Sherri

Hi All, I created a video play-through of Episode 4 with no commentary or talking in case you want to see the episode without a steamer chatting. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOzTgtizJLPdXLN87UXgEFwG-zFvIetTE

Same reason will does ANYTHING for the convicts. They have something he wants. If he started shooting them... no case.

Jace's boss is Atwood - the name that the bearded Trapper (Jeremiah) told Mackenzie to find & tell them the key word "Wintermute". This episode literally connects the story's title, previous chapters, the case, Astrid & Perseverance Mills ... all together & makes things line up & answers several key questions: - What's in the case? Why should we care about it? - What's wrong with Perseverance Mills & why does Astrid want to go there so badly? - Who is Atwood? Where are they? - Where are all these convicts coming from who've been causing trouble across the island? - Is anyone looking into the aurora & trying to figure out what is happening? All answered. I can't believe people still aren't happy. 🤦‍♀️

I was able to keep both my sweaters on the left & everything on the right including ear wraps.

This 100%. I love that it matches how we as players have gained experience & confidence.

This is my complaint with SO MANY pc-to-console games. When I play Stardew Valley on Switch I have to drag a chair closer. 😭 And for Subnautica Below Zero, getting pin point aim without a mouse was so annoying I re-bought it for PC & am going to start over. Siiigh.

I've finished Episode 4 & I've sat down over a few days to write this review. I think it's important to share our praise and not just our complaints. Anyone who creates anything for the public knows - feedback is often skewed: angry people are motivated to complain more often than satisfied people are motivated to give appreciation. I am a lifelong gamer & TLD has been a light for me over the pandemic. I bought it on sale 2 summers ago & have never put this many hours into a game. Story mode is my favourite way to play & I've played chapters 1-3 twice so far & many more hours in sandbox. I eagerly awaited the next chapter... This was my favourite by far. And that is really saying something because playing as Astrid, rescuing people & finding supplies for all those survivors, looting the airplane... wow episode 3 was so very satisfying for me. But episode 4 feels like it has pulled together the skills that the Hinterland team has developed over the years. As others have said, the map is huge & varied. The locations are interesting. The minimal loading screens. The tense, high volumes of aggressive wildlife. The trees & mountains. The prison & its grounds! Wow! The new noisemaker adds a use for cans & a non-lethal wolf deterrant that is fun & a bit dangerous to use. It fits very well in the game theme & rounds out our toolkit. Something is UP with these wolves! For the first time I felt truly hunted. They came through gates to get at me. Multiple times I returned to areas where I forgot to close a door & yikes that was a mistake! A pack of 3 were *waiting for me* up the road & around the corner where the prison entrance is. I had put away my gun thinking I was a few steps from safety - surprise! Whatever was done to the wolf pathfinding was great. Others have said it already but the story, voice acting & cutscenes were riveting. When the gurney was wheeled out with the warden I audibly gasped & felt actual anger to the characters for killing him after all my efforts to get the medicine! The final scenes were incredible with some satisfying answers & new questions. The puzzles - steam pipes, gas mines & forest talkers cache & combo lock were head-scratchy enough that following the logic & finally solving them felt so GOOD. And like my actions had meaning & not just puzzles for the sake of puzzles. Of course this ancient facility has a patchwork of frozen pipes (I've seen messes like this in real life!). Of course a mine in an earthquake prone region has a bunch of escaped dangerous gasses. It didn't seem contrived to make me solve these things. I will add, the gas in the mine had me holding my breath in REAL LIFE! Gasping for air as I dove back down into the mist desperately searching for the next fresh air pocket! Absolutely awesome. Fumbling around as your vision goes fuzzy. The feeling of desperation as you have no clue what to do then slowly piece together the solution! 😍 And the sound effects! Oh my god. The grind of that old elevator. The tinny explosion of the noisemaker. The hiss of the steam. The rush of the river. The voice actors. The chain-link fence gates. Hats off to your foley artists & sound folks. This episode is sooo satisfying to the ears - I've always particularly loved the sound in this game. Can we also take a minute to appreciate the quality of life settings - harsh language & the eating sounds filters. Things that benefit few players but take extra effort. I remember Raph tweeting a while ago about how to replace certain swear words while keeping the dialog gritty. This team knew the swearing would put off some players & made efforts to accomodate. Even when a vocal minority was screaming at them to hurry up... they took time for these features. This episode - delivered through the harsh challenges of a pandemic & unknown stress & personal challenges this may have brought to the team - is a real triumph. Most of us know, we have not been our best selves through the last year & a half. Many of us have had kids home from school, arguments with family members, job uncertainty, illness, political stress & more. Of course the Hinterland team & their families have faced the same challenges. No one creates in a vaccuum. And yet, Hinterland pulled this off & placed it in our impatient hands this month & it feels like zero corners were cut. They delivered it to us knowing that just like with every new update or release... the nitpicking complaints will flow. Sure as the wind in TLD will blow opposite to the direction you need to travel. But most of us - fans of story mode or diehard sandbox players - if we divide the price we paid for the game by the number of hours we've logged, have been entertained for *pennies* per hour. Amazing. Despite being an avid gamer, I almost never follow a particular game company. But I will watch for whatever Hinterland puts out over the years to come. This has been one of the most enjoyable & satisfying games I have played since Half-Life & definitely the best value for dollar. Thank you Hinterland. Absolutely, unequivocally worth the wait. ❄️

Very well said - hear hear!! I agree completely with this review.

I always worry about submitting bug reports because I always assume that someone else has done it. 🤔 But none are showstoppers so. Maybe I'll report them if they happen again. Off the top of my head I've had: - Noisemaker "sticking" to the revolver so both appear equipped. - Yellow unread indicator on journal items doesn't clear when read. - A wolf stuck in the eating a rabbit animation but no rabbit.

How are you tilting things & hanging them on walls? A mod I assume?

Uhh what?

Wow! I've seen some uber violent PG-13 movies. Some priorities are outta whack here. 🙃

It would blow my mind if language is enough to give a game an M rating... but all the animal killing doesn't? I have no clue how game ratings work though. 🤷‍♀️

I find that going around the obvious path ( roads, tree lots, frozen ponds) allowed me to avoid many of the wolves. When you can't avoid them, one noise maker for regular wolves, 2 for Timberwolves will clear the region for about 5-10 real-world minutes. Enough to sprint through the area. I'm on medium difficulty & I'm swimming in ammo, flares & noisemakers.

Good points actually. Not so funny story... I was playing once & my kids were watching over my shoulder for a few minutes. I thought what harm could it be I'm just walking in the snow, I was sure no wolves in that area... and I walked right into a bear!! Almost tore my monitor apart trying to turn it off because you can't hit Esc in the middle of a bear mauling! 😭 Needless to say I learned that lesson the hard way! 🤦‍♀️ I do think think that if there isn't already a warning at the start of the episode - there should be. You make a good point that people are expecting a certain level of language based on past episodes & Episode 4 is drastically different. Sorry to hear that the filters don't catch it all. That's a bummer.

Honestly did not expect to see this discussion here. Anyone who follows the episode progress/news/teasers knows that we were heading to a *prison*. It would have been absolutely unbelievable if the prisoners weren't swearing up a storm. In a game where you can get graphically mauled by a bear - complete with screaming - a few cuss words has players upset? You can turn swearing OFF in the settings... or just realize that words can't hurt you. I don't think there is anything wrong with not liking harsh language, but criticising the game for including it is too much. -- Re kids: if your children are in school... they have heard swearing. In fact we took our kids to the park yesterday & there were other kids under 10 who were swearing. Made for a good moment to teach our kids (3 boys 9 & younger) about bad language - that it exists, it isn't nice & can hurt other people's feelings, etc. No sense hiding from reality.

That doesn't sound like Molly to me...

I would do the day after to let those launch-day hotfixes come out. 🤓

Eeeeeeeeeee! This is great. Really curious to see how it's going to work having to deal with human NPCs.

I've assumed that the rock storage things they added recently was a precursor to eventually having meat left in the snow, vanish or attract predators or something.

Given the geomagnetic issues in the game's story, I don't even try to navigate with compass directions. And it's always so stormy I can rarely see the sun anyway. I try to use landmarks instead to orient myself on the map. Funny because this is how I navigate in real life too - almost never via compass directions.

*raises shield* LOL. Feels like I'm constantly running across people who want a game to be something it's not.

Good grief. I'm looking over the TLD Steam page trying to figure out what gives people the impression that they won't have challenging survival mechanics to deal with including dangerous wildlife. 🤦‍♀️ It says it right on the 'box' folks. You might want to look into point-and-click, interactive-fiction or choice-based narrative game genres. Survival might not be your jam if the wolves & bear wreck the game for you or if you think they don't belong in the game. 😆🤷‍♀️ The bear gave me a headache for sure but damn it felt good to beat him!

Found this too.

Ralph dropped this on Twitter. 😍 So excited for a new, large indoor location to explore!