Despite the name, many of the best survival games on Steam feel like they quickly push out of the need to ‘survive’ and into the ‘thrive’ state. The hostilities of the world might persist, but the likes of Palworld, Valheim, Rust, and Ark all give you tools to overcome and tackle them. The Forever Winter wants to be different. In a new community Q&A, developer Fun Dog Studios explains how it’s working to lean away from typical power fantasies in search of an ‘80s and ‘90s sci-fi vibe “where survivability is basically zero.”
First launched into early access in September 2024, The Forever Winter is a blend of survival game and PvE extraction shooter in a world that wants you dead. Scrambling like rats among the rubble as futuristic megacorporations pit their gargantuan war machines against one another in perpetual conflict, it’s all you can do to stay alive. “It’s that mix of hopelessness and resilience, where the world’s falling apart, but you can’t look away,” game design director Jeff Gregg explains. “That’s the feeling we wanted to capture.”
While that might sound unappealing, the harsh reality of the space brings The Forever Winter’s community together. “The world is harsh – it doesn’t care if you live or die,” creative director Miles Williams says, “but that’s what makes the victories memorable. It’s about those moments you share with your friends in the wasteland.” In its newest developer video, he apologizes to players who were worried about “radio silence,” noting that since the last update a couple of weeks ago the focus has been on pushing quality-of-life improvements.
One of the biggest pain points of survival in The Forever Winter is water. It’s tough to get, and often even harder to keep hold of. But once you’ve hoarded enough, there isn’t much to do with it beyond filling your mandated requirement. Williams teases, however, that water will “play a big role in the upcoming meta updates,” which will include “a highly requested community feature and some adjustments related to it.” The team is also considering ways to let players share water with one another more easily.
As it looks to implement new mechanical enemies, so large that they can bring you down instantly, the team is also thinking about how players can interact with these much bigger foes. Williams says this will “likely involve module destruction targeting specific weak points” or making use of “heavy, specialized weaponry” possessed by certain factions. “We don’t just want these giants to be stages where you fight inside them and they collapse after,” he remarks.
“On one extreme, we could make them boring hit sponges – no thanks,” Gregg continues,” or we could create super bespoke levels that are expensive [to make] and fun only once. We’re aiming for a middle ground that’s engaging and replayable without being tedious.” On a more general note, Williams says Fun Dog is looking to push its enemy AI further with features such as “better CQB, flanking, grenades, and all that fun stuff.”
As for new weapons, Williams says the team has “a ton of new guns modeled already,” but work is still required to animate them correctly for the various different character types. Following the success of the aptly named Gunhead, who has a special shoulder-mounted weapon and can make use of every gun type in the game, Gregg teases that we can expect more classes designed “to stand out with unique abilities or interactions, not just passive buffs.”
To wrap up the update, Williams responds to a question about shoulder swap functionality – certainly a quality-of-life tool I look for granted in all third-person shooters. He says the feature “is on the list, and ideally it’s planned for this month.” You can read through Fun Dog’s transcript for the full set of answers if you want to learn more about the lore of The Forever Winter, or have been wondering how Lordoss smokes 15 packs of cigarettes in ten seconds.
Alternatively, bring your friends along for more of the best co-op games on PC, or embrace the fight to survive in the best horror games for 2025.
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