I’m waiting with serene anticipation (and a little nervousness) for some weird mech to step on me in The Forever Winter. In case you missed the May announcement, The Forever Winter is a co-op extraction shooter set in a bleak future where you fight for survival amidst an endless hyper-industrial war. Since its reveal, developer Fun Dog Studios has been sending out mostly petite “burst streams” — essentially footage from the front lines of hell — like this patriotic beheading and a little bit panic shootings. But today they made a longer video, revealing the Early Access release date. And – oh! – it’s quite soon.
The game is set to hit Early Access on September 24, according to the developers, with four maps, a ton of weapons, and five “scattered characters, each with their own baggage and playstyle.” That “baggage” could be both metaphorical and literal, as one of the game’s features involves having to strap a bulky modular backpack, called a “rig,” to your body before heading into the Death Zone. Imagine the courier’s backpack from Death Stranding , but equipped with jets or filled with deployable turrets instead of frosty pizzas.
I’ve seen the game described as a “PvEvE” shooter where opposing factions wage war while you scrape together a living. The whole idea is that you’re a frail little meat sack in an overblown mechanistic conflict, and it’s often better to avoid patrols and let the opposing machines fight than to engage in combat yourself. A beta recently launched, and YouTuber “Riloe” created buzzing video explaining the game’s general rules and inspirations. That was enough to get me onto the game’s Discord, where I first saw people getting really excited about the leggy mech they now call “harvester mommy.”
Either way, in the video above, original director Miles Williams addresses us from behind the cyber helmet of a human scavenger. He lays out a few promises about what the game’s Early Access period will look like, many of which address common player complaints. The game is set to cost $30, and he wants to make sure you understand that there will be no pay-to-win shenanigans after that purchase.
“You’ll never pay for a new character, because that’s how it should be when you buy a game,” Williams says. “You won’t pay for maps, weapons, extra quests, new bosses, and more. That change is for the birds.”
The game will still sell cosmetics and skin packs for extra cash, though. So it’s not a completely old-school approach. While the studio boss has fond memories of the days when you could just buy the game and have everything it ever had, The Forever Winter is still around in 2024. They need to sell some face paint, I guess they’re saying that. That’s fair.
Williams also shares a roadmap for the future, such as modern bosses and upcoming levels. Early Access will feature an additional gray area (essentially a “work in progress” map) on top of the four main maps. It’s so that willing players can support test the battlefield, the developer says, and is partly inspired by another extraction shooter.
“We really respect what the guys did with Ready Or Not,” Williams says. “The fact that they had the balls to release grey box maps for their map collection was amazing. So we’re taking a cue from them.”
So yeah, it looks cold. I’ve been watching The Forever Winter progress with hope over the last few months. There’s something about huge robots being awful that I like Animatrix– brain-numbed. I’ll have more to write about his war-torn loot zones soon. Until then, please enjoy one hour ambient harvester mommy.
