- Tweaks to the Extras menu to link to the Official Estranged Wiki
Happy 2025, and thank you for playing Estranged!
Estranged: Act II
Early January Update: Extras Menu Tweak
Happy 2025, and thank you for playing Estranged!
October Update: Quality of Life Changes, Official Estranged Wiki
Advanced Graphics Options
Estranged now offers the following Advanced Graphics options under Options > Graphics > Advanced:
- Enable Highest Model Detail - Turn off distance-based level of detail transitions for models
- Enable Highest Shadow Detail - Don't scale dynamic shadow quality with distance
- Enable Super Sampling - Render at 2x resolution
Other Quality of Life Changes
Several quality of life changes are now available, including:
- Supply crate tweaks so that if no resources are needed, nothing is spawned - see thread
- Save/load fixes in the prelude & epilogue sections
- Ukrainian translations contributed by the community
Official Estranged Wiki
There is now an official Estranged wiki available at wiki.iamestranged.com which contains all lore to date sourced from in-game materials (with some bonus extra information). Some notable pages to get started with:
- Arque Corporation is a multi-national corporation responsible for Deep Sea Operations, Logistics and Chemical Research according to its website, with significant presence on the Island in the form of multiple research facilities.
- The Fisherman is the main protagonist and playable character in the Estranged game series.
- Infected are enemies in Estranged: Act I and Estranged: The Departure. They are humans, presumed to be previous inhabitants of the Island.
The original idea and inspiration for a wiki came from the existing Fandom Wiki (I based the structure of the official wiki on this one). The official wiki is not open to contribution, but if you see something that is missing or not quite right, please let me know and I'll fix it.
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Finally, if you're interested in a peek behind the scenes of the in-game update news feed The Departure had while it was in development, I recently posted a writeup: Update News Presentation Markup for Games.
That's it for now - I hope you enjoy this update, and find the wiki interesting!
Alan
Mid-2024 Patch: Localization Updates
A patch version update for The Departure is now live on Steam (version 1.5.49), including localization updates contributed by the community for the following languages:
- French
- Latvian
- Russian
- Chinese (Simplified)
Thank you to the translators who contributed updates to the translation repository, and thank you for playing Estranged!
Alan
10 Year Anniversary of Estranged
"Natural Reserve" by Er0de from the Act I Steam Community
Thank you to everyone that supported the project by translating, submitting feedback, and of course playing the game. The biggest reward for a game developer is seeing people have fun with something you’ve built.
Humble Beginnings
For those that may not know the background, Estranged started as a map for Half-Life: 2 known as Splooshe (available on the Act I workshop), inspired by some of the early Half-Life: 2 screenshots. From there, the map and concept continued to evolve into a mod, and then into a standalone game (and got a better name!).
Untitled screenshot by siplaki from the Act I Steam Community
The Departure
After the release of Act I, Act II was born as a background project. It entered Steam Early Access in 2017 and released in 2020 as Estranged: The Departure.
"Красивое место 🧡" (en: Beautiful place) by Extragamer from the The Departure Steam Community
A year later The Departure released on Nintendo Switch (US, Europe) which introduced brand new audiences to the series. The title will celebrate its own 5-year anniversary later this year!
Next Instalment
The next instalment to follow will be Estranged: Arctic Cold, which has been in development in the background since 2020. This is a direct continuation of where The Departure ended, with enough context to also be played standalone.
Previously unseen development screenshots from Estranged: Arctic Cold
A personal note: I’m at the stage now where I’d really like to get people playing Arctic Cold to shape the future of the game. It’s nice to develop in a vacuum without the pressure of expectations, however it’s not rewarding; no-one is playing what you’re putting together. The plan is to follow with an Early Access release of Arctic Cold later this year, and continue to develop it "in the open" as with The Departure.
If you'd like to stay in touch, there is a Discord server at discord.gg/estranged
Thank you for playing and following the Estranged series!
Alan
Cross posted on the Estranged: Act I Steam Community
Scammer Warning
This is not me - here's some tips for spotting a scammer:
- I will not communicate with you via Direct Messages on any platform
- I am Alan Edwardes#3608 on Discord, and only communicate via discord.gg/estranged and the Steam forums for the Estranged games
- If you are added by a Discord profile with my name, it is an impersonator, and the account should be reported to Discord via https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000291932-How-to-Properly-Report-Issues-to-Trust-Safety
- If you are added by a Steam profile with my name, it is an impersonator, and the account should be reported to Steam Support via https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4D07-D139-587C-2080
- I do not work for Valve (Steam), and will never ask for account passwords, or money (I will not send a direct message to you in the first place)
Here's a short message from Alan Edwardes (Liam Jones ???), explaining the situation:
Stay safe!
Alan
Early September Update: New Cheats, Translation Updates
A player screenshot from Discord user Badbadalex1#5096
New Cheats
The following new cheats (requested on the forums) are available to spawn Arque guards with, equipped with various weapons:
- spawn guard - Pistol
- spawn guard rifle - Assault rifle
- spawn guard shotgun - Shotgun (AI don't use this, just one scripted scene)
- spawn guard rat - Rat Tracing technology
- spawn guard laser - Assault rifle with high-powered laser
Language Updates
The following languages have also received updates from the translation community:
- Czech
- German
- Persian
- Finnish
- Portuguese
- Slovak
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
I'm always around on the forums, or on discord.gg/estranged if you'd like to report bugs, or provide feedback.
Thank you for playing Estranged!
Alan
Early June Update: Tweaked Intro Sequence and Bug Fixes
New Wake Sequence
I recently published a blog post about creating motion-captured camera sequences using my phone, and I have now used this technique with the "wake" sequence in the Prelude (at the very start of Chapter 1).
This technique isn't perfect, but allows you to simulate more subtle and "human" movements and I'll be using it with future camera animations of this kind.
Weapon Firing Fix
I want to thank everyone that helped report this bug and provided me with the information to track it down - especially on the forums.
Previously, when picking up a new weapon, if you went back to your old weapon and tried to use it again, you'd see the effects of it firing without it actually firing. This bug only affected a small percentage of players since swapping back to your previous weapon is quite a rare thing to do (because typically your next weapon is an upgrade).
I apologise for not catching and fixing this bug sooner - since I'm wearing multiple hats (including QA) it's easy for me to get tunnel vision with regards to what I'm testing.
The bug is fixed, and we can now rest easy knowing we can defend ourselves against Sokol-Glockner's skilled marksmen.
👀
As ever, I'm around on discord.gg/estranged, and post more frequent development updates there if you want to keep up with Estranged (check out the #dev-screenshots channel).
Thanks for playing Estranged!
Alan
End of May Update: Dynamic Global Illumination Tech Demo
The Prelude level (Chapter 1 from the menu) has been adapted to allow you to control the position of the sun in the sky with the keyboard, and allow you to toggle it on and off.
All lighting in this beta is calculated in real-time, while the live version of Estranged: The Departure uses pre-computed lighting.
The live version of Estranged: The Departure won't change to use this technique, this is purely a tech demo to showcase the latest global illumination technology in Unreal Engine 5, which released into Early Access on May 26th.
To check out the tech demo, pick the gi-tech-demo branch from the "Betas" tab on the "Properties" menu for Estranged: The Departure. You need Windows, and a graphics card which supports DirectX 11 and above. This branch will not be kept updated, and does not focus on stability/performance.
To get updates like these and screenshots from development, join Discord: https://discord.gg/estranged
Thank you for playing Estranged!
Alan
Late March Update: Bug Fixes and Improvements
Bug Fixes and Improvements
The following changes are included in this build (1.5.42):
- Disables async loading thread since testing on other platforms revealed some instability
- Improves the slider UI element when adjusted via the keyboard and gamepad
- Adds a loading spinner to show while menus load
- Adds quick menu transition animation
- Adjusts stream-loading point in sp07 and removes vent grate (the first sewer)
- Allows the stream-loading spinner to be visible at the same time as the "LOADING" banner on slower machines
As ever, thank you for playing Estranged!
Alan
Holiday 2020 Update: Blizzard Short
There is a new short level available in Estranged, called Blizzard. It's a short, story-driven adventure, and is a free and permanent update for the game.
The Blizzard short was made for the holiday season, but isn't directly related to it! It provides some clues about the Estranged: The Departure story, and also what might follow it.
There are now a total of 3 shorts, all available from the main menu.
Thank you for playing Estranged!
Alan
