Announcing: Don't Starve Elsewhere + WX-78 Skill Spotlight & Roadmap Next Week!

[zarklord_klei]

17 hours ago, gaymime said:

please, please, _please_ tell us the dynamic camera can be turned off? i was getting super nauseous by the end of the trailer and unless the game can be run at 16fps i feel this will be well outside of accessible for me

Don't worry, the camera will never automatically rotate, only when the player specifically controls it.

[Mike23Ua]

5 hours ago, xiaoziyu said:

After watching the trailer for Don’t Starve: Elsewhere, I’m excited about its new biomes, terrain, mechanics, creatures, and challenges. However, I also have serious concerns.
First, DST already receives slow updates. The new game will likely further delay or even halt major content updates for DST, much like what happened to DS.
Second, DST has many characters, items, and skins obtained through purchases, and the new game is expected to use the same skin-based monetization. After ten years of DST, has Klei considered the future of DST’s in-game purchases and its loyal players?
If DSE is released as a separate game, I hope most DST items, tools, and skins can be transferred to it. For any removed items, their skins should be converted into new content in DSE as compensation. DST’s existing items can have adjusted recipes, crafting stations, or visuals to fit DSE.

Your “skins” in DST exist on a Website on the Klei Rewards tab, which I personally found to be a bit weird.. but would also make porting your existing owned skins into the new game a lot easier (assuming Klei chooses to support skins in DSE, and/or if they’ll port them all or just some) myself personally? I love the moonbound Wendy skin, I really like the bright blue hair, I’m not fond at all of reverting back to default skins for a new game.

But… what I want to know and what Klei probably isn’t going to tell me anytime soon… is will this game come to xbox series X/S? Will it even run on my Series S? HOW MUCH WILL IT COST???? Is it a full fledged triple AAA game or another smaller indie?

For reference: the upcoming Lego Dark Knight Legacy is 90$… 90$! For a freaking Lego game…

Will DSE be a small 10-20$ indie game like DS & DST were? Or am I looking at a full priced big budget game (with a whole lot more content obviously..) at like 60$ or more? 

[gaymime]

5 hours ago, zarklord_klei said:

Don't worry, the camera will never automatically rotate, only when the player specifically controls it.

thankyou so very much for letting those of us with camera concerns know<3

Edited April 10 by gaymime

[LanOrhan]

On 4/9/2026 at 10:45 PM, Kacpert25 said:

By checking Elsewhere on steamdb you can find out how long the game has been in development approximately.

I just hope this means they can release the game as soon as possible (without it being half baked ofcourse)

[Jussatoon]

3 minutes ago, LanOrhan said:

I just hope this means they can release the game as soon as possible (without it being half baked ofcourse)

You're better off waiting then, if non-half-baked is what you desire. 

[LanOrhan]

I cannot stop watching the trailer. I just cannot wait the release!

There were no shadow creatures in the trailer though but I doubt they'll get rid of scuh an iconic part of Don't Starve franchise. I'm also curious about the score. Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together always had such iconic soundtracks. I'm sure Elsewhere will also have some bangers.

 

[Dr.Webber]

I hope all the characters get added to this new game and not just the four we got in the trailer. Also, I wonder what Webber’s new design would look like

Edited April 13 by Dr.Webber

[Milordo]

On 4/10/2026 at 7:14 AM, AliceShiki said:

You can generally make things run more efficiently like that, so lower hardware requirements and stuff, which is nice for indie games~

Don....don't starve is not an indie game. Lol.

On 4/10/2026 at 7:51 AM, ALCRD said:

That definitely DOES NOT look like DS, DSTs C engine. Advanced shading, 3D enviroment with verticality.

I'd quicker believe it's Unity than C. And Klei team is experienced with Unity too.

But I'd rather one of the devs answer my question instead speculating.

23 hours ago, Uedo said:

It looks like Unity - you can make things look unity-eque quite easy though. But I believe so. 

I hope they finally ditch lua. It has been too long, and it's better for major improvements.

[Uedo]

28 minutes ago, Milordo said:

Don....don't starve is not an indie game. Lol.

I hope they finally ditch lua. It has been too long, and it's better for major improvements.

Lua is so handy though - It's really easy to explain to new eyes. 

If they hire a new person to the team, or they move new eyes onto the project it's just so much easier if it's Lua. 
The syntax is really simple and if you're using something else like SQL to define the structure of the data, Lua will generally describe systems by using specifically named components as opposed to using dense logic (even if it's relatively non-complex/simple), it just reduces the risk of someone misunderstanding the 'backend' - not that's truuuuuuuly the backend. 

It's good for large teams with general skillsets, you can have one of two people define components and the rest of the team work with the components and the logicgates are pretty typical for most non-technical people to understand.

TL;DR: Lua isn't quite the language most people think it is, it can be paired with other things to give you the improvements you'd probably be looking for. You can use Lua on top of C# if you really wanted.

EDIT/UPDATE: My only gripe with Lua is the fact that people want to use a billion elseif's as opposed to using a table or an array lookup, which is fiiiiiiiiiine but it's annoying to maintain.

On 4/10/2026 at 6:51 AM, ALCRD said:

I'd quicker believe it's Unity than C. And Klei team is experienced with Unity too.

Unity is C#. 

Edited April 11 by Uedo

[AliceShiki]

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

Don....don't starve is not an indie game. Lol.

As far as team size goes, Klei works with teams that would make you instantly assume that the game is indie, despite the Tencent ownership stuff.

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

I hope they finally ditch lua. It has been too long, and it's better for major improvements.

Lua is one of the best engines for modding support, so... Considering how active DST modding is, I have a feeling they'll probably keep Lua there.

[Bumber64]

2 hours ago, Milordo said:

I hope they finally ditch lua. It has been too long, and it's better for major improvements.

What would they actually replace it with?

Lua is the worst scripting language, except for all the others that have been developed.

[Ekletia]

On 4/9/2026 at 9:33 PM, OziMoziDoozy said:

OH.

 no wonder she used an umbrella too...

 Now this is interesting why is his chassis locked with a key?  Wilson wearing a scarf as a keepsake that belonged to someone else? (clashes with his outfit)

and not gonna send their pictures but willow and wendy are both wearing a red gem

About Wendy and Willow wearing some kind of red brooch, it actually reminds me of that amulet-like thing Wickerbottom used in the library. I know its gem is green, but aside from that we don’t really know what it was. It only opened the secret door to the room. (Although thinking about it, since the Life Giving Amulet is also red, it’s hard to tell whether it’s that or something completely different.)

 

[Mrkykriko]

Hey joe can i get a potato cup?

[NPCMaxwell]

On 4/11/2026 at 12:42 PM, Dr.Webber said:

I hope all the characters get added to this new game and not just the four we got in the trailer. Also, I wonder what Webber’s new design wouldn’t look like

I hope all DLC characters from DS will arrive in multiplayer as well \o/

[RGM]

I'm waiting for the roadmap, I hope it will talk about the new game

[Milordo]

On 4/11/2026 at 5:37 PM, AliceShiki said:

As far as team size goes, Klei works with teams that would make you instantly assume that the game is indie, despite the Tencent ownership stuff.

Okay. Still not indie. 

On 4/11/2026 at 5:00 PM, Uedo said:

Lua is so handy though - It's really easy to explain to new eyes. 

If they hire a new person to the team, or they move new eyes onto the project it's just so much easier if it's Lua. 
The syntax is really simple and if you're using something else like SQL to define the structure of the data, Lua will generally describe systems by using specifically named components as opposed to using dense logic (even if it's relatively non-complex/simple), it just reduces the risk of someone misunderstanding the 'backend' - not that's truuuuuuuly the backend. 

It's good for large teams with general skillsets, you can have one of two people define components and the rest of the team work with the components and the logicgates are pretty typical for most non-technical people to understand.

TL;DR: Lua isn't quite the language most people think it is, it can be paired with other things to give you the improvements you'd probably be looking for. You can use Lua on top of C# if you really wanted.

EDIT/UPDATE: My only gripe with Lua is the fact that people want to use a billion elseif's as opposed to using a table or an array lookup, which is fiiiiiiiiiine but it's annoying to maintain.

Unity is C#. 

On 4/11/2026 at 5:37 PM, AliceShiki said:

Lua is one of the best engines for modding support, so... Considering how active DST modding is, I have a feeling they'll probably keep Lua there.

On 4/11/2026 at 7:24 PM, Bumber64 said:

What would they actually replace it with?

Lua is the worst scripting language, except for all the others that have been developed.

I don't get the laughing emoj, especially from official Klei members?? Am I getting pick on? Why? Already here and outside the forum, some people are speculating if Ds3 will be developed with Unity or others code/engine, instead of Lua, for making a major jump in quality and complex content. My comment wasn't made out of malice.

But thanks for the explanation Uedo, I appreciate it. My point was exactly about Lua being simple/non-complex and what I though it was. It wasn't about modding either, which for sure will be still Lua.

 

EDIT: to understand better, the "components" you're talking about, are like the "inspectable" "teleporter" "workable" components you find in the game files?

Edited April 14 by Milordo

[Uedo]

2 hours ago, Milordo said:

EDIT: to understand better, the "components" you're talking about, are like the "inspectable" "teleporter" "workable" components you find in the game files?

Essentially yeah - Entities get behaviour by attaching those components, they each control a little bit of logic around what they're named. You give an entity those components (if appropriate) and then edit it to define how you specifically want it. Say you want certain health on a new mob, attach the component and then edit it to how you want it (I'm being non-specific, I've never done much with DST). 

Klei implemented their own system for the components, there's lots of ways of doing it, but DST is pretty nice in terms of understanding what's going on.

2 hours ago, Milordo said:

I don't get the laughing emoj, especially from official Klei members?? Am I getting pick on? Why?

It's not at you haha

[Bumber64]

6 hours ago, Milordo said:

Already here and outside the forum, some people are speculating if Ds3 will be developed with Unity or others code/engine, instead of Lua, for making a major jump in quality and complex content.

Unity (or C#) isn't a scripting language. Such code usually needs to be compiled, which imposes limitations especially if you don't have access to Klei's internal code to make changes to it.

You can't really look at compiled code easily, which makes it easier to distribute malicious code. (Obfuscated code is against DST's workshop rules already. See: Skin unraveling incident. Imagine all code is permitted to look like that.) I don't want to install a bunch of shady .dll files that nobody's ever looked at, or a bunch of files named like "f8ba95dc4f65c7aca181fc0828af98b0.bundle".

Lua is easily edited and well known. IDK how you're going to get more quality and complex content by increasing the barrier to entry from a text editor to a full development environment.

Edited April 14 by Bumber64

[Uedo]

14 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Unity (or C#) isn't a scripting language. Such code usually needs to be compiled, which imposes limitations especially if you don't have access to Klei's internal code to make changes to it.

You can't really look at compiled code easily, which makes it easier to distribute malicious code. (Obfuscated code is against DST's workshop rules already. See: Skin unraveling incident. Imagine all code is permitted to look like that.) I don't want to install a bunch of shady .dll files that nobody's ever looked at, or a bunch of files named like "f8ba95dc4f65c7aca181fc0828af98b0.bundle".

Lua is easily edited and well known. IDK how you're going to get more quality and complex content by increasing the barrier to entry from a text editor to a full development environment.

I get your point, a lot of people would consider it a scripting language in the colloquial sense. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck etc, but yeah it's a programming language. 

My only gripes are that you can absolutely look at compiled code very easily. C# compiles into .NET assemblies and there's plenty of tools to decompile it, there's cases you can't but for the most part it's fine. To be fair, since C# compiles to IL for the .NET runtime rather than native machine code, it’s actually one of the easier languages to decompile. Also, you can distribute malicious code, for sure, but you can also do this with Lua and depending on what you were trying to do maliciously, i'd argue you have more protection with c# since its running on .net runtime.

But yes, we're in massive agreement. Despite working with C# for a good while now, I still much prefer working with Lua, it was the first thing I learnt and it's just so much more accessible. God I miss working on a certain games addon's D:

[Bumber64]

3 minutes ago, Uedo said:

But yes, we're in massive agreement. Despite working with C# for a good while now, I still much prefer working with Lua, it was the first thing I learnt and it's just so much more accessible. God I miss working on a certain games addon's 😧

I learned Python first through tutorials. Lua is similar enough that I picked it up almost entirely from looking at other people's code (DST and DFHack).

I had to take college courses to get started on C/C++/C# and x64 Assembly. (I did take a Python course, but it went straight to interesting stuff like making it work with sqlite3, django, and the (formerly) Twitter API.)

Since Lua is so widely used and supported in gaming, there's not much equivalent to switch to. We certainly don't want Klei to create their own scripting language like Bethesda's Papyrus.

[Mike23Ua]

You guys are way off topic, I wonder what the roadmap will actually be about.. and will it be strictly related to DST or will it also reveal more details on Elsewhere? (Please provide more screenshots at least!) 

[Jussatoon]

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

You guys are way off topic, I wonder what the roadmap will actually be about.. and will it be strictly related to DST or will it also reveal more details on Elsewhere? (Please provide more screenshots at least!) 

I too wonder.

I'd like more info on the type of game Elsewhere is meant to be, as well as whether or not an alpha, beta, or early access playtest will occur, and when.

Lore-wise, I'd like to know where the game takes place: is it the Constant still but in a different area, similar to Shipwrecked and Hamlet? Is it in the Gorge, like what some people are speculating? Is it in a different realm entirely? Also, was there a time-lapse, or is this a slightly alternate universe?

At the very least, the roadmap will likely explain how DST's updates are going to play out, now that Elsewhere has been revealed. 

[Uedo]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

You guys are way off topic, I wonder what the roadmap will actually be about.. and will it be strictly related to DST or will it also reveal more details on Elsewhere? (Please provide more screenshots at least!) 

It's around the roadmap, and programming language of DST and Elsewhere. It's on topic. 

Go on, tell me about Catmando or w/e it is you've got to say.

[BalkanCockroach]

On 4/11/2026 at 5:04 AM, LanOrhan said:

There were no shadow creatures in the trailer though but I doubt they'll get rid of scuh an iconic part of Don't Starve franchise.

In the trailer when the fog is converting the environment into the fog variants, a Mr. Skitts pops up. It looks made out of fog instead of shadow but I think this confirms "They" have influence wherever Elsewhere takes place. Not to mention the spawn conduit or whatever it's called has a shadow flame in it.

[AliceShiki]

5 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Unity (or C#) isn't a scripting language. Such code usually needs to be compiled, which imposes limitations especially if you don't have access to Klei's internal code to make changes to it.

You can't really look at compiled code easily, which makes it easier to distribute malicious code. (Obfuscated code is against DST's workshop rules already. See: Skin unraveling incident. Imagine all code is permitted to look like that.) I don't want to install a bunch of shady .dll files that nobody's ever looked at, or a bunch of files named like "f8ba95dc4f65c7aca181fc0828af98b0.bundle".

Lua is easily edited and well known. IDK how you're going to get more quality and complex content by increasing the barrier to entry from a text editor to a full development environment.

I honestly know very little about Unity modding, but I think it's actually not too hard.

Like, I'm involved in the Fire Emblem Engage modding community, and I only do basic stuff like editing XMLs, but like... It is super easy, and doesn't require using any .dll files, since I'm just editing XMLs, so it's very easy for the person to see what I'm working with... There are people who make more complex mods that involve proper Code Modding, and those do require .NRO files, but... Yeah, Unity does seem to actually be decently easy to mod, from what I know.

Especially because like... The more knowledgeable people in the community told me before that we're really lucky that Engage used Unity on top of the usual proprietary code from Intelligent Systems, because the Unity stuff is much easier to modify.

... Not disagreeing that Lua is great though, since like... The easy-to-make stuff in Engage is still just XML editing, which is very limited in multiple ways, and Lua modding would be way more versatile than that, but... Well, the base-level stuff on Unity seems easy to edit at least~