The Long Dark ALPHA v298

We’ve added a whole new region to the game, called Timberwolf Mountain. It’s the purest wilderness environment in the game to date, a mountainous expanse with almost no “man-made” shelters present. It’s the perfect environment to test the new Rope Climbing gameplay.

Timberwolf Mountain is full of steep cliffs and ravines, and the only routes to the summit require you climb ropes to get to the top. Balance your Fatigue and Stamina, and hope you can make it to the top before you begin to slip. Falling may result in injuries you never recover from. Getting to the top may lead to life-saving resources, but do you have the stamina to get there? Choose wisely.

Not much in this game can deter a Bear that’s…bearing down on you. But the new Distress Pistol will do exactly that. It’s pretty effective at scaring off hostile wildlife, in general, but it’s the only surefire way to keep a bear at bay. Unfortunately, it’s very rare — unique, in fact. Finding it may take its toll.

We now display detailed stats for your current in-progress Sandbox games. Days Survived, Average Calories Per Day, Distance Travelled, % World Explored, and Can Openers Found are just a sample of the nearly 50+ gameplay statistics we’re currently tracking.

The Survival Log now keeps track of your Daily Activity, places you visit, afflictions or injuries you suffer from, your overall Condition, etc. You can also leave notes for yourself—about each day, or in general. A handy tool, for everything from remembering where you left that stash of supplies, to recounting a daily history of your current Sandbox game. We hope to make these Log entries shareable in the future!

It’s never made a lot of sense that you could maintain a Knife, Hatchet, or Rifle indefinitely by repairing it using Scrap Metal and Wood, so we’ve introduced a new method of maintaining your Tools: Rifle Cleaning Kit, and Sharpening Stone. They can both be used to keep their respective tools in good repair, but at some point you’ll still need to turn to hand-made alternatives.

We’ve improved Rifle aiming by adding a small aim circle to the iron-sights, to help you zero in on targets. Fatigue now has an impact on your accuracy, by introducing a subtle sway that increases as you become more tired. Low Rifle Condition introduces the chance of the Rifle jamming after a shot.

Trees, branches, grass, and reeds are now all affected by wind speed and direction.

We put the aim dot back on the Bow to offer a bit of aiming help, though the dot still disappears when you go into Aim mode. We’ve also added some archery targets to the world, giving you the opportunity to practice with the Survival Bow, so you can be ready when it really counts.

The Stag has a new model and an entirely new animation set. An updated Bear will be coming soon.

We’ve updated the Condition indicators to only appear on the HUD when you really need to see them. This reduces overall visual noise, upholds our minimalist UI philosophy, but ensures that when you see these indicators in the HUD, you know you need to act on them.

We’ve improved the Sandbox menu, to make it easier for players to manage their Sandbox games.

For a long time now, you’ve only been able to access regions outside of Mystery Lake (the starting region) after you’d found them through regular gameplay. But gameplay stats informed us that up to 75% of you never get out of Mystery Lake, and so you miss most of the world we’ve made for you! To fix this, we’re unlocking all regions directly from the Sandbox menu, so you can pick any as a starting location for a new Sandbox game. We’ll be tracking things post-update to see how this change affects gameplay behaviours, but we believe this will be a positive change!

* Added new region: Timberwolf Mountain.* Added Rope Climbing gameplay.* Added Distress Pistol tool/weapon.* Added Stats Screen that tracks current and historical Sandbox game data.* Added Player Log that tracks locations explored, general status, and allows for players to write/edit Journal entries.* Added Rifle Cleaning Kit tool, and Rifle maintenance gameplay.* Added Sharpening Stone tool, and bladed tool maintenance gameplay.* Added Sharpening Stones and Rifle Cleaning Kits to all Sandbox regions. Added spawning logic to ensure they spawn in old save games.* Added Rifle Jamming.* Added Fatigue-driven Rifle sway.* Added pre-Aim reticle back to Bow.* Added on-screen indicators for all types of damage.* Added variant of Ice Fishing Hut that has flimsy door to provide shelter from wind.* Updated Caves directly connected to the world so their interior temperature is modified by the exterior temperature, vs. a static temperature trigger.* Added new Death, Near Neath, and Region music.* Added some new landmarks in Pleasant Valley to help with the navigation to Timberwolf Mountain.* Updated Wind system to affect trees, branches, grass, and reeds.* Updated Stag model and animations, including carcasses.* Updated Condition HUD indicators, to only appear when sub-conditions are critical.* Updated the Stamina Bar to more clearly indicate when the player cannot sprint due to injuries, exhaustion, etc.* Updated Location text labels.* Updated the names of some of the “transition” regions, to give them a unique identity.* Updated the Sandbox menu for improved usability.* Updated Low Health screen effects to better communicate critical health status.* Unlocked all playable Regions from the Sandbox menu. The player may now select any of the available regions without needing to find those locations through gameplay.

[*] * Fixed issue with mountains being rendered in front of chain-link fence in Pleasant Valley.* Fixed issue where barrel smoke would be visible after re-equipping a holstered Rifle.* [PC/Xbox] Fixed potential clipping of sun/moon above the line of the horizon.

* Fixed issue where mouse could occasionally exit the active game window.* Fixed issue where gamepad input was being received when game not in focus.* Fixed issue with excessive GPU usage when game not in focus.

* Fixed issue where players would be able to accidentally set fires under themselves (leading to injury or death).* Fixed issue where player could respawn inside rocks after falling through ice.* Fixed issue where one of each relevant raw material item would remain after crafting an item.* Fixed issue where 0-calorie food items could be returned to inventory.* Fixed issue with Coal sometimes spawning in air.* Fixed issue where the Rifle could be reloaded while in Aim mode.* Fixed issue where Rifle could be fired after reloaded Aim was never released.* Fixed issue where Rifle aiming was out of alignment with the iron sights.* Fixed issue with not being able to break down respawned Hardwood and Softwood Limbs* Fixed issue with breakable objects respawning after being broken down outdoors.* Fixed rare black screen crash when harvesting a carcass with near zero meat* Fixed issue with getting kicked out of vehicle when trying to place objects.* Fixed issue with snare being put into trap mode when unset snare moved around.* Fixed issue where branches/sticks/limbs would sometimes not spawn in areas they should.* Fixed issue where animal corpses outdoors would thaw if the player was inside a sheltered location.* Fixed issue where the Improvised Knife, Improvised Hatchet, Hammer, and Prybar, could not be used to clear Ice Fishing holes.* Fixed issue where Arrows would become very large when hitting certain surfaces.

* Fixed rare crash in old games when saved during certain Moon phases.* Fixed issue where if the survivor had a sprained wrist, a where a weapon would be re-equipped after loading the game.* [Xbox Only] Fixed issue where players could play without being signed in to an Xbox profile, which would result in losing game progress when the console was turned off.

* Fixed issue where players required an extra night to get the Night Walker achievement.* Fixed issue where creating Reishi and Rosehip tea invalidated the Living Off The Land achievement.

* Fixed issue where the game could crash when opening cans in the Cooking UI.* Fixed issue where it was not possible to Cancel Cooking or Opening Cans actions.* Fixed issue where Crafting buttons were visible while Crafting action was underway.* Fixed issue where a burned out Torch could still be used to start a fire.* Fixed issue with LMB+RMB causing placed objects to blur and be placed in the air.* Fixed issue where the Inventory action label for Matches displayed “Equip” instead of “Strike”, as they must be used from first-person view.* Fixed issue where the Main Menu would occasionally fade out when on a secondary menu layer.

* Fixed issues where audio could become distorted or muted when using Alt-Tab.* Fixed issue where wind audio could sometimes disappear in Desolation Point.* Removed error noises when triggering boil water/melt snow.* Fixed issue with torch audio continuing to loop after harvesting a lit torch.* Fixed issue where Mouse adjustment sliders in the Options Menu would not trigger a sound.* [Xbox Only] Fixed issue where audio could occasionally stutter for streaming sounds.