful break and can forget all about TLD for a bit!

[Dan_]

Thank you so much for the update and all the hard work you folks put in this year. Tales made this an amazing TLD year for me and I'm very grateful we'll be able to finally give wintermute the amazing send-off it deserves next year. Can't wait for Tales parts five and six!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! 

 

[Adamo]

Excellent news re the Switch thank you  

[Fuarian]

1 hour ago, stratvox said:

First off, top of the season to all you folks. 

Now on to the real nut graf: Would it be irresponsible to speculate? It'd be irresponsible not to!

1. Those trawls on the sailing ship look interesting, like they might be being energized by the CMEs that cause these auroras.
2. Also, looking at the terrain, does this mean that they end up north of the tree line? That seems hard to credit as the tree line is north of where the BC coast ends and the Alaskan coast begins... a long way north of there. And yet...
3. Is that a fire burning on the shore, or is it a fumarole or geyser of some kind? Will there be new terrain hazards?

I will say I'm looking forward to the region, and I hope it also makes it into survival; exploring the sailing vessel could be very very cool... though I'd also not be surprised to find that the sail vessel's not in survival if in fact Will and Astrid sail off into the aurora together... also cool would be to find a ruined version of the vessel on the shores of Perseverance Mills; after all, survival mode is some years after story, giving lots of scope about how/where things end up.

Those trawls are electricified.. idk how that works. Fishing nets are usually made of high insulating materials that don't conduct electricity. Could be the salt water but I doubt that. I was thinking they looked like an automated rowing system but on a ship that old, idk how that makes sense. It's a steam ship so it wouldn't need that to propel. Not sure what's going on there. 

That terrain could just be minimalistic for the poster. But it does look like there's a campfire and campsite there, if you zoom in you can see vague structures that look like tents. It almost looks like a Native American village, which makes me wonder if this poster shot is a flashback to when Great Bear was colonized. But I highly doubt that given the above.

[stratvox]

23 minutes ago, Fuarian said:

I was thinking they looked like an automated rowing system but on a ship that old, idk how that makes sense. It's a steam ship so it wouldn't need that to propel.

One thing is that after the event, steam engines would be able to continue working as they have no electrical systems of any kind, unlike ICEs. Resurrecting an old steam converted three-masted schooner would make a lot of sense if you're looking to travel places.

[Valuable Hunting Knife]

9 minutes ago, stratvox said:

One thing is that after the event, steam engines would be able to continue working as they have no electrical systems of any kind, unlike ICEs. Resurrecting an old steam converted three-masted schooner would make a lot of sense if you're looking to travel places.

Great shout- maybe an old museum ship from the North West Passage exploration period, docked up in Perseverance Mills?  I'm getting big Erebus & Terror vibes here...

Edited December 20, 2023 by Valuable Hunting Knife
missed a bit out

[ajb1978]

Hard to believe it's been 10 years already!

[hozz1235]

Thanks for the update.  It's been a great year!

[piddy3825]

Thanks for the heads up.  I'm now resigned to waiting another year for the completion of story mode.  Honestly, I was hoping to see something a lot sooner,
but I guess you can't rush inspiration and creativity.

[Yjorgen]

Late 2024? That's a three year gap between episodes and that's if we're honestly supposed to believe there aren't going to be any extra delays.

[artmunki]

I honestly thought the DLC was gonna have 5 chapters like the story, but I'll very happily take 6! My guess would be that the next part will bring base customisation and the camera/darkroom, then in the final part we'll get that fateful Mountain Pass, where we'll find the trader (whatever that turns out to be). And of course the cougar ... not sure which part that's more likely to show up in. Mountain Pass seems most obvious, but it might be nice to have the chance to get used to its behaviour a little before we tackle what's probably gonna be a challenging new region. And then, all going well, we can round off the year by finally tying off the story and sailing off into the aurora with Will and Astrid. Definitely works for me!

But a very heartfelt congrats to the whole team on giving us all such a fun-filled year on Great Bear Island, and I'm sure we're all eagerly looking forward to what you have in store for us in the new year. Enjoy your holiday, then come back and put us through cold hell some more.

 

Oh, and ....

7 hours ago, Admin said:

 It won’t be the end of THE LONG DARK, but it’ll be the end of this major arc of the story.

I don't think I could've hoped for better TLD news to end the year on. Fantastic! 

[Glacia]

Thanks for the effort and happy holidays everyone! 

[Enigmaecho]

44 minutes ago, piddy3825 said:

Thanks for the heads up.  I'm now resigned to waiting another year for the completion of story mode.  Honestly, I was hoping to see something a lot sooner,
but I guess you can't rush inspiration and creativity.

I think we should be happy that it has been in development so long and I think people often forget just how involved the story of wintermute actually is, there is Jeremiah’s story arc with code word wintermute and finding Atwood, learning more potentially about Methuselah, the end of Mathis’ story, the hard case, reuniting Astrid and Mack, figuring out what the case was for, the quarantine and then whatever happens after all that to wrap up the wintermute story, they might even have to split it into multiple parts to have wills pov getting to Astrid and Astrid pov until will arrived and then playing one or the other to finish out the story. I really really hope that it ends up split in multiple regions like episode 2 and that within Perseverance Mills we finally find Rupert’s Landing that Jeremiah spoke of in the preredux story mode 

[conanjaguar]

6 hours ago, Valuable Hunting Knife said:

is that a latin phrase written on the boat?

*geek mode engaged* I believe so… to me it looks like “In Tenebris”, which roughly translates to “In [the] Darkness.”

But I’m really not sure, that fourth letter could just as easily be a “T” and the last few are just completely blurry, to my eyes at least.

Edited December 21, 2023 by conanjaguar

[ManicManiac]

Thank you, Hinterland!

I for one am glad to wait for as long as it takes... I always have been.
Whether looking back at the previous Episodes, "REDUX" Improvements, Survival Mode Updates, Overhauls, DLC, Challenges, Special Events, etc... all have been well worth the wait, and I think that Episode 5 (along with remainder of Tales From the Far Territory) will be every bit as worth it also.

I respect so much that Raph (and Hinterland as a whole) have always been so candid with us and put in so much effort to give us the best game/experience they can craft.  As far as I'm concerned, they've never let me down... and I think they've more than earned all the support we can give them. 

I've been a stalwart player of The Long Dark since the later part of 2014, and I know I will be for years to come.

🎄🎄
I hope everyone at Hinterland enjoys their holidays and well-earned rest. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by ManicManiac
Fixed Errors and Edited for Clarity

[Africanboi7]

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays @Admin! Thanks for all the hard work this year. It's been an amazing year for TLD.  Enjoy the Christmas break. Really looking forward to what's to come next year. 

[Laika Ivanova]

It's great to hear that active support for this game doesn't seem to be ending even after the end of episode 5. There's so much potential the game still has.

[piddy3825]

5 hours ago, Enigmaecho said:

I think we should be happy that it has been in development so long and I think people often forget just how involved the story of wintermute actually is, there is Jeremiah’s story arc with code word wintermute and finding Atwood, learning more potentially about Methuselah, the end of Mathis’ story, the hard case, reuniting Astrid and Mack, figuring out what the case was for, the quarantine and then whatever happens after all that to wrap up the wintermute story, they might even have to split it into multiple parts to have wills pov getting to Astrid and Astrid pov until will arrived and then playing one or the other to finish out the story. I really really hope that it ends up split in multiple regions like episode 2 and that within Perseverance Mills we finally find Rupert’s Landing that Jeremiah spoke of in the preredux story mode 

I've been hooked on the story since I played the first original episodes and subsequently have been waiting for more ever since.  And now that we're this close,
I just really can't wait to see how the story unfolds.  

[Atanatar]

Thank you @Raphael van Lierop and the whole Hinterland team . Wishing you marry christmas and happy new year. See you in the COntamination Zone :)