The Forever Winter's controversial water mechanic will make it to Early Access release 

The Forever Winter is one of the most anticipated multiplayer games this month, but there's a concern looming large on the playerbase. The water-hoarding system, a central mechanic in the game, is set to raise some eyebrows in its controversial implementation. Specifically, a lot of your progression can be crippled by "Water Death," a soft-wipe of your home base when you run out of water.

The developers addressed this question head-on by clarifying that the idea of Water Death is here to stay. The entire water mechanic will be present in the Early Access launch on September 24, 2024, but some tuning could make it less punishing.

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Why the Water Death mechanic in The Forever Winter is controversial

As a scavenging game with survival elements, resource management is a core part of The Forever Winter. Your main goal both in and out of the battle zones is to do your best to survive. Away from the battlefield, your home is the "Innards," the hub space where vendors gather and you do all of your gear-tuning and leveling up.

The water mechanic is somewhat controversial (Image via Fun Dog Studios)

Water is the most important of these resources. If you want the Innards to thrive and attract new vendors, you'll need to keep it well-supplied with water. However, the resource decays in real-time, even when you're logged out of the game.

So far, this is not too bad. Except, now you're also looking at the possibility of the Water Death. Once you run out of water, your Innards, gear, and everything other than XP and perk progress of your character is wiped out.

Systems like these are meant to retain players. Some live-service games, like Warframe, do this through regular login rewards. Meanwhile, others implement it through daily challenges and other obstacles. By far, The Forever Winter's water death penalties place it on the more punishing side of the spectrum.

In an online Forever Winter Q&A panel held on August 31, 2024, the developers from Fun Dog Studio presented their stance on the Water Death question:

"This game isn't just about... putting some bullets down on the range and coming back with some kill and loot. It's about survival, and if you don't take care of your home, it will fall apart and wither. So that is a big central tenet of the game."

However, they also mentioned that they will tune the system to be less punishing than The Forever Winter's closed beta. During the beta, you could cap out your water in a few hours if you got lucky—but the water would deplete to zero after 30 days of inactivity.

In the Early Access release, the developers will likely raise that cap, and maybe even add "water storage expansions," as they mentioned in the Q&A.

The game does not have a publisher, which allows Fun Dog Studios to exercise design choices that would be too polarizing for a AAA game. It's a double-edged sword in terms of how it affects the game, but we will see how it pans out after The Forever Winter Early Access releases on September 24, 2024.