Jasper Byrne’s new version of Lone Survivor adds new endings, locations, items, music, a whole new lighting system, and a host of surprises. He spent months putting it together for a release on Sony’s consoles. He’s now turned around and decided to give it away to owners of the original PC release. He’s charging zero pennies for it, too.
Yup, all 800,000 owners of the game get this release for free.
“I have quietly been beavering away over the last few months to bring this enormous update back to the format it began life on,” writes Byrne. “It was originally going to be a very slightly updated version of the original game, but turned into a ten-month odyssey. I was able to add all the little details which I wasn’t able to squeeze in the first time round, so that I could bring my original vision to you with no compromises, and with them a whole load of new ideas that emerged as I worked on it.
“Almost without fail, business-minded friends and colleagues, as well as the players themselves, expected I would release the game as a brand new version, requiring the players of the original game to purchase it again, or at the very least to release the update as paid DLC. I gave it a huge amount of thought, and eventually I realised I would rather just give the update away for FREE to all 800,000+ customers, to say thank you for your support… and that’s exactly what I’m going to do!”
Byrne’s development costs won’t go completely unpaid. To offset the costs he will be increasing the price of the game after the new release. Of course, that won’t affect current owners but anyone holding out on getting a copy should invest before its release on Halloween.
Here’s the trailer for the new release of the game:
And a changelog of new features:
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whole new lighting engine, also supports 1 extra hardware light
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many locations have additional lights and / or tweaked lighting
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anamorphic lens flare for the flashlight
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new sleeping and game over music
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new title screen and game over screen
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2 additional locations
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hundreds of small bug fixes, balance tweaks and improvements
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automatic monster-facing on gun-draw
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a few small easter eggs
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new short sidequest
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ending ‘collection’
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‘The Ritual’
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specific to New Game+:
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around 6 new locations
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2 completely new endings
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3 new songs
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over 20 new items
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2 new sidequests
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new enemy
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new dialogue for all characters in the game
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many other easter eggs that are better left unspoilt