After a successful Kickstarter, Hinterland Games released hardcore survival game The Long Dark via Early Access in 2014, hitting version 1.0 in 2017. It's continued receiving free updates since, both to its episodic story mode Wintermute and its survival mode, but as director Raphael van Lierop explains in this month's developer diary, that's going to change.While previously The Long Dark's survival updates had to be be limited in scope due to both modes being connected, the team has been working since the release of episode four to decouple them. That work is now complete, making more significant additions to survival mode possible—though not for free. "Last year we ran a community poll," van Lierop writes, "asking how you would like us to dedicate our focus for the future of The Long Dark. Amongst other bits of useful feedback, we discovered that nearly 80% of you wanted us to begin producing paid expa