A long day with a lot of new life in the north. The animals got real bodies, the dead in the barrows got faces, and there is finally a reason to string a bow.
The Wild Gets Real Bodies#
Until today the wolves, deer and bears of YUMA were boxes and spheres that walked around. Now every animal has a proper body and moves like one: the wolf, the roe deer, the elk, the brown bear, the wild boar and the mountain hare. They walk, break into a gallop when they flee, lower their heads to graze, look around while they rest, and fall the way animals fall.
The skeletons and movements come from free CC0 animal rigs. On top of them sit new, realistic skins: thick fur, the pale rump of the roe deer, the dark coat and broad antlers of the elk, the bristles of the boar. Grouse no longer just run away from you. When you get too close they burst up and fly off, and land somewhere else a little further on.
Bows and Butchering#
Hunting is in. There are three bows, from a crude one to an elm longbow, and arrows with flint, bone or iron heads. Hold the mouse button to draw (you slow to a walk while you do), aim and release. Where the arrow hits matters: a shot to the heart and lungs drops an animal fast, a shot to the leg leaves it running and bleeding, and you can follow the blood trail to where it finally lies down.
A dead animal stays where it fell. Kneel down with a knife and you get meat, hide, sinew, bone and antlers, and the arrows that stuck in it come back. With bare hands you only get half of the meat. Crouch in the grass and keep the wind in your face, or the animals will hear and smell you long before you see them.
The Dead Have Faces#
The barrows have been in the game for a few days, but their dead were grey placeholder people. Now they look like what they are. There are four kinds of draugr: the warrior in a rusted helmet and mail, the bog thrall with the noose still around his neck, the shield-maiden with long grey hair in a rotten dress, and the drowned sailor with kelp and barnacles. The barrow king wears a gold circlet and a cloak gone dark with age.
They come for you through the trees with a cold blue glow. Their weapons are still simple stand-ins, those are next.
Trolls and Seers#
The forest troll is huge, with a long nose, granite skin and a beard of moss. It hunts at night. If the morning finds it out in the open, it turns to stone right where it stands, and stays there as a reminder.
The seers who live in lonely huts now have a body of their own as well: an old woman in a dark blue cloak with glass beads and an iron staff after the find from Fyrkat. The clan chieftains are getting rich clothes too, a red tunic with woven trim and a blue cloak for the men, oval brooches with bead strings for the women.
Sagas That Send You Hunting#
The saga journal (J) collects the journeys the world gives you. The chieftains of the clans ask for help in their own way, and now many of their requests are about the hunt: an elk for a wedding feast, a bear for a champion’s cloak, boars that root up the barley, feathers for the clan’s arrows, hides and antlers for the winter’s work. Rune stones tell twice as many stories as before, and the seers have new things to say about the dead, the iron and the coming winter.
The clans also trade the spoils of the hunt now: venison, hides, sinew, antlers, feathers, bows and arrows all have their price.
The First Real Winter#
Snow now settles where it should: on the ground, on rocks, on roofs, on spruce branches and on the stones of the barrows. Under a roof, under an overhang, in a cave or in a barrow chamber the ground stays dry, because the game looks at what stands above every spot.
A Quieter, Darker Sound#
The world sounds a little more like a saga now. Very quiet tonal beds come and go depending on where you are and the hour: a cave, a barrow, the forest at night, the wind on the high plateau, a winter night, the first light of dawn. Most of the time there is nothing at all, so that it means something when it is there. A short horn or harp marks a new place on your map or the start of a raid, wolves howl far away at night, water drips in caves, and halls, caves and forests each have their own echo.
Also New#
- A new front end: a main menu with your worlds, each with its own seed, new painted art on the menu and loading screens, rebindable keys, saving from the pause menu.
- No more half-built worlds: the loading screen now waits until the land around you, the far mountains and the forest are really there before it lets you in. A new world can take a while. We would rather you wait than walk into a broken one.
What’s Next#
Real weapons for the draugr, the troll and the hunters, more polish for the new coast where you now start, the first look at taming animals, and a long playthrough of the first winter.