Hello islanders,
It's hard to think that in a few days, it will be the two year anniversary of The Isle going live. Honestly, it's a weird feeling to look back at it all. With a certain amount of childlike delight, the first inklings of what eventually birthed this game can still be recalled: A composition notebook, previously labeled for a different game, handed to me by my then-boss. No doubt by now lost in storage or thrown away, are dozens of pages, full of hundreds of small ideas that lead me to The Isle. Years later, after weeks of late nights and hours worth of discussion over what would make an open-world dinosaur game, here we are.
We found out it's one hell of a time guiding players towards acting anything remotely like an animal (let alone an unobserved one). As you know, we've rolled out design decisions, of which some have remained, and others were redacted entirely. The Isle was designed to place dinosaurs in the spotlight as animals. We never wanted them to be monsters or obstacles to overcome. Or enemies to simply be defeated. They, as creatures, didn't even need the players to be present to exist. If someone were to (metaphorically speaking), exist as a spectator camera, they could witness the animals simply living out their lives. To play as one of them, was to offer a simulation. And we've struggled for two years, balancing between what is necessary for basic functionality (to make them easily moddable) and what is necessary for them to function naturally. To drive expected instinct of an animal we've never observed and to make it believable.
As we approach our two year anniversary, we are closing the door on experimental design. We, as a collective team, feel we're approaching the end of the road for toying with what should and shouldn't be there for dinosaurs and are intent on finalizing their development. I can't reveal much at the moment, but I can assure you within the next two weeks, a follow-up content reveal will explain much of what's going on.
An important thing to note, is many of you have picked up on the slowing pace of patches, which have halted the last few days. I'm excited to say that several key staff, including Deathlyrage, are relocating to Las Vegas! We are restructuring things so the company and this team, is more than just "some people at their PC from different parts of the world." That do what they can, when they can to get this game finished and out to you. What this means, is a more concentrated and focused development cycle for us as we move away from "what if we do this thing that may or may not work." And push technical fixes to the underlying problems of the game. Diving straight into increasing vertical gameplay experiences for dinosaurs, as opposed to "this is a walking simulator" and "what a nice bush I can sit in for an hour."
Patches will resume once the move is complete over the next two weeks, and you can expect a roll-out of content announcements with the return of the development blogs. Updated monthly on all of our endeavors. There's so much we're excited to share with you.
Thank you for your understanding,
The Isle Development Team
Notes from the Developer:
First and foremost, I wanted to apologize that this announcement was a day late. Not only was it supposed to be an announcement but it is also the return of the dev blogs I suspended over a year ago. I was tasked with writing all of this and while a lot had to be said, there's something in specific I never stated throughout the entirety of this game's creation. I have always stated how important it is that we as developers are seen as people, and only people. We exist on Discord and take part in discussions both about the game and off-topic with anyone who joins us. Yet what comes from me directly is, if nothing else, intensity. Hell, even the game's inception was birthed out of pure anger that all of my efforts were dismissed in the blink of an eye, when another developer simply said, "This game can't be done."
As I'm sure it is apparent to all of you (clearly expressed in the reviews by those offended by me personally), it's also apparent to the team, that I struggle expressing certain emotions such as thanks and jovial responses. This isn't fair to anyone and I just want to say that I'm sorry for this. Under no condition, no words can I express how much I directly owe to all of you for your support. As someone who's first movie was Jurassic Park, who grew up loving dinosaurs, who threw all of their effort into changing (and ultimately failing to deliever upon) a previous dinosaur title, this is the coolest fucking thing I could have ever done. Honestly, none of you will ever see the childlike excitement behind the scenes I express to no one other than my daughter, at what The Isle is to me.
The world. It means the fucking world.
Regards,
Dondi