Howdy hunters,
Last week was super busy and intense, with lots of things happening at Expansive Worlds headquarters. Here is a short wrap-up of the latest and greatest.
Closed Beta of theHunter: Call of the Wild
For one, we released the long awaited gameplay trailer and had a closed beta session for theHunter: Call of the Wild. It’s been tons of fun and your engagement was beyond what we expected, thank you! For all the details around the closed beta please check our official community hub on Steam. Later this week we’ll posting there a selection of best moments from the closed beta, created by participants.
Grey Wolves are here!
Similarly great news, on Wednesday we finally released Grey Wolves onto Timbergold Trails! The release hasn’t been our smoothest one, which we had expected with adding such complex functionality and animal behaviour to a content-filled game of theHunter’s scale. Having said that, we jumped on the issues right away and fixe the majority of crashes in a hotfix patch the day after. The residual issues are being worked on and we are preparing a patch with the fix for the rest (delayed walking sounds, messed up bear sounds, disappearing tracks on Timbergold Trails, “invincible” wolves). We are also working on the launcher patching issue, unfortunately, we have no ETA on when it’s going to resolved, but we will keep you updated.
Old new Black and Brown Bears
And finally, another long, long awaited update! Our ugly ducklings, the Black and Brown Bears, have finally received an overhaul in terms of their coats, animations and sounds! The release ended up being a bit sneaky (unintendedly so), but hopefully a pleasant surprise nonetheless! Later this week we are going to make more noise about them, with some bear related events and sales. In the meantime, make sure to check this awesome forum thread by BucksNBuffalo where he put together a nice showcase of the different textures of the updated Black Bears.
Movember results
November is all over as is our traditional Movember fundraising for awareness for men’s health. This year our community bought 962 moustaches for which we donated $1924 to the Movember Foundation. Thank you for this year, the engagement has been great, let’s do it again next year!
Say hi to Stefan!
And last but not least, we finally have a new community manager! His name is Stefan, some of you have already met him on the theHunter Classic and theHunter: Call of the Wild forums, and here comes his official introduction:
Hello all,
My name is Stefan and I am the new Community Manager for theHunter. I have joined Avalanche last week and will take over the Community Management from Alena who is moving into a new role as Producer for theHunter Classic.
Originally I come from Germany, more precisely a small town in the Eifel Region near Koblenz and I am 32 years old. I’ve previously worked at Electronic Arts in Ireland since 2011 where I have been a FAQ Content Author, Team Manager and Community Coordinator for games like Battlefield, Crysis and Need for Speed.
PC Games have been my great passion since I started out with playing “Stunts” and “Raptor” on the 386 and 486 in my best friend’s room. As soon as I got my first PC I was helplessly lost and dreamed about working in the gaming industry, bringing the same joy and excitement to many people around the world. The gaming Community is a very important part of the overall experience for me which made it especially interesting for me to work in and with communities, eventually joining the theHunter team here in Stockholm.
In my private time I enjoy outdoor activities like hiking, camping and kayaking as well as Olympic weightlifting and making music. I also have two wild little kittens, Lykke and Lovis, who keep me busy when I’m at home.
I am looking forward to meeting you on the forums, Steam or in game and exchange ideas, game experiences and have a good time together! 🙂
Cheers,
Stefan
That’s it from us for today, happy hunting!
Share this
