No new story DLC being developed?

General Discussion
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I could hardly believe what I heard from yesterdays stream. (08.02.23)

On the question Will we ever see story DLC?, Carni replied There are currently no plans for a story DLC, followed by maybe for future plans, but right now it is not on the roadmap.

Can I just say that I’m disappointed?
We have waited almost 3 years for a new story DLC, and more than 3 years since we got the first DLC that introduced a completely new area, or island.

I’ve played GZ since release, and been a part of this community since summer 2019. From this experience there are (among several) two things that I can say for sure: 1. The dev team has always listened to feedback from players. 2. The community is in overwhelming agreement that Alpine Unrest is the best DLC that GZ has ever had.

With this in mind, I struggle to understand why the devs do not prioritize making another DLC like Alpine Unrest, and expand the game to another island? It is after all what players have asked for since FNIX Rising finally released to console.

GZ can’t be getting more players as the years pass by, so why keep us waiting for so long? Possibly until 2024 and beyond? I’m concerned how many of the “old” players will still be around when GZ (hopefully) comes to a conclusion one day in the future.

And yes: Crafting is nice. Soviet machines and backstory are nice, although introduced a bit confusingly, IMO. Area revamps are nice, at least most of them. Motorbikes are super sweet!
And I get that everything that has to do with bases has been a ton of work for the devs, even though I’m not too fond of this part of the game myself.

Anyway, has all this been worth keeping us waiting forever for another story expansion? Not just waiting, but not even knowing if it’s coming one day at all?

I would love if the next island expansion was currently being developed under the radar, with a planned surprise reveal some time in the first half of 2023, but when Carni says that it’s not even planned at this moment, that got me seriously concerned…

You can of course hope that it’s all just a white lie in order to keep a big secret, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

I love this game so much, and I don’t want to feel this worried about it!

What do you think?

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Look on Elite Dangerous Core. GenZ going the same way at the moment. But its true. We need new areas full with story, a overhaul of !>hacking<!, more caves/bunker and maybe a big underground subway.

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Two things come to mind…

  • I think that there just is no budget (yet) for a large new GZ project. Studio’s need to see their investment returned. And although I do not know if the sales for GZ were below par, perhaps the constant bugs and glitches this game suffers from contribute to low sales. I assume low sales are a legitimate reason for not starting a new story DLC.

  • Finding themselves in a circle of fixing bugs, only to create more, must also have a negative effect on the motivation of the developing team. This can lead to, stress, burn-outs, and developers leaving for another less stressful job.

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I don’t know.
There will be some reason for the surveys, they did. Sadly we never got any info about the results and the intents.
I still would love to see a roadmap for 2023, if it even exists.

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From what I understand, the main focus right now is finishing updating the main island with revamps and such. Looks like it’s just Mountain Region left. After that, who knows.

I want to see more story stuff too, though at the same time I realise it would probably take a lot of time and resources. Especially if it concerns the north-eastern island, which is a much bigger scope than Himfjäll was.

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It’s a shame. There’s so much that could be told from a story perspective. It feels that despite having played all story elements, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what happened and what’s to come. I had high hopes.

But I think it’s time for me to park GZ for a while until something interesting comes out. I’ve already played through the entire story 3 times. I don’t feel like doing it again. And there’s only so much base defence / assault one can do without purpose. Same for hunting rivals, the Reaper, etc. Not much point in continuing if there’s nothing more to come. At least not in the immediate future.

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I think when it took the turn to go from a story lead adventure and fighting machines along the way in an open world to just base building/defense game it tossed out the story and the open world. seems that is a big hint to end development of the game.

Remember all the rumors and speculation when the reaper was part of the mission on the island. Even with the announcements of new weapons or building add-on, most forum posts circle back to wanting the bugs fixed that the base building caused.

What has the story got to do with the game anymore? You are exploring or trying to complete a mission and a control point is taken over by FNIX. It shows you on the map where that control point is. You then waste resources and time on destroying, then building the control point.

Assignments don’t work well enough for a new player to stay interested in that and even when a player tries to follow the story, if they bought the add-on DLCs then the game leads them away from the base game and towards the control points in both the farmlands and south coast. Or towards the forest region and toward the island. Missing most of the main/base game.

I have really enjoyed playing this game for countless hours but it is no longer interesting to play. I tried to play it last night after a break from it for a few weeks and in less than 5 minutes the game just stopped working.

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@NJR87 Yeh i get it, i was disappointed when i saw that yesterday, but my surprise level was 0.
The game is almost 4 years old, and it was a mess in 2019 and in those months between 2020/2021.
I consider “we” the costumers lucky that they are finishing the main island revamps , bug fixes and new weapons , crafting and small “Nice” things.

Dont really care about the “story” but I always wanted those other islands unlocked with new factions (NATO, IRON CHURCH) and new enemies, new buildings, new situations but for now we cant have much hope.
They dont even have a next gen version with improvements, that would attract a few more players , so lets see what comes next.
At least its mostly fixed and stable (FINALY!! )

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This is pretty easy to explain imo, to simplify it a bit, a weapon DLC requires one animator for possible new reload animations or retargeting old animations, a designer, programmer if there’s new mechanics and art support on several levels, can be priced around 3-6 bucks and if 20% of players buy it you are good and get a return on investment, let’s say you spend 50k in total for the monthly pay because it can be done over a time in-house. If it’s bad, you didn’t take a high risk and can go on to work on your next pack.

A new story + location like alpine unrest requires level designer, several designers for possible new enemy types, then new weapons, maybe some system overhauls, producers to handle all that and VO in at least two languages, which is a much overlooked part for most players, as VO and localization of such are extremely expensive, time consuming and complicated. Also this will likely stretch live game resources thin and work on updates might completely stop. Then you also still need tons of QA capacity to test all that, and it might not be well received, then reviews and sentiment for your overall game plummet. You took a big risk and execs will likely think more towards shutting the live game down.

This is why a lot of games don’t do this major stuff until they can be sure it pans out well. Likely alpine unrest and FNIX rising did not make enough money to just further spendings like that, and as some people said, the things that are there right now are in much more need of rebalancing, reworking and adjusting, what would a new story DLC bring? We got interesting new machines and guns for FREE, plus a new game intro… that suffices for me at least.

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I gotta completely agree, alot of people have dropped gz and the best way to bring them back would be with a well made story dlc

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Let’s say “with some kind of unexpected upgrade”, which can mean:

“all major bugs removed”, “improved stability on all systems and 60fps”, “optical upgrade by new textures, effects, graphical features” or last, but not least “DLCs with new regions and story”.

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I like many here have been around since launch , I would love to see another Alpine unrest type expansion, I’ve felt a little deflated lately with the future of GZ.
I feel like this then jump on and remember why this game was so addictive , the concept is there and it could be realised with a sequel maybe ?
I don’t know how people would feel about removing the restrictions by using a more modern engine, I would however like to keep the lore , the era and the location with more islands added.
I found base assault was a nice idea but it doesn’t have that pull for me , so just find myself wishing for a new area and the unknown, there are many good reasons listed here why the devs might not be able to deliver this , they have been great with this community, who knows ?

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Can’t say I’m surprised by this. The game started slow and bare-bones, gained some momentum after the first improvements to the experience (new menu structure, rebalancing, rivals etc.), and then the thing went coasting. Instead of building on what they had with ‘Alpine Unrest’ and the goodwill of the community, the whole thing fizzled out.

I’ve been more or less inactive for the past year or so, and I’m honestly not sure why I ever had my hopes up. I came to report bugs, expecting at least some improvements, and as far as I can tell, most of what was broken in 2020 still is. I mean, small team, Covid, work-from-home, low player count and all that jazz - yeah, sure. But three years. Come on. Really?

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As I’ve said before I’ve completed everything and collected everything and for the last two years have only stayed around in the hope of a new island and missions. The introduction of a few new machines, DLC weapons, revamped areas and base defence/assault have only managed to peak my interest for a couple of weeks each until I learn how to deal with them.
This news of no plans for anything major in the future could be the end of me with GZ, nothing to do except endless destroy, loot, dump with no prospect of anything new.

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I haven’t played seriously for many weeks now, too. You could say, since Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 shipped.
But the main reason was, that I was bored playing alone, because my mate didn’t have time for coop. And I don’t want to play with some random player.

In coop there are still these moments… You know… It’s fun. But alone, there currently is nothing that keeps me busy. Assignments are broken or boring. Hunting for the newest 5c DLC guns is too time consuming and depends too much on luck.

Maybe, after the update, I continue playing the story again in my new world… If I don’t play something else.

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I uninstalled GZ last night. I’ll definitely keep following development here on the forum, on Discord and check out streams when I can. But overall, I see little reason to continue playing at the moment. Going to wait for a properly fleshed out story DLC. Or a sequel. Until then, there’s not much point playing any more.

I’ve given GZ almost 500 hours so far, and there’s nothing more of interest in it for me in its current state. I still think it’s a great game. I got more than my money’s worth out of it. But without new story, the end game really is the end of the game.

Guess it’s time to put even more hours into MS Flight Simulator. lol

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This below I first thought was just circles, but it wasn’t…