Hello community,

The teams been hard at work since the holidays, which we used to recover from finaling the massive December Redux release, and its time to update you on some of the things weve been doing in the meantime.


EPISODE THREE



The teams been working hard on Episode Three this year. Wed started work on it in 2018 and then put it aside to finish up Redux and work through all the tech and pipeline improvements we wanted to use for the remaining Episodes of WINTERMUTE. One of the first things we did after coming back from the holidays was re-evaluate our plans for Episode Three scope based on the lessons wed learned from building and shipping Redux.

A key lesson there was the importance of having enough gameplay and narrative content to fill the space of the game, to avoid the feeling of senseless backtracking or the world just feeling too empty, as it sometimes did in the 2017 Episode One and Two release. Building Redux provided a fresh perspective on how to better balance our narrative and survival experiences, as well as how to better write for narrative flow in our open-world survival experience. These key learnings let us review our plans for Episode Three to ensure we would hopefully avoid making some of the same mistakes wed made in the original 2017 releases, which we werent super happy with (and nor were many of you). Based on how we feel Redux turned out, and how you also seem to feel about the improvements, were confident were on a much stronger path now.

Building Redux also showed us that the ideal length for a WINTERMUTE episode is about 5-7 hours. This gives us enough time to present a few interesting story threads, some compelling open-world survival gameplay, and enough narrative momentum to keep the story moving. Its also an amount of content that feels substantial -- these arent throw-away one or two-hour experiences -- but they are compact enough that you can finish them in a weekend if you like.

In our original planning, we had considered building the episode around three major story hubs, each in a different region, but that episode would have ended up being larger than Episodes One and Two combined, and amount of content that just isnt sustainable for our team size. Just the testing on an episode that big would be a hugely daunting task, nevermind populating it with enough interesting narrative and mission content to fill the space. The Redux knowledge has helped us focus Episode Three down to a tighter experience that takes place in a single region.



Therefore, Episode Three is the story of Astrids survival after escaping Milton, and takes place entirely in Pleasant Valley. As you probably know, Pleasant Valley is a *huge* region, with a lot of scope for interesting environments and some great story moments. Weve been updating the region to freshen it up for the story, while adding some new landmarks and locations that are introduced in Episode Three. Im really excited about how its all coming together, particularly in how true to Astrids character and background the episode is.


COMMUNICATING FUTURE RELEASE DATES

As you know, hitting publicly announced release dates has never been our strong suit.

As an independent studio without a huge marketing machine behind us, we count on our relationship with our community to be positive so that youll help us spread the word about the work were doing. We know we harm this relationship when we promise to deliver things to you and then, for whatever reason, they fail to happen.

Unfortunately, project planning and game development as a whole is not an exact science, and while we are ready to work really hard to hit our goals, Im not willing to crunch my team to do so. In order to be more fair to the community, and also more fair to the development team, I think the best approach for us is to refrain from offering any more public release dates.

So, moving forward, we wont publish release dates around any of our content, whether that be full Episodes or Survival Mode updates. Well keep working towards internal deadlines, of course, but we wont share news on when we plan to ship updates until those updates are essentially finished. That way, when you hear a release date from us, you know it will happen.


SPLITTING THE TEAM

One of the things weve been working towards this year, with the development team, is hiring enough people with the right skills to be able to create two separate teams -- one to focus on Survival, and the other to focus on Story. Weve made some great progress towards that goal and were getting very close to having all the people we need to accomplish that. Once were there, itll become easier for us to make consistent progress in both areas of the game, so that we can ensure a more steady supply of free Survival updates, as well as ensuring the Episodes get the resources they need. We still have a few positions to hire for to have full redundancy across both teams, but Im hopeful well get there within the next few months. If you know any great developers with experience crafting memorable and award-winning interactive experiences, please send them to our careers page!


SURVIVAL MODE UPDATE

Last year, we put a ton of effort into Redux and solidifying our foundation for the future Episodes, so this year were working to get back on track with producing more frequent Survival Mode updates. To that end, were working on a bunch of new features and content for the 2019 Survival releases. As per my earlier point about release dates, we wont be sharing any tentative release windows for the next Survival release, but I will say that weve already done a fair bit of work on the new systems and content that will comprise the core of the next free update.





A few things were working on for the next Survival update include:

• Adding the Revolver to Survival Mode.
  
• Overhaul of the aiming mechanics for the Rifle, Bow, etc., to do a better job of integrating Fatigue and the breathing cycle, and making aiming less frustrating.
  
• Adding a new Food item.
  
• Adding a new Clothing item.
  
• Fixing the Sprains system.
  
• ...and more!