Who are you?

[FaT McMarlin]

Spoiler

In one of Rudigers notes he talks about some one with the initials E.W.  They lived a hundred years ago. Has anyone got an idea on who this is? 

 

[ElSuperGecko]

Only theories at the moment I think - check out the latest video on ToastyBits channel on YouTube

[FaT McMarlin]

1 hour ago, ElSuperGecko said:

Only theories at the moment I think - check out the latest video on ToastyBits channel on YouTube

I didn't know they had already done a video on it!!!!! I love the deep dive into the lore they do

[Veskaida]

12 hours ago, FaT McMarlin said:

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In one of Rudigers notes he talks about some one with the initials E.W.  They lived a hundred years ago. Has anyone got an idea on who this is? 

 

It's impossible to know for certain without more information:

• The Long Dark's narrative design heavily favors open information and unanswered mysteries. Initials were used in this case deliberately to keep this vague.
• Tales is meant to be a stand-alone story from Wintermute, so Episode 5 will likely not contain much/any relevant information (just as Wintermute didn't seem to have any connections to TFTFT aside from

Spoiler

possibly some throw-away lines from Jeremiah in Episode 2 about "military signal repeaters".

• "Tales" is now mostly complete, with likely with no further Tales development (except bug fixes) with the coming TFTFT Part 6 content drop in the later half of 2024. So we'll likely not get no more information about any of the characters/places/events involved in Tales, unless Hinterlands chooses to reveal that or they appear in subsequent Hinterlands projects.

11 hours ago, ElSuperGecko said:

Only theories at the moment I think - check out the latest video on ToastyBits channel on YouTube

I don't think the YouTuber "ToastyBits" created this theory, but are instead citing other user(s) posts from the Hinterlands forum and Steam forum. Here is a link to the that video, about this theory.

And here is a link to the person speculated in this theory:

Spoiler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Wiechert

I think this is an alright theory, and agree with all of the points in the video: it seems reasonable given (what little) information was presented about this element. But either way I don't think it affects the story much, and it's also impossible to know without more information/confirmation. The Long Dark seems to take place in our timeline, or an Earth like it with a fictional "Great Bear Island". But just because that is the case and e.g. assuming 'our timeline and TLD's timeline splits in the 1960's' doesn't mean than everything/everyone which happened before the 1960's is identical. Other fictional settings like the "Fallout" universe use narrative systems like this frequently, where events/timelines are 'similar', but not like some singular Terminator or Back To The Future-esque event happened and 'that' is where all the differences take place between our reality and a fictional one, so it's wild speculation.

So it's possible that this is a real-world person, or a fictional character like everyone else in The Long Dark's setting this far. So we don't even know that definitively, we just don't have enough information. It's all speculation and that was a deliberate narrative choice by the writer(s) of Tales.

Edited July 2 by Veskaida

[conanjaguar]

13 hours ago, Veskaida said:

So it's possible that this is a real-world person, or a fictional character like everyone else in The Long Dark's setting this far.

It could also possibly an Easter Egg referencing someone on the Hinterland team, or maybe a TLD backer? But yeah, there's not much to go on based on just two letters.

[Veskaida]

10 hours ago, conanjaguar said:

It could also possibly an Easter Egg referencing someone on the Hinterland team, or maybe a TLD backer? But yeah, there's not much to go on based on just two letters.

That's a good point. It could be an easter egg, developer reference/tribune. There are many existing easter eggs and dev references in TLD already: especially names of locations (e.g. Katie's Secluded Corner, Eric's Falls), Stacy's Grape Soda, and photographs in houses in Coastal Highway.

I don't find any of these likely however.

• Backer Content: There is no tier benefit for for TFTFT content and all backer-related content was added to TLD years ago, and all Backer content (in-game notes and Cairns)has been unchanged for years (minus a graphical update to cairns with new higher-res textures and wind physics). Yes, most Cairns are still placeholders ("It's story is not yet written"), but no new Cairns have been added since Timberwolf Mountain I believe.
• Tribune: (far as I'm aware) There is no "Make a Wish Foundation"-style tribune/content in The Long Dark. e.g. like "Ahab Wheathoof" from "World of Warcraft". So if it is a tribune then it seems non-public.
• Easter Egg: No in-game photographs since ~2018 have included IRL references: all new since then photos (far as I can tell) are in-universe artwork (e.g. photos on the walls in Vacant Depot, Transfer Pass), not photo-manipulated IRL media in older TLD content (e.g. of Stacy Hinojosa ("Stacy Plays") or Hinterlands staff/family photos from hanging on the walls in Coastal Highway). 'Maybe' some names on the tombstones in Redux Episode 1 are Hinterlands developers/easter eggs/tribunes.

If it was something as simple/silly as an Easter Egg, I'd hope it would be relegated to non-critical content. e.g. the "Mystery Lake" region was named "Clarence's Lake", or "Will Mackenzie" was an IRL staffer at Hinterlands Studios/family member/their dog/etc. I think that would be pretty jarring and immersion breaking, even if most players wouldn't get the reference. Current references/easter eggs are generally relegated to location's name at most, or an item's name, or doodad (photo, 'maybe' tombstone).

If any of these were true for this TFTFT name, I would be pretty disappointment that a narrative-focused DLC major character/reference would be something so trite or disconnected from the story. Because I feel this way, and I think TFTFT's objectives as a narrative DLC are so clear, I do not believe that Hinterlands would do something so likely to risk upsetting players. I also do not believe this is backer-content since that would be very unfair for Hinterlands to single out one backer in such a manner for unique reward(s), if that was not specifically announced ahead or as a tier benefit.

I think the only thing we can determine based on what is said, is that this is a human in-universe. Not an animal/person/place/idea etc. given what is said about them. Given what we know about TLD's setting and what was said, I also don't think it's a robot, AI, aliens, etc.

I think it is most credible that these initials are:

• Real-World Person: which Raphael van Lierop or another narrative designer thought was relevant to TFTFT's story/characters and wanted to reference, but wanted to leave as a mystery/partial mystery.
• In-Universe Character: a fictional character from the world of The Long Dark, which may/may not be based on a real-world person, and which we may/may not ever learn more about. Based on what Raph has said, public hiring activity by Hinterlands, and rumors I believe that Hinterlands is developing 1-2 projects (likely games) alongside The Long Dark currently. If one of these is a sequel/prequel/or takes place in the same setting as The Long Dark, it may be possible that we could learn more about this character in a future installment.

Personally though I do not think these initials matter that much. If it was essential information critical to understanding/appreciating The Long Dark or TALES, then I would hope it would be more transparent about who they are/why they matter. I think Rüdiger tells us some of the latter, but since the prior was omitted by Hinterlands clearly it wasn't essential since this is the final TALES.

Edited July 3 by Veskaida