The future of Into the Wild

So, it's been a while since I checked in with you all! Honestly, burn out hit me like a truck after Into the Wild released, it was a VERY tiring year working on getting this game out to you all, so I needed to step away for a bit. That being said, seeing everyone playing Into the Wild over the last nearly 2 months has been a dream come true for me and I absolutely plan to continue working on Into the Wild.

As I mentioned in a previous announcement a while back, because of me using Into the Wild as my masters project, I wasn't able to patch the game while my submission was still being graded. Well, that grading period is over and I can start to look at getting new content pushed out to you all! I've been looking at the feedback that Into the Wild has received, both good and bad, and thinking about where to go from here. I'm really glad that so many people played Into the Wild and found something in it that they enjoyed, and I'm also aware that the game has a lot of flaws that hindered peoples game experiences.

As such, for the last couple of weeks I've been working on a fairly large update that should bring some cool new features to the game, as well as fix some of the existing problems. Progress is actually fairly far along with this update, as I've had time to work on some of the new features in the time that I couldn't patch the game, I just didn't want to announce it to you all until I knew that I was in the clear to start releasing new content.

So! Into the Wild's version 1.1.0 update should add into the game:

• Wildlife! Both passive wildlife that can be hunted for food, like rabbits, and hostile wildlife that will actively attempt to attack you, like wolves

• New items! Most significantly firearms and ammunition for either hunting or self-defense to go along with the addition of wildlife, but a few smaller additions as well

• Updated environment! A lot of improvements to the existing game environment to add more detail and to (hopefully) fix the pretty abysmal texture tiling that is currently in the game

• Overhauled fall damage! This system really kinda sucked to a degree that I hadn't realized prior to the games release, so I've been working on completely ripping out the old system and making a new one from scratch

I don't have an exact ETA for this update just yet. The wildlife and firearms are both very close to finished, I'm mainly just struggling with animations since animating really isn't my strong point. I hope that this update will get pushed out sometime in late October to early November, but I really can't say for sure, and I'll update you guys with more specifics about the content in the update as well as a more accurate time you can expect it as we get closer to it's completion.

Once this update comes out, I can say with at least some degree of confidence that I will be continuing to work on new content, as I have a lot of ideas for where to take the game and what to improve in it. But, I want to stay grounded in the present, so we can look at what comes after this update once I've got these features pushed out to you.

I'm really excited for you guys to try the improved Into the Wild in another month or so!

Seph