Returning to Don t Starve s world of goth survival whimsy is like slipping into a bubble bath full of piranha. You re happy, but braced for impact. The Shipwrecked DLC is currently in Early Access, so some content remains to be added and balance changes will be made based on feedback, (there s a roadmap here), but what s available now feels like a sufficiently interesting twist on the formula to make me want to spend a lot time in the tropical deathtrap that Klei Entertainment and Capybara Games have co-developed.

The key change is the setting. You wake on an island amidst the wreckage of a boat, and from there it s the familiar Don t Starve rush to gather resources, build tools, and harvest food before the onset of night, which is lethal without the protection of fire. But whereas in previous iterations you could pretty much just scout for a plum location—ideally with Beefalo and plenty of fresh veg located within walking distance—and then turtle up at your base, in Shipwrecked you re aggressively encouraged to explore.

Inevitably, the ocean life is not an easy one. Building a basic raft is easy enough, but it s fragile and slow. Soon you ll want to upgrade to a rowboat, which can be equipped with a thatch sail and even a lantern for night maneuvers. Waves vary in height, and timed right can be used for a speed boost, but there s a risk/reward payoff because if you take on too much water your items will get sodden, and ultimately you can sink.

Each procedurally-generated world is an archipelago, with different biomes spread across islands which vary wildly in size. Because certain items remain crucial to progress—like gold nuggets to build your first science machine, or spider silk to craft bug nets—there s almost no point in laying down roots until you ve secured a decent source of the most important materials. Which is going to mean heading out to sea.

Whilst sailing you ll discover coral reefs, which can be mined and then turned into limestone, plus jellyfish and seaweed to cook back in your crock pot. In about half a dozen playthroughs I ve only been attacked once on water, which was by a Sea Hound that I evaded easily enough after the initial ohshitohshit reaction. I suspect my relative safety so far is because the Tiger Shark boss has yet to be implemented. When that thing is prowling the waters, weaponising your boat with cannons will likely become a more pressing concern. Boats can also be equipped with trawl nets that will scoop up fish, mussels, useless junk, and—if you re lucky—rare items depending on what season you re in.

Climate of fear

As ever, it s climate that s the big killer in Don t Starve. You start off in the false sense of security that is the Mild Season, when it s comparatively easy to find food and make shelter. That s followed by Hurricane Season, which is about exactly as rough as it sounds. If you haven t bothered building a lightning rod, your sweet camp will be zapped to a smouldering insurance claim within seconds of the first storm starting. Then there s to hail to contend with. You can pick up hailstones and use them as filler in crockpot recipes (much like sticks), but beware that a bug currently means that those icy nuggets left on the ground will constantly bang into any walls you ve built, eventually destroying them. The developers are working on a fix.

After the hurricanes comes Monsoon Season. Here the land will get progressively more flooded, potentially waterlogging your vital crafting machines. (Semi-pro tip: craft a chiminea early because the flames will stay sheltered from wind and rain.) Making matters worse—in Don t Starve, it s always worse—poisonous mosquitoes begin to spawn in flooded areas. Getting poisoned, which can also happen from snake and spider bites, results in a swift, panicky death unless you ve crafted some anti-venom. Unfortunately, to craft anti-venom you first need to kill one of the poisonous critters, ideally before it kills you, and hope it drops a venom gland. The mechanic is a source of complaint in the community and also on the balance to-do list.

Dry Season comes last and sees overheating become an issue. Or not, if like me you ve already lashed together a siesta lean-to and an ice making machine. Admittedly, neither of those were much help when I was overwhelmed by a pack of dogs (which are still a thing) and didn t have my ghostly twin sister around to help out. (I ve mostly been playing as Wendy— The Bereaved , whose spectral sibling is great at killing mobs, but plan to try Walani, who comes with a surfboard, soon.) As for the rest of Dry Season, it apparently features volcanic eruptions. Good luck staving off fiery rocks with a bamboo umbrella. I have to confess I haven t encountered this yet as my best save lasted around 50 days—a far cry from the 300+ marathon I managed to pull off in the vanilla game. Still, I m definitely feeling the old compulsion to keep playing.

Super monkey balls

Double screening is one of the great joys of PC gaming, and I play a lot of my favourite games while half-watching TV shows on the other monitor. But with Don t Starve I have to stick to music or, at most, a podcast, because I can t risk taking my eyes off what s happening. That s how fatal poisonings happen. There s actually almost an RTS vibe to it, because maximising the efficiency of your clicks leads to the most efficient resource haul. But the meta game is all about gearing up to survive the next season. Once you find the right groove, it s remarkable how safe Shipwrecked starts to feel. Which is usually exactly when the piranha in the bath sinks its teeth into your balls.

Shipwrecked sadly doesn t do anything to fix some of the structural problems Don t Starve has always suffered from. After a great run comes to an end, it feels onerous to have to slog through the early hours of busywork required to construct an even half-decent homestead. Also, the variation between a new world in which vital resources are initially spawned nearby and one in which you struggle to find anything useful feels way too wide. Perhaps the world-building algorithm can be tweaked so the initial RNG doesn t have quite such a big impact. Or maybe that would reduce the thrill of discovery.

Much of Don t Starve s considerable magic resides in stumbling across something you haven t found before, then working out how to benefit from it. I ve spent some time trying to work out how to farm Shipwrecked s prime apes—infuriatingly cute monkeys which steal any nearby items you drop—for their meat and manure. You can distract them with a Silly Monkey Ball, but it costs a lot of stuff to craft. In a final act of desperation I tried to burn the entire forest around them, but as I was whispering the horror, the horror , they emerged unscathed and stole my coconuts. Still, at least the weather s nice. For now.

Shipwrecked, the Don't Starve expansion that traps poor Wilson (or whichever of the other oddball characters you prefer) on a tropical archipelago, hit Steam Early Access on December 1 and has earned an overwhelmingly positive response from nearly 1400 players. There's still quite a bit more content to come, though, and so yesterday developer Klei Entertainment revealed its roadmap for the next couple of months.

There are three more characters to be added to the game, and three new big-assed bosses, including the Tiger Shark. A new biome will also be added, and there are also plans for more Shipwrecked-specific set pieces and world items. But the most impactful changes may may be made through behind-the-scenes balance changes, which will be made over the course of the coming updates.

This game takes a long time to play, and you will encounter different scenarios each time you play. Players constantly encounter situations that we never even imagined. Because of this, when we add new content to Don t Starve the initial tuning is, for the most part, our best guess on what will play well, Klei's Bryce Doig explained. Your feedback on these new systems is worth its weight in gold (how much does text on the internet weigh?) when we adjust the tuning of systems as it allows us to make much more informed decisions than we would otherwise be able to make.

The plan is to add new content through updates released every three weeks, beginning with the next one in mid-January and concluding at the end of February. After that there will be an update dedicated entirely to bug fixes and balance changes, Klei said. Of course, it should be noted that all of these times are just estimates of our schedule and may very well change. We'll have some impressions of Shipwrecked on the site next week. 

Announced back in August, the next major Don't Starve expansion will launch into Early Access on December 1. Dubbed Shipwrecked, the Early Access period will be fully playable, with "new seasons, creatures, biomes". New ways to die are also promised, which is just as well.

"As always, during early access we will be releasing regular updates containing new content as well as tweaks and bug fixes based on your input," a spokesperson for publisher Klei wrote on the game's forums. As the name suggests, Shipwrecked will have you spending a lot of time in boats, and hopefully not too much time drowning in the water outside of boats.

Don't Starve has seen a number of substantial additions since its initial release in 2013. The biggest one was Don't Starve Together, which is a multiplayer co-op version of the main game. Oh, and the Reign of Giants DLC was pretty decent too.

No word as yet on when the expansion will finish up in Early Access, and studio Capy Games is still working on world migration, which won't be available on December 1.

If you love being lost in a cruel world accompanied only by the morbid sense that your own death draws closer with each step—and hey, who doesn't?—then boy have I got great news for you! Klei Entertainment has announced a new single-player expansion for Don't Starve, called Shipwrecked. Coming later this Fall, it's actually not being developed by Klei, but by Capy—developers of Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP, Super Time Force Ultra, and Below.

The announcement says Shipwrecked will bring "new playable characters, biomes, creatures and seasonal effects."  Somewhat obviously, the entire expansion will have a seafaring theme and add sailing to the game, which is the first time water has done more than impede your progress in Don't Starve. There's no word when (or even if) Shipwrecked will make it to the multiplayer version, Don't Starve Together, but you can expect the single-player version to hit PC, Mac, and Linux this fall.

"I'm a survivor," sang Destiny's Child in 2001; thus proving once and for all that three people are better at tackling a harsh wilderness (and/or shitty boyfriends) than one. In recognition of that, Klei has given all owners of their survival game Don't Starve a free copy of standalone multiplayer expansion Don't Starve Together.

The multiplayer component was always due to be given, for free, to Don't Starve owners on completion of its time in Early Access. Despite this, Don't Starve Together is not yet out of beta. Klei has decided to hand it out nonetheless. If you owned Don't Starve prior to June 3, you now own Don't Starve Together, too.

"Today, we welcome 2 million new players into the Don't Starve Together community," writes Klei. "Thank you once again to everyone who supported us on this journey."

As for future buyers of Don't Starve, you won't receive a copy of the expandalone. Instead, Klei has released a Don't Starve Mega Pack, featuring both games, and an extra giftable copy of Don't Starve Together, for 17/$20.

If you're eligible for a copy but don't know where it is, head over to Klei's FAQ page.

Tim told me before we started that he had played a lot of Don't Starve, but the reality of that didn't hit me until we got into the game and he became a well-oiled, survival machine. Don't Starve Together is a standalone, multiplayer version of the original that just recently entered Steam early access. It will be made free to those who currently own the original when it leaves early access, but Tim and I couldn't wait to get our hands on it. While it seems like not much has changed yet, sharing survival with another person can be a very different experience. Watch the video above to see me and Tim fight for our lives. 

Don't Starve Together, the standalone multiplayer expansion for Don't Starve, will hit Early Access on December 15. As the name implies, Don't Starve Together is a cooperative spin on the top down survival game, pitting friends against the harsh realities of starvation. It'll be a nice, friendship-building experience.

Klei Entertainment has announced that in its Early Access state, Don't Starve Together will no longer be a free upgrade for existing Don't Starve players. Instead, owners of the original game will pay $4.99 for the Frontier Pack. It's a decent deal though: upgrading will grant you a copy of Don't Starve as well as two keys to the Don't Starve Together Early Access. Those who don't already own the original game will pay $19.99 for the pack. Update: If you don't want to take part in the Early Access period, the multiplayer expansion will still be free if you own the game, you'll just have to wait for the final build.

The Early Access edition follows a beta, which proved so popular that Klei decided to make the upgrade to Steam. "As part of the Beta signup process, we ve found that there are a lot of people who really want into the Beta, and even while giving out a hundreds of keys every day, it became clear to us that we needed a release valve for the demand. 

"Specifically, people were starting to buy keys in back channels, with varying success. That's why we're now providing the Frontier Pack: a clear, official channel for access."

Check out the Early Access trailer below:

If for some reason you budget your video game spending by the weekend, then here's good news: you can spend that money on something else. May I suggest: nicer food. A new pair of shoes. A trip to the nearest theme park. 

The reason is, Steam is making ten games free this weekend as part of its aptly titled Free Weekend promotions. The games include Company of Heroes 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Grid 2. You'll have over 48 hours to play them, as they unlock 10am Pacific time on Thursday, October 16. After that you'll need to pay for them, with the promise of substantial discounts.

Here's the list:

Awesomenauts Blade Symphony Company of Heroes 2 Don't Starve Grid 2 Injustice Killing Floor Payday 2 Trine 2 XCOM: Enemy Unknown

It's a good week for free games: GOG.com is giving away Alien versus Predator Classic this week as part of a GOG Galaxy test run.