Greetings survivors!

We are happy to push our first content update to Project Winter. We have been listening to feedback and prioritizing our efforts accordingly. First and foremost, we heard the need for a better matchmaking experience so this week’s update includes our server browser!



With the server browser you will be able to:

• Join/Host a lobby
  
• See open games looking for players
  
• See games currently in progress
  
• Easily switch regions
  
• Set passwords for lobbies
  
• Set language preference for lobbies
  
• Kick/Ban players from your lobby

This is a massive overhaul to our matchmaking code, so you are likely to run into some bugs. If you come across any issues please report them in our Discord. We will be looking out for reports and trying to resolve them as soon as possible.

We’ve also added Nvidia Highlights to easily capture those traitorous moments! This should enable by default if you have a compatible card, but can be turned on/off through GeForce Experience.

For our next content push, we can start getting down to the “fun stuff”. There will be two major changes we will be looking into for the next content patch:

Changes to the escape flow

We will be changing up how the current escape system works. There will be a number of things changed in this but overall goal is to make the process easier to understand for new users while also allowing more options for deception & risk. We will also be adding in a little danger around some repair tasks to keep things interesting.

Deception mechanics

Next patch will include giving people more chances to try to reveal player roles, and more chances for traitors to mess with the survivors! We have two items we’d like to focus on getting in the next update:

Traitor Overload - the ability to overload a bunker console with other survivors. This will block out the consoles for that bunker for a limited time but would also reveal that one of the three people using that console was 100% the traitor.

Truth Serum - a special serum that when used will reveal another role, only to the one administering the serum. This special item will be locked behind a special bunker that requires the players to co-ordinate and split up in order to enter.

We have a number of other bug fixes and changes, which can be found in the change log below:

• Player nameplates now ON as default, L-ALT to toggle
  
• Delay between exile votes increased from 10 seconds to 30 seconds
  
• Bear traps now cost 2 ore instead of 1
  
• Land mines now cost 3 ore instead of 2
  
• Fuel now costs 2 berries instead of 1
  
• Throwing impact audio works on all clients now
  
• Kicked players no longer able to return from lobbies they have been kicked from
  
• Fixes for Steam Cloud loading sometimes failing
  
• Collision, visual, and animation changes for bridges for clarity, and to kill players more reliably when sabotaged
  
• Modified text chat positioning
  
• More fixes for objectives not loading
  
• Fixed vodka not counting for cooking items progression
  
• Added localization support for languages on lobbies
  
• Updated existing localization data files
  
• Exile station UI updated: coloured icons replaced with vote count plus tooltip that displays names of the voting players
  
• Moved the 'Esc' to the top left of the crafting/cooking station
  
• Fixed up the Player name so they vertically align correctly. Charge bar/eating bar sizing has been fixed and made the images a higher resolution so they aren't blurry. Whole thing moved up slightly so the name/traitor icon does not overlap player head
  
• Made trackers on side of screen smaller and more solid. Redid flashing animation so the icons scale back down to the correct size
  
• Added the Survivor points icon to the stats screen and game-over stats screen
  
• Added icons for each of the new cosmetic items
  
• Added animation to the game over stats screen
  
• Added a sound for the normal stats screen
  
• Fixed aiming on the VTOL ramp
  
• Fixed flag camera on main tile to improve rendering
  
• Increased size of triggers for picking up items
  
• Updated melee attack PFX and animation timings

That is all for this week! Please join us in our Discord for discussions, MVP of the week contests, meet up with new folks to play with and more! We are always around answering questions and talking strategies.

See you in game!

Project Winter Team

Join our Discord to take part in our weekly MVP Challenge, it will be ongoing until 3:00pm Eastern (UTC-5) tomorrow! This week is an extra special MVP Challenge as we will be focusing on the GOOD side of Project Winter - That’s right, this week is all about being the best SURVIVOR. We will not necessarily be taking “MVP” scores (as traitors can sometimes get more points than survivors and become MVP at match end), but we will be taking the best SURVIVOR score achieved in a 24 hour period that is posted to our #clips channel, and crowning that survivor as MVP of the WEEK! They will receive a free copy of Project Winter to give to a friend + 20,000 Survivor Points to spend on themselves. Additionally we will be hosting DEV GAMES throughout the night as a dev meetup/AMA type thing. Look for our names in game today and ask us about the roadmap, questions on the game, betray us… whatever you want. We will see you there!

Hello survivors and traitors alike!

We have officially released our roadmap, outlining the development plan leading up to 1.0 & beyond. There is no bug fixing update this week but the team has been working on improving stability, fixing bugs and focusing on quality of life improvements to the game. This unfortunately delays us getting to the "fun stuff" of adding new items, features, etc. but is a necessary step in the development process. Some deeper information on our immediate goals are below!

Server Browser

We initially underestimated a number of things regarding matchmaking. Our first concern was ensuring people had others to play with and the original plan was to funnel ALL players into three regions; NA, EU and Asia. What we did not take into full consideration is how unplayable the game is if you cannot communicate effectively. This meant people with different language backgrounds were unable to communicate effectively and if you don't speak your fellow players’ language then the game is frustrating and the experience falls apart.

To mitigate this, we opened 6 regions: NA, SA, EU, RU, KR and Asia. The downside of that was: no visibility into how many players were on, the small community is again now split even more and lobbies are hard to fill up.

The team immediately decided that the system had to be changed, and promptly started working on a system overhaul. We want to allow players to be able to control who they play with, what language, in what regions, easily and with more visibility. Our first content patch (scheduled for Thursday Feb. 28th) will include a server browser to give players this control.



Feedback & Bugs

Project Winter is an early access game in the truest sense of that term, the game is not finished. We released Project Winter fully anticipating that there will likely be inherent gameplay problems, bugs, and features that will need to be reworked. We are fortunate that our community has been amazingly receptive and communicative. We thank those that have helped with suggestions and bug reports, this helps us ensure we are going in the right direction and ultimately shapes how we develop the game. Thankfully, almost everything that has been brought up already has a plan in place to solve these problems through various mechanics.


Expanding Survivor’s and Traitor’s Roles

Escape Flow

Today’s version of Project Winter was our most solid iteration in terms of gameflow. We want to make this experience more varied, as variety is the spice of life! Looking forward expect the “escape” flow to differ from what you are used to. While some maps may follow the standard repair x task, repair x task, escape flow - others maps will start to come into play where the repair tasks can be more complicated, combat based, forces survivors to split up, etc.




Deception Flow

Another goal of ours is to give players more options when it comes to deducing player roles. A few items in the works right now:

• Professor’s Lab/Truth Serum: A special bunker that needs survivors to split up and coordinate in order to open. Inside there will be a truth serum item which can be used on a fellow player to reveal their role (survivor or traitor) only to the player that administered the serum.
  
• Console Overload: When opening a bunker, traitors get the choice to “overload” the console. This sets all the consoles back to the off position and will have a cooldown on being used again.
  
• Armory Bunker: Another special bunker that requires separation and coordination, but reveals more powerful weapons such as a silent crossbow and automatic rifles.
  
• Traitor Disguise: Traitors can swap clothes with a deceased character to try to fool the other survivors.
  
• New airdrop abilities for Traitors.

As we continue to develop Project Winter, we encourage you to join our Discord and chat with us! The team is committed to getting these features in and even looking to grow the team to make it happen even quicker!

Hope to see everyone in game! As a friendly reminder we have an MVP Challenge starting every Friday afternoon (Eastern time) where the winner gets a free copy of the game to give to a friend and 20,000 survivor points to get some new cosmetic items! Join us in Discord to participate and see you there!


Project Winter Team

Bug fixing update! Focus for this week was continuing work on our server browser and smashing bugs. While the server browser isn't quite ready for release, we did resolve a number of bugs and wanted to push an update.

Bug fixes : 0.1.6567
- Fixed a bug where it was possible to get stuck near an escape vehicle
- Fixed an issue where a player could become stuck in place after stepping in bear trap while in downed state.
- Fix "Hunter" achievement and "Prospector" progression tier not tracking correctly
- Wolves are now correctly tracked as wildlife
- Fixes this issue, “Objective Finder can get stuck pointing straight up after being activated”.
- Fix damage calculation for deployables (bear trap, landmine) on resource nodes and animals
- Increased bolt action rifle damage
- Decreased semi-auto rifle damage
- Increased throw damage on pickaxe, axe, and sickle
- Radio static will now properly stop if someone is transmitting when the player dies
- Possible Fix for disconnects during load
- Possible fix for contextual options not working
- Fix for best region picking not working properly
- Fix traitor proximity audio being quieter than survivors
- Changing the icons to be more descriptive on the crafting station, stove, exile station and map
- Bunkers will have snow pfx when blizzard is triggered
- Fix tools and guns disappearing on customization screen when changing hair or skin colour
- Fix for crafting tables not selected the previously crafted items automatically.
- Fixed an issue where the ranged weapons could hit the ghosts.
- Fixed an issue where the bear attacking a player would cause the camera to shake on another clients machine.
- Fixed a bug where the graphic settings were not applied to cams inside the bunkers
- Fix timer still showing and animation continuing to play if knocked down while consuming an item
- Fix mute button text not localizing and not switching to "un-mute" when pressed in the lobby
- Fix issue where gun wouldn't reload if the player was attacked while shooting and entering the safezone around the cabin at the same time


Join us in our Discord for our weekly MVP challenge! Get the highest MVP score in a 24 hr period and you can win a copy of the game to give to a friend and 20,000 survivor points to spend on yourself!

See you all in game!

-Project Winter Team

In our effort to squash bugs as fast as you are finding them, we have a brand new bug fixing patch for the weekend!

Change log:

• Wolves are now counted for progression tasks targeting animals
  
• Harvesting bushes and trees with a pickaxe progression task now tracks herb bushes in addition to berry bushes
  
• Fixed a bug where survivors can board the escape without it being called
  
• Actually fixed the in-game exit message this time
  
• Fixed crash when typing in text chat with various languages
  
• Thai characters added, though no localization
  
• Improvements to Chinese character set to add more characters
  
• Improvements to multi-language support for names/chats
  
• Improvements to recycling
  
• Fix which should make the Caribou animate correctly
  
• Additional minor bug fixes

Remember if you have any issues or want to chat with the community, we are all over in Discord, so drop in to chat.

See you all in game!

- Project Winter Team

Head on over to our Discord and show your skills!

For the next 24 hours we will be capturing the best MVP scores from the game and giving away a FREE KEY as well as 20,000 survivor points for the best MVP score!

Good luck and have a great weekend!

Project Winter is officially live! Don't forget to tell a friend, so you can betray them of course!

Hit up our Discordto join our community!

Hope to see everyone in game!

-Project Winter Team

In preperation for Early Access launch(10AM PST), Project Winter has been updated to v0.1.0.

Update log from beta build 0.0.104 includes:

- Proximity voice chat issue fixed
- In-game quit message reworded
- Steam item store hooked up in game
- Ability for host kick people from the lobby
- Contextual action getting stacked a number of times is fixed
- Some translation fixes
- Bug with contextual action when repairing not filling fixed
- Animal AI should have smoother animations
- Map balancing - Some rockwalls have been replaced with distractible co-operative actions others have been removed
- Voice activation bug fixes
-Problem with ammo not being synchronized to each of the client for the ranged weapons fixed
- Audio polish
- New items added


Looking forward to seeing everyone in game! If you encounter any issues please let us know in the Steam discussions or our Discord: http://discord.gg/projectwinter

- Project Winter Team

Thank you for everyone who participated in our beta this weekend! It was a blast playing with all of you. We have received an enormus amount of feedback and bug reports that we will be working on!

If you enjoyed the game, please add us to your wishlist to be updated when we release this Thursday!

Thanks again everyone, see you in game soon!

-Project Winter Team

Our beta is now officially live for the weekend! The beta will be open until 11:59PM EST on Sunday, February 3. If you have not signed up yet, you still can here. Keys will be sent out in waves over the weekend!

Please join our Discord for updates and to chat with other players as well as the dev team!

Have fun betraying your friends all weekend ːsteamhappyː

-Project Winter Team