In the real world, grass matters. It's an essential part of the food web: plants convert sunshine to food, ungulates eat the grass, wolves eat the ungulates. In WolfQuest, grass matters too -- but for realism and immersion (and just because it looks nice). But every time I got out into nature, I'm reminded of how messy it is -- things growing every which way. This is an issue in games, partly because graphically it would be so demanding on the computer hardware, but also because trying to walk through a dense forest just wouldn't be very fun. So we try to strike a balance. And periodically we try to improve on that balance.



So while most of the team has been working on the Saga multiplayer modes, I've spent some time upgrading the grass. We have new grass models from Kerry Baldino (who made all the trees and vegetation originally in WQ:AE) and Paul Sandoval (who created several trees in recent years). But I've also wanted to upgrade to a newer version of The Vegetation Engine (the vegetation rendering system that we've been using for the trees for several years now) and then switch all the grass models over to it, so we can take advantage of several nifty features:

1) Blanket grass that drapes over the terrain. This allows us to have larger grass models, which has performance benefits.
2) Motion interaction -- so grass, sagebrush, and other plants wiggle and bend out of the way when animals move through them.
3) Snow accumulation -- so now grasses and plants turn white when it snows, just like the trees do.

So along with setting all this up (and tweaking the settings endlessly), we've been working to optimize the shaders. The goal is keep performance as it was before -- and we're mostly there, though we may need to simplify features for weaker hardware.

Our main focus is still on Saga modes for multiplayer, making good progress! These grass upgrades will be part of that next update with the Saga Multiplayer -- no release date set, so stay tuned!

* In rare situations, save files can become quite large and cause problems, possibly severe. (If any of your saves got this bug, you'll get a popup upon launching the game identifying them -- just load them and resave to fix them.)
* When older pups (Growing Pups onward) wrestle, the attacker's jaw distorts horribly.
* "Achievement Error" popup can appear repeatedly (and inaccurately) when loading a saved game where it previously appeared.
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Currently this beta is only for Windows; will add the Mac version soon MacOS version is up now too.


* In rare situations, save files can become quite large and cause problems, possibly severe. (If any of your saves got this bug, you'll get a popup upon launching the game identifying them -- just load them and resave to fix them.)
* When older pups (Growing Pups onward) wrestle, the attacker's jaw distorts horribly.
* "Achievement Error" popup can appear repeatedly (and inaccurately) when loading a saved game where it previously appeared.

WolfQuest is ON SALE on Steam April 1-8. Happy Earth Day (a bit early)!

WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition is 25% off on Steam as part of the Earth Appreciation Festival 2025.

If you've got WolfQuest on your wish list, this is a rare opportunity to save a few bucks. Or gift it to a friend!

Lots of other great Earth-themed games are on sale too. Sale ends April 8th.

Our top priority over the last several months has been multiplayer modes for the Saga. We're making good progress but it's not ready for public beta yet -- but here's a preview of those modes:



We are expanding the "Story" mode to last through a full year, from Establish Territory to the end of Young Hunter in the following winter. This is now called "Saga Year" and, like in Story mode, you can have up to five players, all acting as members of a family pack. When playing in this mode, the game ends upon completion of the Young Hunters quest, before the next litter of pups is born, because things would get pretty complicated with the pups of the year aging up to yearlings, and yearlings to subordinates, etc -- especially with players coming and going as often happens in public multiplayer games.

But we know that some players really want to have the full Saga experience in multiplayer, so for them we are creating a new "Full Saga" mode which does continue, year after year, until one player dies as an Elder Wolf. This mode has some restrictions: two players, only in a private game, and using the same wolf throughout the entire game. We intend this mode to be for friends who have the time and commitment to devote many hours playing through to the end.

We're deep in private beta testing and expect to be for awhile longer, but we're getting there, so stay tuned for updates!

We're delighted to announce that Jessie Clarey-Berthiaume, AKA Loach, is now officially the WolfQuest Community Manager! Loach is a longtime player and beta tester, and for years now she has been invaluable as a moderator on WolfQuest Steam Discussions, on our Discord, and on Reddit. She brings her deep knowledge of the game along with a deft touch to social media moderation, and we're glad to finally make her an official member of the WolfQuest Team. In addition to moderating our social media, she will handle multiplayer abuse reports, player support, and more (including icons for new achievements)!

In a game with so many elements and subsystems, it's natural for players to make their own hypotheses about how things work -- but it's not always easy to prove or disprove those even by playing the game over and over. So today we'll look at a few myths that have arisen about the game over the years, and then look at other mysteries about the game's development and history.



Questions addressed:

Are elk who hold their head up/back weaker than other elk? (0:35)

Do fleas cause sickness in pups? (1:10)

Do meat chunks have different food values? (1:31)

What goes into a wolf's diversity rating? (1:52)

How are pups' coats determined? (2:37)

Will we ever be able to raid rival wolves' dens? (3:11)

Will multiplayer ever have pack vs. pack mode? (5:17)

Are there any plans to make more maps that connect to Lost River?(6:27)

Are there any other maps planned after Tower Fall? (6:53)

Are you going to make more animal quest games after WolfQuest? (7:46)

An essential (and enjoyable) part of making game maps for WolfQuest is visiting the real locations, so we can see, feel, and sometimes smell what they're really like. We've visited the Tower Fall area on all four of our visits to the park since 2017 -- and most of the shots in today's video come from that first video, when we were still thinking of Tower Fall as the next episode of the game. Now, of course, with the saga out, Tower Fall is simply another DLC map, coming later this year.



The Tower Fall map is west of the main game maps and south of Hellroaring Mountain. Back when we started planning this map, it was going to be square and only 4x4km (which is what we were originally planning for all the game maps). But we soon expanded that to 7x7km -- and then, looking at the topography of this area, we realized that this needed to be rectangular rather than square. So now the map extends from the actual Tower Fall waterfall in the north corner of the map to Mount Washburn in the southwest corner.

In our visits, we hiked down to the Tower Creek-Yellowstone confluence, and up along the Yellowstone River shore, and along Tower Creek above the fall -- but we could not hike into the heart of the map. Almost all of that area, the main extent of the Antelope Creek watershed, is a Bear Management Area, where hiking is not allowed. But at least we have main Grand Loop Road that runs the length of the game map. It offers some spectacular views of Antelope Creek and its tributaries. Wide open spaces, rolling grasslands with patches of forest -- just what wolves like!

We'll share more about the Tower Fall map development as we go, so stay tuned!

* Player-wolf gets stuck if attacked while outside map border.
* Multiplayer: Revive doesn't work in some situations, especially on Lost River ranch.
* Map-moving stalls if a persistent wolf somehow gets destroyed while in off-map storage.
* Rival pack homesites shuffled up if returning to a map with an ex-player pack.

NOTE: Game saves ARE backward compatible with the last released patch, v2.0.0f. Multiplayer games are also backward-compatible, so you can only play with those who are on that version.


* Player-wolf gets stuck if attacked while outside map border.
* Multiplayer: Revive doesn't work in some situations, especially on Lost River ranch.
* Map-moving stalls if a persistent wolf somehow gets destroyed while in off-map storage.
* Rival pack homesites shuffled up if returning to a map with an ex-player pack.