Futuristic sci-fi survival game The eternal winter may seem like an extraction raider at first, but its terrifying, war-torn world makes it a much more tense and demanding experience than the likes of Once Human or Escape From Tarkov. Trying to survive in the shadow of rival factions clashing with their titanic war machines, even firing a single shot is a risk, and it’s all you and your friends can do to survive. In a new developer blog, Fun Dog Studios covers some of the community’s biggest questions as it looks to what’s next.

So far looting and mining survival game has proven to be a success, with a positive reception from more than 12,000 reviews in its first month of early access. It’s still just the beginning, but with a lot to go. With that in mind, Fun Dog’s Game Design Director Jeff Gregg and Sound Director Jason Willey sit down to answer key questions from The eternal winter players, with the likes of rigs, weapon designs, faction differences, progression and class design all on the table.

First up is the question of whether we could see more modular designs for rigs, the inventory storage you use to hold your loot during runs. “The short answer is yes,” says Gregg, “the long answer is I can’t promise a specific release date or upgrade for that.” He explains that rigs are currently built “in a really developer-friendly way”, but that he would like to provide a way for players to adjust their settings, provided the team is happy that it can balance the feature.

“There’s also, in addition to just customizing with the parts you’re using right now, a whole lot of extra rigging equipment and things that could go into any of those typically nine slots, for the biggest (rig),” he adds. Don’t expect this too soon though; Gregg says that’s on the back burner for now as the team works on “the really basic bugs and improvements and features.”

Despite its sci-fi setting and the presence of giant war robots, The Forever Winter’s weapon selection is currently pretty much what you’d expect from any modern shooter. So can we expect more futuristic weapons and equipment going forward? “Oh, absolutely,” Gregg replies.

“For me personally, it doesn’t make sense to go from early access to release without some kind of additional type of futuristic technology or weaponry. I don’t know if it’s going to be space lasers and lightsabers, but there’s going to be some cool stuff that’s really bizarre.” However, he notes that these weapons won’t just be for players – enemies will also get their hands on them.

Another important upgrade the team is working on is making team chat and summons more distinct for each faction. Willey also says he wants to improve players’ ability to tell what NPCs and enemy units are doing based on how they sound. “I’d like to give them a lot more separation so you can tell by listening, oh, they’re on patrol, they don’t see me; or maybe they heard me and now they’re investigating.”

Gregg then discusses wanting to implement “a more systemic system that does a much better job of reacting to the state of war as you play.” However, he emphasizes that he doesn’t just want this tied to simple actions like shooting a certain number of medium enemy mechs. “One of the things I’ve been saying a lot is that the game exists in spite of you, not because of you. It has to be more about if midrange mechanics happen to do this to the other factions, whether you engage or not.”

“If I was really a homeless old dude living in the sewers who just wanted water, I’d really have a critical eye on, ‘Hmm, it looks like Euruska’s reclaiming the Scrapyard Nexus?’ No, it’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m hungry, where can I get food?” My priorities would be radically different, he says. you are not the fulcrum on which the world turns.”

Fun Dog also turns its attention to progression and a potential character mushroom. “I’ve actually given this a lot of thought,” Gregg says, “I don’t like to arbitrarily kill progress. As long as you understand that it can happen, or what the rules are, I’m actually absolutely for it, because I’m like” You knew what was going to happen.” But to come by and say, ‘it’s gone,’ I never promise it won’t happen, but I’d rather avoid it.”

A potential solution, he suggests, could be to reset the character’s skills if that makes sense, but return the experience to players so they can spend it again. He says that if a wipe is necessary, Fun Dog will make sure to warn players in advance. Alternatively, he speculates on a future where players could be offered the choice of keeping their current tree or “promoting” to the new tree instead.

“I guess early access is what it is,” adds Willey, “but when games do it while they’re live, I’m not a big fan of it.” Gregg responds with: “It’s always easy to give people something – it’s always hard to take it away. It’s just a fact. But sometimes you have to, which is unfortunate, but we have to be fair.”

Rounding out the session is a question asking if we’ll see more alternate models for the various classes. Gregg says he’d like to see “as many as we can make” in the future, and may even include some variations that are distinct based on world history. This will of course extend to new playable classes as they are introduced, he concludes.

If you’d rather get into the mecha yourself, here they are best robot games. Looking for something to play with your friends? We have collected best co-op game year 2024.

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