After a long delay—it was initially scheduled for release in December of 2018—the third episode of The Long Dark's narrative Wintermute mode is out now. It's called Crossroads Elegy, and it has players, now in the role of new protagonist Dr. Astrid Greenwood, exploring Pleasant Valley to "uncover local mysteries and rescue lost survivors as you navigate treacherous blizzards and face devious Timberwolves". From the trailer, it seems like there's going to be a lot of those wolves.

Crossroads Elegy was delayed as developer Hinterland took on staff from the shuttered Capcom Vancouver, then used its expanded capabilities to overhaul the first two episodes.

There are two more episodes of The Long Dark still to come.

The Long Dark's third episode is, finally, imminent. Those playing through the chilly survival game's story mode have had a long wait, and there are still two more episodes to go, but next month the story will continue. In the meantime, check out the teaser for Crossroads Elegy above. 

It's been over two years since The Long Dark left Early Access with the first two episodes. The third episode was originally due out at the end of 2018, with the rest of the episodes coming before the end of this year. Those plans obviously changed. 

A big factor was Capcom Vancouver shutting down. Hinterland ended up making six new hires and started interviewing more. With new artists, testers, programmers and some new mo-cap equipment, the studio decided to push back the release date so it could improve Crossroads Elegy. That was last November. 

Since then, the first two episodes have been overhauled, which is great if, like me, you've completely forgotten what's going on and are planning to start again.  

Hinterland isn't giving too much away about the episode yet, but you won't be playing Will Mackenzie. Instead, the episode will show events from his ex-wife's perspective. Astrid and Will are separated during the plane crash at the start of the game. 

"Episode Three: Crossroads Elegy is the culmination of the foundational work we did in Redux, and presents a series of events experienced from Astrid’s point of view," Creative director Raphael van Lierop wrote in a blog post. "In our own way, and in our own style, it moves the story forward. I don’t expect all of you to like it. But it’s a story that is true to the world of The Long Dark, true to Astrid, and I believe, also true to the world we live in today."

Crossroads Elegy is due out on October 22. In December, the survival mode will also receive an update, with Hinterland promising more details soon.

The Long Dark, Hinterland Studio’s wilderness survival romp, received a beefy overhaul this week. Earlier in the year, the studio announced its decision to pause the release of the remaining episodes of its story mode, instead going back to improve the existing episodes with voice acting, rewritten dialogue, additional locations, a new mission structure—there’s a lot. Wintermute Redux is available as a free update now.

It was a bold call. The Long Dark was in Early Access for several years before leaving in 2017 with a complete survival mode and the first two episodes of Wintermute. The third episode was due out this month, so it’s been quite a wait, though it’s received some significant updates in the interim. 

Game director Raphael van Lierop called it “a gamble” on Twitter. “We spent a lot of time and money going back and redoing work we weren't fully happy with,” he said. “As a result, we pushed back releasing new content and risked losing a lot of community support in the process.”

Take a look at the new trailer.

It looks like barely anything has been left untouched, from the narrative and story to tweaked ammunition scarcity. The episodes have been opened up and have a bit more of the survival mode’s sandbox feel, too. And while the main story remains the same, it includes new plot elements and areas.    

Survival mode has been given some attention, as well. There’s a new craftable item, the wilderness-appropriate rabbitskin hat; a health buff that you can get if you manage to avoid starving for 72 hours, netting you improved condition and carrying capacity; and a new challenge, Archivist, which will task you with collecting memories in Aurora-animated computers. 

I imagine a lot of developers wish they could go back and give their games another pass, but this sort of thing does make Early Access seem increasingly meaningless. The Long Dark’s development didn’t suddenly stop when it hit an arbitrary version number, it’s still getting game-changing updates and the story isn’t finished—what’s the difference? 

I’m arguing that Early Access is long overdue a rethink, not that developers shouldn’t fiddle with their games for as long as they like. I’m all for director’s cuts and definitive editions that don’t just repackage the game with a bunch of DLC. I wasn’t planning on going back to Wintermute, but I’ve changed my mind. 

Check out the patch notes here.

Hinterland Studio creative director Raphael van Lierop delivered some disappointing news yesterday when he announced that the third episode of The Long Dark, which had been set to go live in December, isn't going to make it. But that bad news actually arises from bigger-picture good news—although the good news in question is the result of even more serious bad news. It's all kind of complicated, so I'll let van Lierop explain. 

"Some of you might be clued in to recent industry turmoil and a spate of closures, Telltale being the highest profile of these. A bit lesser known, but really big news for our local Vancouver game dev community, was the complete shutdown of Capcom’s Vancouver studio," he explained in a blog post. "About 200 people lost their jobs, and in the weeks following we scrambled to interview people to see if we could help them, and to see how we could build up our own development strength." 

"Fortunately for us, we already had several ex-Capcom Vancouver people in the studio, so we were able to identify high performers who would fit in to our culture well. As a result of the Capcom situation, along with some other people we were interviewing at the time, we’ve hired six new team members in the last month. This is Hinterland’s most significant growth in the past five years." 

Hinterland was able to "bulk up" its animation department in particular—limitations in its technical capabilities are why the first two episodes of The Long Dark shipped with voiceless dialog scenes—with two new animators and the purchase of Capcom Vancouver's "nearly new" motion capture equipment. It also added two new programmers, a new artist, and a new tester, and it's continuing to interview other people, including former Telltale employees. 

It's enough that the studio is considering splitting itself into separate teams, one working on the Wintermute story and the other dedicated to the sandbox survival mode, and it's also completely changed the studio's outlook on The Long Dark development going forward. There's the rub. 

"Suddenly having access to all this new development talent and the motion-capture gear makes a huge difference to what we can accomplish in Episode Three. I’ve decided that I’d like to be able to use these new resources—along with the new motion capture equipment—to add more content and polish to Episode Three," van Lierop wrote. "This means it won’t be ready for us to ship in December." 

There's no word on when episode three will be out, but on the bright side, he confirmed that the Redux versions of episodes one and two will be ready in December. "Everything has been re-written, re-recorded, and re-animated. There are also new mission beats that didn’t exist before, things that flesh out the experience and story of Wintermute," he continued. 

"In December, you’ll be able to play these Redux episodes and get a great sense of what to expect in Episode Three and beyond, as these now serve as the template for how we’ll approach all our mission and narrative content moving forward." 

The darker side of the bright side (I told you it's complicated) is that existing saves won't be compatible with the Redux release, so Hinterland will be deleting them. If you haven't started playing Wintermute yet then you should probably wait until the Redux chapters are live, and if you're in the middle of a playthrough and want to finish it, get on it. 

The Long Dark is currently on sale on Steam, by the way, for 75 percent off—that's $7.50/£6/€6.

Hinterland Games is hoping to wrap up development on The Long Dark's story mode by the end of 2019, the studio's creative director Raphael van Lierop explained on the studio's forums on Friday. 

Earlier this month, Shaun wrote about how the first two episodes of its Wintermute story mode were getting the 'Redux' treatment, while episode three is destined for a December 2018 release. The new editions of the first two episodes should offer a more open-ended experience, among a bunch of other tweaks. 

"Redux has been a long year of reflecting on what didn't work, gutting tech and systems to replace them with ones that work better for our intended experience, listening to player feedback on what they liked and didn't like, and establishing the strongest foundation we can for WINTERMUTE," van Lierop explains in a response to a community question. 

"All that said, we want to bring the story to a conclusion for our players. It's been a long enough wait, for you and for us. I don't anticipate making major tech overhauls—on the scale of Redux—for Episode Four or Five. That's not to say we won't add new content or mechanics in those episodes—we will—but I feel that Redux points us and the game in the right direction, and so we'll continue in that direction."

He says that he'd "like to wrap up development of WINTERMUTE by the end of 2019", but that this won't mean the end of The Long Dark. 

Andy really rated The Long Dark when it left Early Access last year. "Deep, brutal, and hauntingly atmospheric, The Long Dark is a survival game done right."

While its Early Access period provided an open-ended survival experience in the frosty Canadian wilderness, The Long Dark was always getting a story-oriented mode as well. Dubbed Wintermute, the first two episodes of the five episode series are already out, and studio Hinterland has announced today that the third episode will release this December.

Episode three will follow Dr. Astrid Greenwood, providing a different perspective of events that occurred in the previous two episodes. "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'", the new update reads.

As for the reworks of the first two episodes, they'll now offer a "more open and flexible mission structure", in an effort to make the narrative-centric episodes a bit less linear. There's an overhauled dialogue UI, a new intro sequence for episode one, and even "major" new story elements: in other words, it'll definitely be worth replaying these. There are plenty of other additions and changes too, which you can read about in the diary entry.

But all this cool new stuff comes with a caveat: "Please note that because so much has changed, in-progress playthroughs of Episode One or Two will be wiped when the Redux versions are released in December," the post continues. "Players who have already completed the original versions of Episodes One and Two and who wish to just continue directly to Episode Three will not be affected by the save wipe. So, if you are in the midst of a Wintermute playthrough and don’t want to lose your progress, you have until December to complete it."

As for the sandbox survival mode, a new update arrived for that in June, adding a new region and an overhauled cooking system.

Fancy a getaway this weekend? After drowning in E3 stories all week, I know I do. Perhaps I'll escape to The Long Dark's new Hushed River Valley region, where I can drown in its icy lakes instead. 

Part of the first-person survival sim's new Vigilant Flame survival mode update, Hushed River Valley is described as a "multi-leveled" region that connects to Mountain Town. It boasts multiple waterfalls, rivers, streams and cliff areas, so says developer Hinterland, but contains no man-made shelters. 

As the video below explains, you'll want to in turn source natural cover—"whether that be the hollowed-out trunks of a large tree, a rock formation providing a natural windbreak, or ice caves"—and tucked away supply caches.

As also detailed there, the Vigilant Flame update overhauls TLD's cooking system. Here's Hinterland on that:We’ve overhauled the cooking system so that it doesn’t occur in a simple menu interface anymore. You place cookable items in the new Recycled Can or Cooking Pot items, or on hot surfaces—namely, stones near burning campfires or on the surface of lit cook stoves—and wait for them to cook. 

Each food item requires a different amount of time to cook. If you remove the item too soon, it’ll be undercooked, and eating it could result in food poisoning. If you wait too long, you could overcook the item to the point where it becomes an inedible burned lump, thus wasting the valuable food and fuel resources you spent on it.

This all sounds interesting, because while it means managing multiple timelines, you should, in theory at least, be able to multitask as you wait for things to cook. I'll almost certainly make an arse of this—but I'd love to hear from anyone that's tried it out in the comments below. 

Elsewhere, Vigilant Flame introduces "buffer memories"—new narrative collectibles said to be the "last documents stored in a computer's memory" before everything went to shit. Activated when the aurora appears at night, expect to uncover more of the game world's background.  

Full patch notes for The Long Dark's Vigilant Flame update live here. 

It's the PC Gamer Q&A! Every week, our panel of PC Gamer writers ponders a question about PC gaming, before providing a short and informative response. This week: which game did you miss in 2017 that you're saving for the holidays? We'd love to hear your answers in the comments below, too. 

Jody Macgregor: Shadowhand

I enjoyed Regency Solitaire, which was Grey Alien's previous reskinning of solitaire as a Jane Austen-style period drama. And I liked Faerie Solitaire too, which was a different studio called Subsoap basically reimagining solitaire as a cute Popcap game. What I'm saying is, if you can turn playing cards by yourself into some kind of saga then I am your audience. But I didn't even get past the tutorial of Shadowhand before I had to put it aside and play other things I needed to write about more urgently.

From what I saw it's a more thorough twist on solitaire than they've tried before, one that uses it as the randomizing factor for RPG combat in the same way other games use dice. You play a highwaywoman, and there's swashbuckling, romance, and pirates involved. In a way it reminds me of a tabletop RPG called Castle Falkenstein, which also used cards instead of dice and a period setting where people said "indubitably" with a straight face. I'm looking forward to giving it a proper chance when I can play it on a laptop balanced on my stomach which will be full of Christmas ham.

Wes Fenlon: Night In The Woods

I've been trying to find the time to play Night in the Woods all year. I definitely have some pent-up feelings about small town America (and maybe a latent fear of having to return to it one day), and a smart, funny game built around that setting is something I know I'll love. Earlier this year my girlfriend and I played Oxenfree together and had a great time, so I've had Night in the Woods pegged for our next game. We just never got to it, and in October the developers announced an expanded version was in the pipe, so that felt like a good reason to wait. Weird Autumn edition is out just in time for the holidays, so I've got Night in the Woods pegged for a post-Christmas game. I can't wait to laugh, and also probably be a bit depressed.

Chris Livingston: The Long Dark

When it comes to survival games I tend to overdo it, playing a bunch of them in a short period of time before getting so sick of chopping down trees and cooking at campfires that I can't bear to play another one for months. Then, eventually, I get back into them again for a while. The first time I played The Long Dark, then in Early Access, I was at the tail end of storm of survival games and I bounced right off it, unwilling to mope around freezing and starving and wondering where my next meal would come from. It left Early Access this year, and I would like to finally give it a proper look. Maybe when my belly is full of Christmas ham and my feet warm in new socks, I'll finally be in the right mood to put some real time in it.

Philippa Warr: Okami HD

I didn't exactly miss it—I was actually down to review it at one point—but various other features conspired to move Okami out of my grasp when the HD version came to PC. I actually played it on console back in 2007 but hit a bug over halfway through rendering progress impossible but being unable to reset to a point before it had bugged. Faced with losing more than a dozen hours of progress, I couldn't face going back. About a decade later the irritation of that bug has abated just enough for me to consider returning to the inky world and trying all over again. Fail me again, though, wolf, and I'll be ditching you for Slime Rancher quicker than you can whip out a paintbrush.

Andy Kelly: Wolfenstein 2

Since it was released, Wolfenstein II has been sitting unplayed in my Steam library, staring at me, wondering why I don't want to load it up and kill Nazis. So I reckon the holidays, when I have an abundance of spare time, is when I'll finally give Blazkowicz the attention he probably deserves. I didn't love the original, though, so I'm a little wary of this one. I hear it's difficult, and I don't have the patience for hard games these days. So we'll see how that pans out. If I can't get on with it, there are a dozen other games I didn't get around to playing.

Evan Lahti: The Elder Scrolls Legends

I've been abstaining entirely from digital cards for the past four or five months so I could dive elbows-deep into the new Elder Scrolls: Legends set, Return to Clockwork City. Thematically, it's focused on the mechanical creations of the Dwemer (and those who'd hope to steal from their ancient vaults), with a new singleplayer campaign and a bunch of new cards. Competitively its impact has apparently been a bit underwhelming, but I'm still looking forward to reacquainting myself with the meta. Unlike the FPSes I play, one of the things I've always loved about Magic: TG and other card games is that their landscapes can shift so quickly and dramatically, even as players simply discover new synergies. I mean, that's part of the business strategy. I like observing the shifts in "what's in style" on sites like betweenthelanes.net (co-run by the excellent TESL streamer CVH), picking out a new deck that suits me, building it, then modding it further based on my preferences.

Bo Moore: Nier: Automata

I'm not sure if this counts, since technically I've already put many hours into it this year, but Nier: Automata. I finished my first playthrough of the awesome action-RPG about robots with feelings earlier this year, but as (most) people know, the game has multiple (26, to be exact) endings and is meant to be replayed several times. I'm looking forward to starting my "route B" playthrough, but I've been holding off for the last few weeks, saving it for holiday time when I can really dive in. 

Steven Messner: Cuphead

I'm one of the shameful few who never touched Cuphead on launch. It's not that I don't find the game appealing (I do), just that when everyone praised it at release I felt like I was at a breaking point in how many games I was trying to juggle and complete. Adding a excruciatingly tough boss brawler to that pile would have surely driven me to madness. But what are the holidays for if not bashing your head against something repeatedly, sinking into the depths of despair as you realize you can't succeed, and then drinking in the dark until the wee hours of the AM? Oh, I'll probably boot up the new Path of Exile expansion too because the new league sounds like fun.

Tim Clark: Assassin's Creed Origins

I've theoretically earmarked Assassin's Creed Origins as this year's 'big' Christmas game to wallow in. My worry here is that 1) each time I've tried to run it, it's had some pretty wild performance dips, and 2) I will almost certainly use these as an excuse to go back to Destiny 2 and grind for Masterworks weapons while watching old British detective shows. Last Christmas I ploughed through every Inspector Morse episode on the ITV Hub. That's a lot of dead professors. A question I can more confidently answer is what will I be drinking. And the answer is sweet sherry.

The job of a concept artist is an important one. Before a single model or texture has been created, they’re responsible for establishing a game’s atmosphere and tone. The things they create might not even make it into the final game, but their work underpins the aesthetic of everything from incidental props to entire worlds. And so, to celebrate the work of these talented individuals, here are some of my favourite concept images from the last few years.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus / Christoffer Lovéus

MachineGames has repeatedly proven itself to be one of the best world-builders in the business. Its vision of a 1960s America that has been conquered and twisted by the Nazis is hugely compelling, which this atmospheric concept art by Swedish artist Christoffer Lovéus helped bring to life.

Alien: Isolation / Brad Wright

Recalling Ron Cobb’s detailed, functional designs for the 1979 film, Creative Assembly’s Brad Wright produced some stunning concept art for Alien: Isolation. These evocative images of Sevastopol station and the Anesidora are particularly striking, capturing the cold, industrial atmosphere of the Alien universe.

What Remains of Edith Finch / Theo Aretos

At the heart of Giant Sparrow’s unforgettable journey through the lives of the Finch family is their grand, clumsily stacked house. These concept images were created by artist Theo Aretos early in development to get a sense of what the strange old house might look like, and are works of art in their own right. 

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate / Tony Zhou Shuo

The Creed series has always been more concerned with capturing the romantic image of its cities and time periods than creating perfect, historically accurate recreations. These images by Tony Zhou Shuo paint a vivid picture of Victorian London,  using iconic landmarks to give them a rich sense of place.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West / Alessandro Taini

Ninja Theory's post-apocalyptic epic remains one of the prettiest ends of the world we've seen on PC. Rather than being bleak and gloomy, this ruined Earth sizzles with colour. And it's perhaps no surprise that these pieces of concept art by Alessandro Taini are just as vibrant and evocative.

Fallout 4 / Ilya Nazarov

The mood of the Commonwealth is constantly changing as the weather and time of day shift in real-time around you, which these elegant paintings by senior Bethesda concept artist Ilya Nazarov capture beautifully. I especially love the subtle use of colour, reflecting Fallout 4’s brighter, livelier wasteland.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided / Frédéric Bennett

The grim dystopian future of Deus Ex was imagined by a talented team of concept artists who designed everything from entire cities to individual props. Art by Eidos Montréal’s Frédéric Bennett, including this dramatic image of Golem City, helped establish the game’s distinctive, recognisable visual style.

Mass Effect: Andromeda / Ben Lo

These remarkable images by BioWare concept artist Ben Lo perfectly capture the scale and majesty of Mass Effect’s grand space opera. Refined, understated art direction is one of the series’ defining features, echoing classic ‘70s science fiction: an aesthetic these paintings are wonderfully reminiscent of.

Dishonored 2 / Sergey Kolesov

The unique painterly style of Dishonored’s visuals mean the game is a lot closer to its concept art than most. These exquisite paintings by Arkane concept artist Sergey Kolesov wouldn’t look out of place hanging on the walls of a lavish Karnaca apartment—particularly the image of Duke Abele on his palanquin.

The Long Dark / Trudi Castle

Hinterland’s survival game just left Early Access, and although the visuals have steadily improved over time, its dedication to that gorgeous hand-painted art style has never wavered. These atmospheric concept images by Trudi Castle skilfully capture the lonely, melancholy atmosphere of the game.

Star Wars Battlefront / Anton Grandert

Getting to work on a Star Wars game like Battlefront must be a dream job for any professional concept artist. These vivid, dramatic paintings by EA DICE’s Anton Grandert are reminiscent of Ralph McQuarrie’s iconic Star Wars concept art, evoking the chaotic, operatic drama of the films’ battle scenes.

The Long Dark came out earlier this week and Andy enjoyed it a lot , calling it "one of a handful of really great survival games on PC". He didn't particularly notice any bugs, but nevertheless developer Hinterland Studio has been working its winter socks off to fix a few things that weren't quite working as intended.

In total, there's been four patches since the game released: one on Thursday, two on Friday, and one early Saturday morning. You can tell the team are nearly getting there by the fact that the patch notes are shortening in length with every update.

Hinterland has fixed startup issues, replaced missing audio segments, ironed out the AI, and everything in between. Basically, if you were having problems with it on launch, check back in now and you should be good.

All the patch notes can be found here.

It's not quite finished — on the news post for the fourth patch the developer said it was "continuing to fix additional issues as quickly as we can". So, you can probably expect some more fixes soon.

Are you having issues with the game?