The third episode of snowy survival sandbox The Long Dark‘s story marketing campaign is because of launch in December, builders Hinterland Studio introduced final evening, alongside revamped variations of its first two. Hinterland are making the opening chapters much less linear, see, to replicate the deliberate construction of episode 3 – and deal with some criticism. Our episode 2 review specifically took subject with the linear quest construction compelled on sandbox survival, which nonetheless felt needlessly like a tutorial – and sometimes an irritating tutorial. So roll on December, convey the snow and the howl, make this entire recreation deep and crisp and even.
“In Episode Three, you’ll play as Dr. Astrid Greenwood, and the story picks up in the aftermath of the events of Milton, as experienced from Mackenzie’s point of view in Episode One,” recreation director Raphael van Lierop mentioned in last night’s announcement. “You’ll meet new survivors, explore a new region, and find out more about the events prior to, and after, the First Flare event that engulfed Great Bear Island — and perhaps the rest of the world — into ‘the long dark’.”
As for the Redux variations, Raph van Lierop defined again in February:
“In terms of the openness of our mission structure — it was always our intention that things would open up and become less linear in Episode Three, and beyond, but after considering the feedback about Episodes One and Two, I felt that making the player go through 15-20 hours of fairly linear missions so that they could get to Episode Three’s more open structure, was asking too much of them. So, one of the things we’ve done is go back to the Episode One and Two mission structures and work on opening them up, so that most missions can be done in any order, and some missions — like Jeremiah’s Survival School — will become optional.”
The ‘Redux’ variations will even shift cinematics to a first-person view, and convey voices for all NPC dialogue. They’ll change sufficient that mid-game saves gained’t carry over from the unique variations, although Hinterland hope that sufficient has modified and been added that folks will need to revisit them on this new gentle. Apparently the bear that saved consuming Pip’s footwear has been reworked too.
