Anybody interested in a roadmap?
NOTE: Please remember that the roadmap is provided to give the community a sense of what we are working on and what is driving our decisions and what we are focused on in the coming year. None of this is a promise or a guarantee. We always prioritize quality over deadlines and all dates and timelines are estimated to the best of our current ability. Many long-time fans will know that we often add new things to these plans which often shifts things around a bit, so it is recommended that you avoid scheduling your vacation plans around our dates.
This roadmap is subject to change at any time, but as we have done in the past, we will let you know if any of these plans change significantly.
2022 Recap
Our goal for 2022 was to “Set the Stage” for what was to come next for DST.
In the 2022 roadmap we saw the Year of the Catcoon and Bunnyman. We released refreshes for Maxwell, Wickerbottom, WX-78 and Wilson is right around the corner. We released QOL updates all over the place including a revamped Crafting UI, a redesigned Ancient Guardian, Map QOL changes, World Presets and New World Settings.
We introduced Shared Unlocks and Offline Skins. We added more games to the Midsummer Cawnival and we released the Curse of the Moon Quay and A Little Drama updates.
We released 10 sets of Twitch Drops and 50+ hotfixes with bug fixes, tweaks, and balance changes.
2022 was a busy year for Don’t Starve Together. While it may not have been as content heavy as some players were hoping for, the changes were necessary to prepare for 2023 and we’re ready to talk about that a bit.
This is going to be a pretty substantial post, so I am going to give a bit of a brief TL;DR summary first, then get into the meaty bits. Additionally, I should mention that we’re still doing a lot of experimentation and tweaks to how these plans are being implemented at the moment, so I have to be light with the details (surprise, surprise). But we want you to know what you have to look forward to.
What’s coming up in 2023? (TL;DR)
Our goal for the next roadmap is to smooth out the experience for less experienced players and provide longer lasting endgame challenges for veteran players.
- 3 Content Updates
- 2 Core Game Enhancement Updates
- All the usual events
- A secret bite-sized crossover
- Don’t Starve 10 Year Celebration
What we’re doing and why.
Don’t Starve Together is arguably one of the most challenging survival games out there right now. However some of the design principles that were used to create the original single player game can feel unnecessarily unfriendly in a multiplayer game. The original Don’t Starve was designed around the idea of players being self directed. However multiplayer isn’t always compatible with this design and was largely why we resisted multiplayer for the original Don’t Starve.
With DST, we have smoothed some of the rougher edges over time, but most of the focus has been on providing group based challenges up until more recently. We think there are still a few areas that we would like to see improved upon, and many, MANY of you have suggested the same. The areas that we are going to focus on in this roadmap are in early game discovery, and the late to end game loop.
Now - before you start getting worried, know that we understand that we’re stepping into some weird territory here. Our goal isn't to make the game easier, or even to make the game harder (overall). The goal is to make the game more interesting in the ways that those who love Don’t Starve and Don’t Starve Together will enjoy while also providing people who don’t know the game more opportunities to understand what the game expects of them..
But not all Don’t Starve Together players are the same. To some, DST is too easy, to some it’s too hard, and to others it “is what it is” and they don’t want it changed. Our goals here are to offer all players something interesting, fun and engaging and to improve the game in areas we think will have a lasting impact. This roadmap should result in a game that is easier to understand and harder to master..
We have a few areas that we want to focus on to accomplish this. In terms of content, we plan to delve deeper into the stories surrounding Charlie and Wagstaff, and explore the impact of their actions on The Constant. The introduction of late-game world challenges will change The Constant in ways that players will need to adapt to, either by working with or against them. This will also provide Survivors with the opportunity to discover new resources and items that will be vital for their survival as they progress throughout all areas of the game.
Some of this has been introduced as part of the Wilson Refresh, and we will continue to build upon them throughout the year.
And what about the newer players?
Something that we have seen time and time again is that some newer players have a hard time understanding what they should be doing, or where they should be going and may become frustrated or miss a lot of content if they don’t know what else is out there for them. With this in mind, we are going to work toward making it a bit easier to understand what should be happening in the game without necessarily making the game easier.
To that end we will be working on additions to the compendium and other elements of the game that will provide more information about what is happening, as well as progress indicators that help players see themselves grow through what they have learned in the game.
Some of you may have noticed that some elements of the Wilson Refresh are a part of this effort as well. Wilson now acts as a sort of guide through the progression of the game, without directly telling the player what to do, his new skill tree can guide a player toward long term goals as they explore the world. He’s still rather vanilla, he just has some sprinkles now. Nothing too intimidating to a new player.
It should also be said that the “Core Game Enhancement” updates are foundational and are likely to grow and change over time. This means that we’ll implement systems or features that we can tweak or add to over time and while it’s probably not accurate to call these QOL updates, they will be Quality of Life oriented in the sense that they are meant to make the overall game better for most players, but not always by improving existing systems.
What’s next?
The Wilson Refresh will be released Thursday and the update following that is currently planned for April will be a content update as part of the new Story Arc. This will be the first content update as part of this roadmap and should be quite interesting.
