Raphael van Lierop on the Cougar 2.0, the Trader & the future of The Long Dark

Tales from the Far Territory, the first ever paid expansion for The Long Dark, launched on December 5, 2022. Two years later Hinterland Studio is ready to ship Part Six, the final piece of the puzzle and one of the most groundbreaking updates the game has received in its decade-long run. After sharing details about this update in an October developer diary, I reached out to Hinterland Founder and Creative Director, Raphael van Lierop, to try and shake out some additional details about what players can expect. We talked about the Cougar 2.0, the Trader, photo mode, and the future of The Long Dark.

Shacknews: The Cougar makes its return with Part Six of Tales from the Far Territory. How is the team feeling about the 2.0 version of this highly anticipated predator?

Raphael: I think we feel pretty good about it. Some amount of nervousness just based on the strong reaction to the first iteration. But we took the feedback on board and the team worked hard to come up with something that was closer to what our players were looking for without compromising our own vision for the role we want the Cougar to play in the overall wildlife ecosystem in the game. I think we've hit the sweet spot between the Cougar being an active presence in the world, but also something that is reactive to the player and very threatening in its own right. We're excited to see how players feel about it when they feel its presence in their games.
 
Shacknews: The Trader is a fascinating addition to The Long Dark. Will this person be a physical presence in the game world or strictly a voice on the radio? Any hints on some of the new items exclusively available through the Trader?

Raphael: The Trader is the first other human presence that players will encounter in Survival Mode so we've approached this very cautiously, knowing it will feel a bit shocking for some of our long-time fans. We went through a lot of different versions of the Trader, the mechanics around it, their backstory and how they would interact with the player, and settled on something I'm really happy with and I think our players will appreciate. It was a tough balance to make the Trader feel like they inhabit the world, without making them too in your face, or like they are somehow encroaching on your solitude. The approach we settled on has the Trader feeling very much a part of the world, a natural part of the IP, and we're excited to see how players feel about developing a relationship with the Trader over time. 

In terms of the Trade items, it's a mix of existing rare items but also several new items that can only be obtained through the Trader, including different foods, ingredients, and even some new tools. As you build Trust with the Trader, you'll gain access to a deeper story with them that will help you learn a bit more about Great Bear Island and some of their own story from before the First Flare. They may eventually ask you to help them out with specific tasks that have greater rewards attached. We think the system offers a good blend of mechanics and narrative, building on lessons we learned creating the three Tales.

Shacknews: Safehouse Customization is going to dominate my attention in The Long Dark. Since nothing on Great Bear Island is easy, is it safe to assume those who wish to craft, repair, and customize will have to work for it?

Raphael: You'll definitely have to work for it, but we've been careful to balance player effort against their desire to just have fun with this feature. We didn't want to make things too easy, because choice and consequence has always been a core pillar of our gameplay philosophy, but also not so difficult that players wouldn't feel they could really enjoy some of the cozier or more creative aspects of the system. Safehouse Customization is one of the biggest systems we've added to the game over all the years of making it, and it required touching every single asset and over 100 individual interiors -- it's been a massive effort from the team. And yes, the system is much more than just moving furniture items around -- there's also a component of cleaning up interiors, repairing broken cabinets and things, and of crafting a whole new series of Rustic furniture items that are new to the game. We're really excited to see what locations players decide to build up as their personal safehouses, and what compelling and hilarious decorating challenges they come up with on their own.
 
Shacknews: The Long Dark feels like the perfect candidate for a photo mode. How important was it to ensure the system existed as an immersive experience?

Raphael: It was really important that we found a good way to deliver a type of photo-mode experience without sacrificing the tone of our IP. This is why we opted against our original plans for a dark room, because it would have required electrical equipment that we'd only be able to let player use during an active aurora. We came up with a good solution that is true to our lore and also gives players a lot of freedom for self-expression. For example, you can take your own photos and craft framed portraits for your safehouses. Photos live in your Photo Album, within the Journal, and can be annotated so that you can make notes of where you've been or whatever was particularly notable about a photo. It lets players create an almost visual journal to accompany their survival adventures.
 
Shacknews: The global wildlife refresh should dial up player anxiety as everyone learns the new spawn points for bears, wolves, and the Cougar. I know there's zero chance you would ever give specifics, but are there any particularly devious predator spawns waiting for folks?

Raphael: I think our long-standing players will be surprised to find wildlife where it just isn't expected, and of course the Cougar has also been added to the wildlife spawn system. We've also done a pass on balancing the overall wildlife variety across the world, which is the first time we've really been able to think about the wildlife presence across all the regions of the game at the same time, and not just individual regions we're building. I think the impact will be to make the game feel more dynamic and fresh for players who have been playing it for a long time. 

Shacknews: I know the visual enhancements were pushed to next year, but can you provide any details on what might be included for those of us with high-end systems?

Raphael: We have a range of over 10 different visual enhancements that go all the way through better anti-aliasing solutions to things like coloured shadows and fog, sharper textures, better atmospherics for things like snow blowing across the surface of the terrain or cold vapour appearing over open water along the coastlines. We even have a few surprises that add to the overall dynamism of the world. We'll release those in a Visual Enhancements update some time in the Spring (no firm date in mind yet). 
 
Shacknews: You mentioned potentially supporting The Long Dark into 2026. Are there any plans for more paid content or will that support be in the form of free updates to current systems?

Raphael: Now that TALES is wrapped, the TLD team is fully focused on shipping Episode Five ASAP next year. We've also promised some ongoing support for features like the Trader and Safehouse Customization, as those are features that are nicely expandable with new content now that the core systems have been implemented. We've also promised some work on Mod Support, and the aforementioned visual enhancements. Anything that isn't part of TALES will be added to the base game for free. If our players want more paid DLC along the lines of TALES, we'd be open to making it, but not until after Episode Five is finished. There's almost no limit to the direction future updates could take. We just have to be careful to balance our workload and not take on more than we can deliver.

Shacknews: The Long Dark has been publicly playable for more than a decade now. How far beyond your original vision has the team taken the game, or have things largely played out the way you expected?

Raphael: If I think back to how I envisioned THE LONG DARK in the lead up to our Kickstarter in 2013, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the game is 100x what I would have expected we could build. We've essentially delivered a massive open-world survival sandbox that rivals anything else on the market, but we did it a small piece at a time while maintaining our independence. I don't think I expected to still be working on the game 10 years later, and I don't think our fans back then would have expected us to be doing so either. It'd be dishonest to say things have played out the way I expected them to, as we've been responsive to our player community in how we prioritized and what we built into the game, and we've certainly taken much much longer to get here than we would have anticipated. But I think you can look back to the early releases and compare them to what we are releasing in 2024, and see a direct lineage there. We've been true to the game and its values since day one, and while we've expanded the world and added layers of complexity to the experience, the core vision of the THE LONG DARK has never wavered. The best part is that we now have 10 years of game and player community to build on with our next projects. Let's see how far we can go.
 
Shacknews: Lastly, when can players expect to dive in and start playing Tales from the Far Territory Part Six?

Raphael: Part Six is tracking to an early December launch on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Epic. Nintendo Switch Parts Five and Six will launch in the new year. We've given ourselves enough time for a couple of hotfixes before the team heads off for their winter break, and we'll be back at it in the new year.

Tales from the Far Territory will launch the week of December 2, 2024, and I’ll be following up with my thoughts and impressions once I’ve spent some time on this new-look Great Bear Island. Check out The Long Dark on Shacknews for more.

Bill Lavoy

Managing Editor

Bill, who is also known as Rumpo, is a lifelong gamer and Toronto Maple Leafs fan. He made his mark early in his career through guide writing and a deep understanding of editorial SEO. He enjoys putting in the work to create a great content, be it a wild feature or grinding out an in-depth collectible guide. Tweet him @RumpoPlays if you have a question or comment about one of his articles.