Hello everyone! Today marks yet another milestone for Northern Lights! We are proud to announce that version 0.5 is now LIVE on STEAM!

This version aims to improve the overall and feel of the game, along with some critical fixes to issues reported in the past weeks!

What's new in v0.5?

This update comes with a lot of improvements related to the overall user experience and interface. Full list of additions and improvements below!

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• Torch can now be lit at a burning fire

• Torch now has its own animation set

• Journal now always opens on previously opened section

• Inventory now always opens on previously opened pocket

• Improvements to cooking to backpack UX

• Snow melted in recycled can now gives 0.3L instead of 1L of water

• Antibiotics can now be used to treat infection risk

• Dried plants are no longer consumable

• Remove health penalty from broken ribs and abrasion

• Pine sap can now be used as tinder

• Paper debris can now be used as fire fuel

• Arrows now weight 0.1kg instead of 0.3kg

• Player icon is now smaller on map

• Painkillers can now be used to treat fever

• Health audio effects system improved so the same effect won't repeat until others have been played

• Looted maps now save their looted status so they won't respawn when revisiting a location

• Added notification pings in player menu when new item or entry is available

• Added playthrough stats to pause menu

• Added tutorials list for accessing tutorials in pause menu

• Added recycled can as starter item for all difficulties

• Added hunger and energy restore to chaga mushroom

• Added label with control to open journal in new entry notification

• Added controls HUD adapting to current item

• Added setting to switch between hold and toggle behavior for sprint and crouch

• Added setting for Look Smoothing

• Added setting for Head Bob Intensity

• Added setting for switching between Toggle/Hold mode for watch, compass and binoculars controls

• Added setting for toggling on/off HUD crosshair

• Added setting for toggling on/off various HUD notifications

• Added new ADS system for rifle

• Added fireplaces in houses

• Added mushrooms as fishing bait

• Added tutorials in shape of quests

• Added tutorial popup for afflictions

• Added tutorial popup image for cooking

• Cabin fever risks now starts after 48h inside
  **

What's fixed?

Along with the changes above, we also fixed a lot of the reported issues with the existing things in the game! Full changelog below:

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• Fixed issue causing infusions to show actual name of plant instead of unknown when name not discovered

• Fixed issue causing Unknown Plant instead of revealed name to show in journal entry notification after researching a flora book

• Improved visuals and placements of Roots

• Improved interior volume placement of Church

• Improved tree harvesting resource yields

• Improved color/ux for affliction treatment/risk bars

• Improved size of backpack category buttons

• Tweak roots graphic texture

• Tweak uncooked rice and pasta health values

• Tweak chaga treatment values

• Tweak shelters recipes to use pelts instead of cloth

• Tweak frostbite risk values

• Tweak location nearby tutorial trigger distance

• Fixed issue causing empty pickups to break loading routines

• Fixed issue causing a house in hunter camp to have duplicate interiors

• Fixed issue causing Lightsticks to stay on after decayed/dropped

• Fixed issue causing dropped items to not change color when spoiling

• Fixed issue causing terrain quality setting to not affect terrains

• Fixed issue causing torch to not have decay

• Fixed issues with turkish language missing characters

• Fixed issues with arrow pickup hitbox

• Fixed issues with bow pickup hitbox

• Fixed issues with some courtains that couldn't be harvested

• Fixed issues with quest system

• Fixed issues with sanity hud

• Fixed issues with researched books
  **

What's next?

We want to remind everyone that Northern Lights is in an Early Access state so there might still be a lot of bugs to be ironed out and a lot of balancing to be done.

We will continue fixing reported bugs and issues for 0.5.x while working on the next feature update v0.6 as per our Development Roadmap Available HERE

Because of this, we encourage everyone to use the [b]Report A Bug button found in the Game Menus in order to reach out to us about possible issues! Also, don't forget to join our Community and Discord Server where we have chats dedicated to feedback and new ideas![/b]

Thank you for reading and for all your support and understanding!