A new region could arrive in The Long Dark with the next sandbox update. Raphael van Lierop has teased it several times on his Twitter timeline. The new region has a placeholder name called River Valley and won’t include any human-made structures. No date has been set for the update.
Raphael van Lierop is no stranger to teasing new content for The Long Dark on Twitter, and the people of Twitter (and the subreddit) are no strangers to making more out of it than it really is. Most of the time, however, his teases lead to new features and hardcore fans gobble it up like hardcore fans tend to. This time it’s with screenshots of a region called River Valley (placeholder name) which appears to be coming to the game sooner rather than later.
New Region: River Valley
Just hanging out with my deer buddies. NBD. #thelongdark pic.twitter.com/iOou9punaV
— Raphael van Lierop (@RaphLife) May 18, 2018
Our goal with this new region is to create an environment that doesn’t have a single human-made shelter on it — so, even more rugged and isolated than Timberwolf Mountain with its lonely Mountaineer’s Hut. This new region has also been a test-bed of sorts, for a new approach to how we create our environments, including new rocks and more varied tree density. We’ve also added a new type of cave system, redone our waterfalls, and have focused on having the entire region be more of an “environmental” puzzle for you to solve. We’re also experimenting with varying elevations and a range of climbing (or caving) options to find your way around.
That quote comes from the May 2018 Dev Diary. Although van Lierop doesn’t give a time frame for the release, he’s been dropping screenshots of this map over the last few days using his Twitter feed. What he isn’t doing is dropping hints of the new cooking system, and that’s probably because he’s a smart guy that’s learned his lesson from teasing things that will not be included in imminent updates, like he did with cougars about a year ago.
This morning’s head-clearing walk. I heard crows going nuts in the distance. Cougars have been seen in the area. pic.twitter.com/4T15pefyih
— Raphael van Lierop (@RaphLife) May 3, 2017
As a huge fan of The Long Dark myself, there are a few things I’m looking for from the update that adds River Valley to the game. First, the map itself sounds like a treat for those of us who need to push our skills to the limit. Second, I’m hopeful that we don’t get a batch of new bugs that kick around for months to come, which has been a small problem with the custom settings.
For more on River Valley as information comes to light, and any news related to The Long Dark in general, be sure to make regular visits to TL;DR and take a moment to browse The Long Dark guide hub.
