The next game update, v1.1.1, is now in public beta on Steam! This features the new Persistent Pack feature! Rival packs now have lives of their own: growing, shrinking, and changing over the course of years. Most if this is invisible to players, but should make the game feel more realistic.

See instructions at bottom of this page for how to get the beta.

Here's the big new stuff in this update, but read the beta build notes to see all the changes, improvements and bugfixes.



* When packs lose a pack leader (breeder), the remaining leader must find a mate soon or the pack will disband.
* If a pack disbands, a new pack will soon move in to claim that vacancy on the territory map.
* If you Jump Ahead to Next Year, rival territories will show accumulated change.
* The new Known Wolves panel in Pack Info lists rival and dispersal wolves that the player has encountered. The player can give any of those wolves a nickname there.
* In multiplayer, NPC wolves are known to the pack as a group, not to individual players, so they'll be listed for everyone if any player has encountered them.

Moving to another map:
* When you do not have any young pups, you can travel from one Yellowstone map to another (so currently only Amethyst<>Slough Creek).
* To do so, go to border area indicated on the World Map and you'll be asked if you want to travel to the other map.
* This is currently only in single-player. We're working on multiplayer but unsure when it'll be ready.

Known Wolves:
* Whenever you encounter a rival or dispersal wolf, they are added to the new Known Wolves panel in Pack Info.
* You can give them a nickname and see how their lives change (or end) as time goes by.

Existing saves will be upgraded to the new system when loaded. This is a complex new system and we're still tuning it, so we look forward to feedback from the public beta to help that effort. Please play through some years and submit feedback and bug reports (via F11 / Bug Report button in Options popup) with comments!

__________________________

1) In the Steam app, go to your Library, then right-click on the WolfQuest: AE name in the left column and choose Properties.
2) Then go to the Betas tab and select the WQ current Beta option in the pulldown. No password is necessary. Steam should then start downloading it. Later you can switch back to the public version in that Betas tab, by selecting NONE in that pulldown.


___________________

The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will consider porting the game to other platforms.

We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.

NOTE: Game saves are NOT backward compatible with the last released patch, v1.1.0i. Multiplayer games are also NOT backward-compatible, so you can only play with those who have this beta. If you switch back to v1.1.0i, any new saves will not be listed, but they'll be listed again when v1.1.1 is released.

See instructions at bottom of this page on how to get the public beta.


* Adjusted Pack Info layout to fit long pup names in multiplayer games.

* Known Wolves: Dispersal names in list multiply when toggling Show Dead Wolves on and off.
* Sometimes wolf species is displayed on targeting HUD instead of its name.
* Multiplayer: New packs do not move in while existing pack is disbanding.
* NPC wolves do not advance in age if player not allowed to age up this birthday or tab menu is closed.
* Yearlings can be zero years old.
* Wolf spawns on top of boulder when jumping ahead at a few rendezvous sites.
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* Multiplayer: Avert gaze emote is not synced to other players.
* Multiplayer: Pregnant wolves lose their pregnant belly when they die.
* Multiplayer: Incorrect age on some pups and yearlings.
* Multiplayer: NPC wolves change coat when dying.
* Changing between Basic and Enhanced Sky & Vegetation modes sometimes renders wrong season for grass. (Re-fixed)
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* Basic Sky & Vegetation mode doesn't reliably disable the Enhanced mode, reducing game performance.
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* Reduced odds of mortality for rival wolves.
* Increased odds that dispersals will stay longer on the map so player has a chance to meet them (before they find a mate among other dispersals or rival wolves).

* Unable to name NPC wolf immediately upon encountering them.
* Changing between Basic and Enhanced Sky & Vegetation modes sometimes renders wrong season for grass.
* Music track keeps playing after jumping ahead to next year.
* Family Tree: In certain situation, there's no pup preview.
* Family Tree: Pups appear without names when not nicknamed before ironwolf dies.
* Some dirt dens look bad.
* Amethyst tree root dens are missing mesh in spring/summer.
* Some saves fail to load due to error with persistent packs.
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* Mate is now added to Departed Wolves if dies during gameplay.

* When moving maps, player-wolf always spawns near map border (rather than occasionally deeper into the map of the border is held by a rival pack).
* Multiplayer: If players go to rival pack's homesite and fight the rendezvous flock, game adds both spawned and non-spawned MP wolves to Known Wolves panel.
* Multiplayer: Sometimes extra rival pack wolves are displayed in Known Wolves panel that nobody has encountered.
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* Slough Creek Early Spring on High terrain quality has large red and blue areas.
* Known Wolves panel: Show/Hide button can make duplicate wolves to appear in list.
* Lost River-Classic: One hex is locked and cannot be lost by rival pack, and decay rate is very slow.
* In certain situations, snow-covered boulders are present in springtime.
* Known Wolves: In certain situations, three or more wolves can become Pack Leaders.
* Sometimes a dead pup appears as adult wolf in Family Tree preview.
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* Known Wolves panel: Removed "Alive?" column under Rival Packs and added red X for dead wolves in Role column, and in Dispersals Alive? column.
* Known Wolves panel: Added Show/Hide Dead Wolves toggle.
* Known Wolves panel: Map subsections are now not re-ordered so current map is at the top (to prevent issues and confusion with dispersal map origin).

* Some yearlings are zero years old.
* Power Pack achievement can be earned on territory configurations with more than one initial hex unclaimed.
* Player's pups and NPC yearlings share the same number range.
* Lost River: Wolves can mark the hexes at the Cattle Ranch (fixed in existing saves).
* Slough Creek: Terrain lacks texturing in Early Spring on Very Low terrain quality.
* Improved Avert Gaze emote when wolf is sitting or lying down.
* Multiplayer: Favorite Parent system bugs (switching parents is unreliable, pups do not follow their favorite parents during journeys, nor do they go greet their new favourite parents when they switch).
* Multiplayer: Some wolves have "NPC Wolf (000)" name when game has players with older beta build.
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* Adjusted position of rival and dispersal nametags under hearts and Fight/Flight meter.
* Added badword filter to Known Wolves naming.

* Known Wolves naming can be buggy when previous mate ID is not cleared out when loading a save.
* Female wolf in winter doesn't appear pregnant until the second day.
* Pups are born in April even after pregnant female dies.
* Pups change coats when they die.
* If a wolf dies in multiplayer, it's marked as Dead in My Wolves. (If this happened to you, load a saved game with that wolf and save the game to refresh the wolf status).
* Lost River: Wolves can mark the hexes at the Cattle Ranch (partial fix, currently only for new games).
* Controller: Pressing controller button to close notifications can also trigger a wolf action.
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* Rival and dispersal wolf nametags are slightly different color now than packmate nametags.
* When looking for a mate, dispersals within 2.5km now show even if alone (previously was only if in groups of two or more).
* Added more rival pack names in Lost River-Classic.

* Persistent Packs: After player-wolf's mate dies and they have gotten a new mate, dispersals are still interested in courtship.
* Persistent Packs Multiplayer: Packs don't disband after both breeders die.
* Persistent Packs: Wolf can disappear from Known Wolves panel if killed by player.
* Multiplayer: Hex keeps showing 0% for client players.
* Female wolf doesn't look pregnant in winter.
* On World Map, "show hex percentages" option not remembered when exiting a scene.
* Healthbar gets confused and displays carcass info after switching focus to another animal.
* DIsplay mode (windowed/fullscreen) settings switch unexpectedly.
* Woof command can't be canceled with a squeak.
* Beavers run in circles when trying to pick up a stick.
* Lost River-Classic: Persistent Packs are not enabled.
* In certain situations, mate gets stuck when trying to leave for hunting.
* Trial mate affinity resets when moving to another map.
* With certain old saves, game crashes when jumping ahead to next year.
* K-locus can change when jumping ahead to next year.
* Mate eats half of a meat chunk, then returns to carcass to feed more.
* Pathfinding issues at a couple dens.
* Slough Creek coyote den has wrong scent glow.
* Some rocks at Amethyst rock den always have the wet look.
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* Display (fullscreen/windowed) pulldown is buggy. (Still need reports about display mode switching unexpectedly.)
* Persistent Packs: Some pack event odds are reset when jumping ahead or moving maps.
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* Wolves older than age 8 break the numbering system.
* Wakefulness is reset when moving to another map.
* Some dirt dens in Slough Creek early spring are black.
* After jumping ahead to next year, all previously-discovered dens are shown on map (as if you had Good Memory perk).
* Some old game saves fail to load.
* Player pack members not assigned a birth name when upgrading old saves.
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* Lost River: Some adjustments to rival pack territories and homesites. (Will only appear in new games)
* On Amethyst map, Mollie's pack homesite is a long way from the rest of the territory. (Will only appear in new games)

* Multiplayer: Sometimes player joining game is stuck in place, can't move.
* After jumping ahead to next year, sometimes player is stuck in place, can't move.
* Pronghorn fall fawn carcass has white capsules in carcass.
* Lost River: Terrain gap in far corner of the map.
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* Multiplayer: Dead known wolves appear incorrectly for client players in some cases.
* Multiplayer: Departed wolves break the Known Wolves panel for clients.
* Multiplayer: Dispersal can disappear from the world for clients after some time has passed.
* Persistent Packs: Glitches in winter if pregnant rival pack leader dies.
* Persistent Packs: Rival pack wolves aren't set initially as siblings, causing packs to disband when all wolves disperse on their own.
* Lost River: Cliff and big rocks are missing in northeast wilderness area.
* Small white spheres at entrance to one Amethyst den.
* When starting new game in Amethyst with a mate, waterfalls are both frozen and liquid.
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Rival packs now have lives of their own: growing, shrinking, and changing over the course of years. Most if this is invisible to players, but should make the game feel more realistic
* When packs lose a pack leader (breeder), the remaining leader must find a mate soon or the pack will disband.
* If a pack disbands, a new pack will soon move in to claim that vacancy on the territory map.
* If you Jump Ahead to Next Year, rival territories will show accumulated change.
* The new Known Wolves panel in Pack Info lists rival and dispersal wolves that the player has encountered. The player can give any of those wolves a nickname there.
* In multiplayer, NPC wolves are known to the pack as a group, not to individual players, so they'll be listed for everyone if any player has encounterd them.

Existing saves will be upgraded to the new system when loaded.

* When you do not have any young pups, you can travel from one Yellowstone map to another (so currently only AM<>SC).
* To do so, go to border area indicated on the World Map and you'll be asked if you want to travel to the other map.
* This is currently only in single-player; we're working on multiplayer but unsure when it'll be ready.

IMPROVEMENTS:
* When ungulate is doing standing defense, added a half-second delay before ungulate can kick wolf after wolf drops off from a bite-hold.
* Sometimes pup appear to freeze during predator attacks -- they're actually just standing still, watching the predator, but now they will slowly circle the attacker so they don't appear to be frozen.
* Lost River: Some revisions to feral dog spawning to have more variety in pack composition and reduce odds of den raids by them.
* "Den Flooded" popup only appears now when player is at home, to avoid issues with pups and flooded den when player is away from home.
* Some pup coat colors tweaked to match older pup coats.
* Rearranged buttons in End Ironwolf Run to make "End Run" (and delete Ironwolf save) less likely.
* Multiplayer: Increased the affinity multiplier for larger numbers of player-wolves in Story mode.
* Added on-map label for going to other YNP map.
* Reduced/eliminated the cause of some lag spikes, especially around NPC animals.
* Added black border to other game maps.
* Made pack name always editable in Pack Info
* Added more debugging for problems with display resolution/fullscreen switching unexpectedly -- please report if you have any problems staying in your selected display mode.
* Shortened the clumsy walk phase for young pups.
* When players sends mate back to homesite, mate stops just short of the homesite area, so pups do not come out of the den or tall grass.
* Pups still sometimes twitch why trying to get to food.
* When picking up a meat chunk, mate prevents player-wolf from eating for a moment.
* Multiplayer: In certain circumstances, too many rival wolves are spawned.
* Missing animation when some feral dogs attack player-wolf (might cause game crash?)
* Sometimes you can't pick up a skull.
* Lost River: Pup killed by dog doesn't unlock Natural Selection achievement.
* Lost River: Sometimes mate won't exit ranch area when player does.
* Sometimes pups ignore a moose calf carcass.
* In springtime, Amethyst beaver dens are underwater.
* At one SC rock den, you're forced to put down an object when entering the den, but can't reach it to pick it up again.
* Sometimes mate does not do eating animation when eating.
* In very particular situations, mate will pick up pup and walk away and back to home site.
* Glitches can occur if you pick up a pup while it's walking into the den to go to sleep.
* Portable Picnic achievement doesn't recognize pronghorn fawn.
* Pups standing around meat chunks.
* When jumping ahead to next year, "Survival of the Pack" is listed as the current quest instead of "Establish Territory".
* Spike elk antler floats above ground.
* Bison do damage before playing their attack animations.
* Mate fails to put pup in den after being summoned to hunt.
* Several issues with pathfinding around dens.
* Various minor issues with terrain.

__________________________

1) In the Steam app, go to your Library, then right-click on the WolfQuest: AE name in the left column and choose Properties.
2) Then go to the Betas tab and select the WQ current Beta option in the pulldown. No password is necessary. Steam should then start downloading it. Later you can switch back to the public version in that Betas tab, by selecting NONE in that pulldown.

We've updated the WolfQuest Original Soundtrack DLC (and the Music Extras from 2.7, which is identical):

* Added "Carmella's Theme" (which plays when you find the lost dog in Lost River).
* Updated "Home Sweet Home" (which was missing the lead guitar!).
* Corrected the order of two tracks ("Danger at the Den" and "Playful Pups," which certainly could be confusing)

These changes might update automatically, or you might need to prompt them by going to the Soundtrack (in your Steam Library) Properties, then Installed Files, then click "Verify this soundtrack's files are installed correctly).

WolfQuest is ON SALE on Steam November 21-28 for (American) Thanksgiving! 25% off!

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!

We're making good progress on the Saga!* One aspect of that, of course, is that the pups will keep growing beyond the summer season, which means we have to depict that growth. The problem is: over the first six months of their lives, wolf pups grow -- a LOT. And especially in the late summer months, they transform themselves from cute little pups to nearly-adult size and appearance. While it's technically possible to use morphs and blendshapes to gradually transform a 3D model to match this change in size and appearance, a combination of factors makes that unworkable for us. These range from legacy aspects of our pup and adult wolf model, along with the sheer complexity of the adult model. We are committed to our wolf models with their 60 coats, nearly 300 animations, and 60 (and counting) blendshapes (for different body modifications, various expressions, injuries, and more).



So instead, there will be some noticeable jumps as the pups age. We're trying to make these as incremental as we can, but to fully represent those changes from late summer to fall, it's almost impossible to make them seamless.

So for the Saga, pups will age in four stages:
- Young Pups: That's what's in the game now in May, after the pups emerge from the den.
- June Pups: Also what's in the game now, after they reach 15 pounds and journey to the rendezvous site.
- July Pups: This will be a modified version of June pups, with the adult guard hairs and coat patterns starting to fade in, and a bit skinnier body.
- August (and later) Pups: This is where the change really happens -- almost overnight, pups look like small adults (albeit pretty skinny), with their adult coat. By October, age six months, they've reached adult height. They are a bit lanky in appearance, because it takes another two months to reach adult length. But they are still pretty lightweight and skinny during this time, and it'll take another year for them to fill out and reach the body mass of an adult wolf.

So by fall, you really have to study a pup to recognize it as a pup -- based on physical appearance alone. But they still behave like pups. Even yearlings act puppyish until they're about 18 months old. And our pups will still act puppyish -- playful, inquisitive, and unreliable. Don't expect a yearling to go out hunting or marking on its own -- they're just not ready for that yet. Yearlings are good as babysitters, though, for the pups of the year.

* In the upcoming WolfQuest Saga, your pups will continue to grow into the fall and beyond, learning to hunt under your supervision, and then becoming yearlings when next year's pups are born. Time will continue progressing through the years until you die. The Saga is currently in development but we do not have a release date for it.

___________________

The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will consider porting the game to other platforms.

We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.

While Tommi and Raul work on Saga features, I've been working on the upcoming Hellroaring Mountain DLC map. Today we take a look at the challenges of creating a landscape dense with granite outcrops at high elevations and a metamorphic schist river canyon. Yes, it's time for another geology-mapmaking devblog! The area encompassed by this new map ranges from the granite-gneiss summit of Hellroaring Mountain to the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone. For the handful of players who are into this kind of thing -- enjoy!



_________________________

The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will consider porting the game to other platforms.

We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.

* Mate won't drop snowshoe hare after killing it.
* Multiplayer: Wolf leaps when pressing X to close dialog window.
* Cannot submit bug report when amongst an elk herd -- if you find the elk herd and attack an elk within a few minutes after starting a new game.
* Lost River DLC: Wintertime mispositioning of a Halloween structure.
* Lost River DLC: Snow accumulates on objects inside Carmella's Pizzeria.
* Minor terrain issues.

v1.1.0h - Released 18 October 2023

* On MacOS: Added native Apple Silicon support, so players with M1 and M2 Macs will see much better CPU performance. (GPU performance is unchanged, so this will be noticeable only when the game simulation is the determining factor on FPS.)
* Lost River: Reduced odds of feral dog packs.
* A few more Halloween decorations in Lost River DLC map.

* Typing an "x" in game name closes the Save panel.
* Lost River: Poisoned cattle carcass contains no poison.
* In multiplayer games, in certain circumstances, rival wolf pack groups are at maximum size for eight players, regardless of number of players actually in the game.
* When player sends mate home, mate stops just short of den and doesn't let pups out of den.
* Achievement "Look what the wolf dragged in" can be unlocked with antlers and skulls, rather than only human objects.
* Achievement "Portable Picnic" cannot be unlocked with pronghorn fawn carcass.

We are mainly focused on Saga-related features, but several bugs in v1.1.0g warranted a patch soon, so this contains those and a few other things.

NOTE: Game saves ARE backward compatible with v1.1.0g. Multiplayer games are also backward-compatible, so you can play with those who have 1.1.0g.

See instructions at bottom of this page for how to get the beta.


* A few more Halloween decorations in Lost River DLC map.

* Sometimes a radio collar appears on a wolf who shouldn't have one.

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BUG FIXED:
* Killing a hare can crash the game (and if it doesn't, the hare carcass is invisible). This bug also causes crashes at other times.
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* On MacOS: Added native Apple Silicon support, so players with M1 and M2 Macs will see much better CPU performance. (GPU performance is unchanged, so this will be noticeable only when the game simulation is the determining factor on FPS.)
* Lost River: Reduced odds of feral dog packs.

* Typing an "x" in game save name closes the Save panel.
* Lost River: Poisoned cattle carcass contains no poison.
* In multiplayer games, in certain circumstances, rival wolf pack groups are at maximum size for eight players, regardless of number of players actually in the game.
* When player sends mate home, mate stops just short of den and doesn't let pups out of den.
* Achievement "Look what the wolf dragged in" can be unlocked with antlers and skulls, rather than only human objects.
* Achievement "Portable Picnic" cannot be unlocked with pronghorn fawn carcass.



__________________________

1) In the Steam app, go to your Library, then right-click on the WolfQuest: AE name in the left column and choose Properties.
2) Then go to the Betas tab and select the WQ current Beta option in the pulldown. No password is necessary. Steam should then start downloading it. Later you can switch back to the public version in that Betas tab, by selecting NONE in that pulldown.

Our new persistent packs system is shaping up. Raul has been working on it for more than six months and just last week got it far enough along to merge into the main project, so we can really give it a workout and see what needs fixing and refining. This new system replaces the old static pack system, which I talked about in the last devblog "Saga Switchbacks." Now, instead of having hard-coded stats, rival packs are dynamic, with each member going through all the stages of life that you and your pack will go through in the Saga. Over time, packs will grow, shrink, and sometimes leave the game map or even disband entirely, creating a vacancy for another pack to move into.



While many of the features of this new system won't be functional before the Saga is released, we decided to add it to the game sooner, since it does make the eco-simulation substantially more naturalistic. You'll especially notice the effects of dynamic packs if you use the Jump Ahead option in Endless Summer, as that will carryover the current rival packs, with some changes for the skipped months, into the next year.

When designing this system, we had to decide how much detail was necessary. It's easy to get carried away and build a pretty complex system, only to find that with all those variables running simultaneously, the result isn't much different than simply rolling the dice periodically. For the player, it's all opaque, hidden away, and they don't benefit from all that complexity. But given how much, and how intently, many of our players play the game, we decided it was probably worth the effort to put a lot of detail into the system. We don't expect players to see or track much of the information that the game is tracking, but we do think that information will manifest itself often enough, and in interesting enough ways, to be worth the effort.

Persistent packs also includes the new wolf naming system. We wanted to base this on the actual method used in Yellowstone, but park biologists only give numbers to wolves who have had their blood sampled and DNA analyzed. That mainly means wolves with radio collars, though biologists do sometimes locate dead wolves and sample their blood as well, giving them a number postumously. Since only about 25% of wolves in the park have radio collars, this means that nearly 3/4 of wolves in the game would have no identifying number, which just isn't viable for us. We entertained a few other ideas but finally settled on the simplest one: every wolf gets a number when they are born. This is applied retroactively to existing wolves, so those who are now five years old get numbers in the 600-800 range, and so on, with the first litter of pups in a new game getting numbers starting at 1600. The names you may have given your mate and pups are now their nickname, which you can change at any time -- but their number is a permanent identifier that stays with them for their entire life.

Your packmates won't be the only wolves with nicknames. Now all NPC wolves have them, and if you encounter a rival wolf in a fight or a dispersal wolf in courtship, they'll be listed in the new Known Wolves panel, where you can give them a nickname if you like.

This is a pretty big new system in the game, and it'll take some time to work out the bugs and polish it up, but we do plan to release it in an update somewhat soon -- and definitely before the Saga (which won't be before next year). So stay tuned for more!

_________________________

The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will consider porting the game to other platforms.

We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.