SEASON: A letter to the future News

Fix cinematics not playing on some configurations

Scavengers Studio have laid off more than half their staff after photography-biking adventure Season: A Letter To The Future failed to meet commercial expectations. In an email to employees shared with GamesIndustry.biz, CEO Amélie Lamarche said “the game only sold 60,000 copies during its first five months, which falls far short of what the studio needs to survive.” Lamarche notes that discounts, critical praise, and game updates didn’t move the needle, and now only 16 employees are left at the studio after downsizing.

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Scavengers Studio, the Montreal-based developer behind Season and Darwin Project, is laying off over half of its employees following low sales on its latest game.

Season, an indie darling and one of PlayStation's best exclusives in recent years, appears to have sold less than 60,000 copies according to French journalist Gauthier Andres. This was in spite of numerous trailers and critical acclaim for Season, a game that seems to have been a massive hit among a small crowd.

In an update provided to Gamesindustry.biz, the developer shared the internal announcement sent around the studio by CEO Amélie Lamarche last week. It states: "While Season received critical acclaim, it did not meet our commercial expectations." The statement then confirms initial reporting from Andres: "Despite our efforts to boost sales through content updates and discounts, the game only sold 60,000 copies during its first five months, which falls far short of what the studio needs to survive."

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Thanks to the Season community members for their feature and improvement requests for the game! We’re happy to announce that we have added quite a few fun new features, bug fixes and improvements to Season.

Steam Deck is now fully supported! We’ve also added Steam trading cards, badges, emoticons and profile backgrounds!



As well, there are new improvements to the bike collision system. Players should notice their ride is less affected by small environmental pieces. The patch also includes optimizations that improve overall performance.

Due to numerous requests, players will now also be able to view their journal after the game’s ending! Journal customization proved to be the most popular tool in our game, and we expanded on that aspect of the player journey by providing a final glimpse into their own journal after coming to the end of their trip.

Please note: Players must launch their save game to take advantage of the journal view after the game’s end.

New features and quality of life improvements:

• Steam deck is now properly supported!
  
• Steam trading cards, badges, emoticons and profile backgrounds have been added!
  
• Full screen display mode has been added
  
• A resolution setting has been added while playing in full screen mode
  
• The character movement mode no longer reverts to walking when they stop
  
• The bike rotation speed is now based on its velocity, allowing for more control at lower speeds
  
• Improved camera behavior while biking
  
• It is now possible to transition directly from biking to camera/audio recorder/journal
  
• To make the previous change possible, the default binding for braking has been changed from space bar to left shift (PC only)
  
• Improved navigation in few places in the path out of Caro map
  
• Added collisions around certain assets to prevent players getting stuck
  
• Minor performance optimizations
  

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue that would prevent certain players to complete the gods pages
  
• Fixed various typos throughout the game
  
• Fixed a bug where sketching at a bench before starting the Tide prayer would trigger an incorrect animation
  
• Fixed an incorrect collision on some pillars in Tieng Valley shrine slope
  
• Fixed a bug where using the unstuck option while being on the bike would put the character in an incorrect state
  
• Fixed various localization issues
  
• Fixed multiple crashes
  
• Fixed an issue where some texts were overlapping on the toast to Tieng journal page in French
  

If you have any questions or need assistance, please email us at [email protected]. Thank you!

Today we’ve released a new build to improve and fix the following areas of the game:

Improvements:
Added an “Unstuck” button in the pause menu
Improved the bike collision system
Updated DLSS with the latest NVIDIA plugin version (PC only)


Fixes:
Fixed multiple crashes
Fixed many collisions throughout the game, preventing characters from climbing on them
Fixed some save system issues that would cause an incorrect state when loading a save
Fixed a bug where the bike tutorial would remain visible even after being completed
Fixed some floating assets throughout the game
Fixed some assets which were popping up only when player was close
Fixed two save zones in Tieng Valley that were not working as intended
Fixed an issue where some voice lines would be missing from the ending cinematic (in French)
Fixed a bug where the settings menu would not work properly on certain resolutions (PC only)
Fixed some journal pages where text was cut off (in French)


If you need any help with the game please contact [email protected]. Thank you!