Estranged: The Departure News

A new build is live on Steam for Windows, macOS and Linux including a brand new short level!



There is a new short level available in Estranged, called Blizzard. It's a short, story-driven adventure, and is a free and permanent update for the game.



The Blizzard short was made for the holiday season, but isn't directly related to it! It provides some clues about the Estranged: The Departure story, and also what might follow it.

There are now a total of 3 shorts, all available from the main menu.

Thank you for playing Estranged!
Alan

A new build is live on Steam for Windows, macOS and Linux including a brand new short level!



There is a new short level available in Estranged, called Waterfront. It's a short, story-driven adventure, and is a free and permanent update for the game.

The Waterfront short was made for this Halloween but isn't directly related to it, if you were feeling a bit overloaded with pumpkins! It's an homage to the very first level that started the first Estranged game, "Splooshe" (available to download for Estranged: Act I).

There are now a total of two shorts, both available in a new Extras -> Shorts menu!

Thank you for playing Estranged!
Alan

An update is now live on Steam for Windows, macOS and Linux containing level improvements, and general fixes.

[h3]Level Improvements[/h3]

The jumping puzzle in the Arque car park now doesn't require you to run and jump across at the same time, to make it easier to make it across with a gamepad.



Levels which used tesellated water now instead use a high poly mesh, since this is more performant on low end machines. You can find out more about the technique in the development blog video below:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]General Changes[/h3]

This build also includes a bunch of other fixes to improve the overal gameplay experience:

• Removes use of tessellation in the map Dock and map Ocean levels
  
• Removes the jumping puzzle from the Arque basement car park
  
• Playing with a gamepad now results in more damage dealt to enemies
  
• Improves non-volumetric fog in map Crash for low end devices
  
• Updates translations for all targets with latest tweaks and fixes
  
• Improves stream-loading for slower devices: audio is no longer muted
  
• Adds dedicated "licenses" menu in Extras menu section
  
• Fixes back controller/keyboard button not working on the Arcade menu
  
• Fixes the keyboard/controller being able to select disabled menu items
  
• Changes the translation for "Use Steam Language" to "Use System Language"
  

Thank you for playing Estranged! The Discord community is around at https://discord.gg/estranged if you want to join!

Alan

An update is now live for Windows, macOS and Linux featuring a new title for the game!

[h3]New Game Title[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
I'm excited to announce that Estranged: Act II is now Estranged: The Departure! This change is primarily to let players new to the Estranged series at a glance that it's not necessary to play Act I first.



There's no change to the content of the game other than a new startup screen. There are no plans to change the title of Estranged: Act I at this time.

Other changes in this build:

• Adds support for gamepad rumble, with option to turn it off
  
• Fixes scrolling longer menus with gamepad/keyboard
  

I'd like to give a special thank you to those that have been following the game since development began. If you'd like to join the Discord conversation: discord.gg/estranged

Note: There are quite a few things to update which can take some time to propagate. If you still see the old name after this post is an hour old (and after restarting your Steam client), please let me know.

Thanks,
Alan

An update is now live on Steam for Windows, macOS and Linux! This update includes some stability improvements and new cheats.

[h3]Prelude Improvements[/h3]



You can now get out of the ocean more easily in the Prelude if you jump in from the dock!

[h3]New Cheats[/h3]

There are new cheats available:

• dropweapon - useful for dropping your current weapon if you want to take a screenshot, and can't take advantage of Nvidia Ansel
  
• loadall - allows you to stream in all levels in the current world at once to see what they're like together (interesting when used with noclip). This cheat works in TheFall and TheBase.
  

[h3]Development Screenshots[/h3]

I have been posting development screenshots to the #dev-screenshots channel on discord.gg/estranged - here's a rollup:




As ever - thank you for playing Estranged! If you run into any bugs or want to keep up with development, head over to https://discord.gg/estranged

Alan