A look at the first details and teaser trailer for The Long Dark's upcoming Story Mode. View this email in your browser The Long Dark: Story Mode Details Revealed We’re excited to share our plans for the Spring 2016 launch of The Long Dark Story Mode. Your support has been incredible, as well as your belief in the spirit of independent games, Hinterland Studio, and of course The Long Dark itself. From everyone on the team—thank you!



In 2014, many of you were among the first to see the game’s Sandbox Mode. Now we’re ready to outline The Long Dark’s next stage of development. With the first part of Story Mode’s Season One launching in Spring 2016, the entirety of Season One will be released episodically over the remainder of the year. Players will take on the dual roles of bush pilot Will Mackenzie, and Dr. Astrid Greenwood, as they both struggle to survive the aftermath of the “First Flare” event, which has brought modern civilization to its knees. If you haven't already seen it, here's a look at our first official teaser: https://youtu.be/XzxD7VFVrCw Our plans for the Spring launch and post-launch content are as follows: At launch, The Long Dark will include both the first part of Season One of Story Mode, and the Sandbox Mode. The Story Mode content launching in the Spring will amount to 3-4 hours of gameplay. This is in addition to the 100s of hours of gameplay available in the freeform Sandbox mode that you’ve helped us refine over more than a year.

The remainder of Season One will be released in additional 2-3 hour episodes over the course of 2016, until the Season One story arc is complete. The expected play time for the entire Season One Story Mode is between 10-12 hours.

The core gameplay mechanics of Story Mode are derived from the Sandbox, though specifically tuned for narrative gameplay. Story Mode replaces the Sandbox’s permadeath with a progress-based save system.

Story Mode will launch with two large features currently unavailable in the Sandbox: Survivors, and The Aurora. Although Story Mode will use much of the existing Sandbox game world, about 25-30% of the Story Mode world will be entirely new areas.

All Kickstarter backers own the game already and will receive the Season One Story Mode content automatically as it is unlocked. No additional purchase is necessary. This also applies to players that have purchased the game prior to the launch of story mode as part of Steam’s Early Access program, or XBox One’s Game Preview.





“After keeping our community in the dark about our plans for Story Mode, we’re thrilled to finally be able to reveal some details of what we’ve been working on alongside the over 75 updates we’ve made to Sandbox Mode over the last year,” said van Lierop. “Our success on Early Access proved there’s an audience for a more thoughtful survival experience, and the resources we’ve been able to invest in the game will help us pursue our ambitions around storytelling as we continue to expand this world. We see a bright future for The Long Dark, and are committed to a long-term relationship with our players.”



In addition to Story Mode details, we want to emphasize our ongoing commitment to the free-form, non-narrative Sandbox Mode. “Our original plan with Sandbox was to use it solely as a gameplay test-bed for Story Mode, and shut it down at launch,” said van Lierop. “We’ve discovered that Sandbox offers a completely different experience, highly beloved by our players, and it deserves to continue to exist in its own right. So we plan to continue updating Sandbox with more features and content, expanding the foundation of our core exploration-survival experience, in parallel with our work on Story Mode.”



We’ll have more information for you on The Long Dark in the coming months. In the meantime, please feel free to have a look at the



Happy Holidays!

The Hinterland Team We’d also like to share with you a few words from Hinterland founder and creative director, Raphael van Lierop:“After keeping our community in the dark about our plans for Story Mode, we’re thrilled to finally be able to reveal some details of what we’ve been working on alongside the over 75 updates we’ve made to Sandbox Mode over the last year,” said van Lierop. “Our success on Early Access proved there’s an audience for a more thoughtful survival experience, and the resources we’ve been able to invest in the game will help us pursue our ambitions around storytelling as we continue to expand this world. We see a bright future for The Long Dark, and are committed to a long-term relationship with our players.”In addition to Story Mode details, we want to emphasize our ongoing commitment to the free-form, non-narrative Sandbox Mode. “Our original plan with Sandbox was to use it solely as a gameplay test-bed for Story Mode, and shut it down at launch,” said van Lierop. “We’ve discovered that Sandbox offers a completely different experience, highly beloved by our players, and it deserves to continue to exist in its own right. So we plan to continue updating Sandbox with more features and content, expanding the foundation of our core exploration-survival experience, in parallel with our work on Story Mode.”We’ll have more information for you on The Long Dark in the coming months. In the meantime, please feel free to have a look at the changelist and video for our newest update, Timberwolf Mountain. And, as always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions: info@hinterlandgames.com Happy Holidays!The Hinterland Team

