So... What does Elsewhere mean for Together?

[DimokKio]

I don't want DSE to replace DST, it's too cruel for all of us.

[Glass-Of-Water]

8 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

I imagine that both DST and DSE will be running with two completely separate teams, otherwise both teams will be split too thin.

I agree with you that the split resources would be very worrisome though.

Personally, this doesn't worry me too much, as Klei has a history of managing multiple projects at once, with the likes of Oxygen Not Included and Don't Starve Together receiving updates and events throughout the development of Rotwood. With Rotwood fully released now I think Don't Starve Elsewhere is simply taking its place in terms of project management.

It will probably be a good year or two before we get a release date for Elsewhere any-hoo.

[Mike23Ua]

7 hours ago, Glass-Of-Water said:

Personally, this doesn't worry me too much, as Klei has a history of managing multiple projects at once, with the likes of Oxygen Not Included and Don't Starve Together receiving updates and events throughout the development of Rotwood. With Rotwood fully released now I think Don't Starve Elsewhere is simply taking its place in terms of project management.

It will probably be a good year or two before we get a release date for Elsewhere any-hoo.

Why does everyone feel like Elsewhere is two or three years away from release? How long after Rotwoods reveal did it take till the full game released? 

[Wilson-brb]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

Why does everyone feel like Elsewhere is two or three years away from release? How long after Rotwoods reveal did it take till the full game released? 

Three years i think

[AliceShiki]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

Why does everyone feel like Elsewhere is two or three years away from release? How long after Rotwoods reveal did it take till the full game released? 

Well, if a game doesn't have a publicly announced release date, I think it's safe to expect a launch 2+ years away from now.

Since well, if it was 1 year or less away, we'd probably have an ETA, or at least something saying, "Coming Summer 2027" or whatever.

[Kwaik]

4 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Why does everyone feel like Elsewhere is two or three years away from release? How long after Rotwoods reveal did it take till the full game released? 

Because almost all Klei games are on early access for 1.5-2 years 

 

Rotwood was 3 years and 9 months from announcement until 1.0 

Dread pilots 2 years 7 months 

Lab rat 4.6 years 

Mind over magic 2.5 years

So I imagine 2-3 years is on the more optimistic side 

[Cheggf]

6 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Why does everyone feel like Elsewhere is two or three years away from release? How long after Rotwoods reveal did it take till the full game released? 

Hamlet was announced in September and became playable in October. It was less than a month between the announcement and being able to play it. 

[Antynomity]

On 4/12/2026 at 6:05 AM, AliceShiki said:

I imagine that both DST and DSE will be running with two completely separate teams, otherwise both teams will be split too thin.

I agree with you that the split resources would be very worrisome though.

Regarding the PoE being a juggernaut thingy... I don't disagree, but also, DST regularly keeps around 50k players... That is honestly pretty huge too. So I think they can afford to run two big live-service games simultaneously.

We'll see when it happens though. For now we can only speculate.

Haven't Klei already moved a bunch of people off of DST a few months back? I don't see how anything besides a further move of employees from DST onto DSE could be remotely more worrisome than the initial split.

[Hungry French]

22 hours ago, DimokKio said:

I don't want DSE to replace DST, it's too cruel for all of us.

Man. What do you know about cruel ?

Although I understand. It's sad. But DST had 10 years of updates.

[DimokKio]

1 hour ago, Hungry French said:

Man. What do you know about cruel ?

Although I understand. It's sad. But DST had 10 years of updates.

Cruelty is spending few months straight working on a skill tree concept, only to find out a month later that you might never even know if your ideas had a chance to be added

 

To be honest, I want to believe that DSE won't be a DST killer. Developing two multiplayer games at the same time, especially while the singleplayer is dead, seems like a pretty bad move.

[Edible Coal]

Just now, DimokKio said:

Cruelty is spending few months straight working on a skill tree concept, only to find out a month later that you might never even know if your ideas had a chance to be added

 

To be honest, I want to believe that DSE won't be a DST killer. Developing two multiplayer games at the same time, especially while the singleplayer is dead, seems like a pretty bad move.

dst wouldnt just die immediately because of dse, the process of that will be long, you still have 6 skill trees to look forward to, updates that end the rift sega, updates that brush up older updates

[RexySeven]

DST is already pretty pack full of content and I don't mind new game. 
Main issue I see regarding current DST is that both code, amount of balancing needed and space - severely limits devs creativity and update scale. It do really feel like it's easier to just start from scratch than to work with extremely outdated systems like laggy server shards and other numerous bugs.

Regarding DST - it will still receive updates because game have pretty darn big online player base. I foresee cross promotional updates for both DSE and DST in the future. Probably won't expect new big arcs though, updates will be smaller. Some characters haven't gotten their skill tree updates yet too.

[Cruvimaster]

If the gameplay of both games is similar (and the description on Steam is practically the same for both), it makes no sense to have both games active.

Klei's first step will be to monitor whether DSE will be successful enough to replace DST. If that happens, they should retire DST after a few years. The servers will remain active and the game will be complete, but without receiving updates (except for bug fixes).

While they are active, these games will compete with each other in the sale of skin packs with each update. I don't know if this is the business model they are considering.

[Szczuku]

12 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Hamlet was announced in September and became playable in October. It was less than a month between the announcement and being able to play it. 

I think you're missing a year between the months

[Cheggf]

29 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

I think you're missing a year between the months

Oh you're right I misread. It was about 1 year after the announcement. 

[BrixGoBrrr]

20 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Elsewhere is two or three years away from release?

the Lunar New Year Events are based on a 12-year cycle, so far we've only had 10, the Years of the Goat and the Monkey haven't happened yet, so at least 2 more years of DST feels likely to me 

[AliceShiki]

9 hours ago, Antynomity said:

Haven't Klei already moved a bunch of people off of DST a few months back? I don't see how anything besides a further move of employees from DST onto DSE could be remotely more worrisome than the initial split.

 

Honestly? No idea. If they did, I missed the announcement... Or I saw it and forgot about it, I dunno.

[Hungry French]

8 hours ago, DimokKio said:

To be honest, I want to believe that DSE won't be a DST killer. Developing two multiplayer games at the same time, especially while the singleplayer is dead, seems like a pretty bad move.

And I'm just looking forward to the DS update and especially the 20th anniversary. Maybe then we'll get an update. 
Well, I'm waiting elsewhere. DST does not exist for me. Only a set of content where about polyvin can be transferred to the DS, adapted and relevant...

 

[eeriecupid]

It’s probably going to be similar to what they did with ds and dst, alone got slower updates and eventually concluded and together took main focus, they’ve done it once so why not do it again? It worked well before after all.

[Szczuku]

Frankly speaking, I think that Together has ran its course.

It is clear that each update the devs are just trying to one-up themselves and don't really have a solid direction. Characters get changed in ways that result in the game being less about how your character interacts with the world and more about how your character interacts with their own kit. Non-character updates are also just vaguely related by the overall lore of the rifts' storyline.

Together has outgrown its original purpose, just like singleplayer did. It'll be good for the devs to start with Elsewhere's fresh canvas, with the experience that dst has given them. Hopefully with a solid grip on what themes they want this game to have and how they'll approach content and characters.

Keep a skeletal crew around for QoL, bugfixing and maybe some small, new skin batches but in my opinion dst should be considered finished and done once Elsewhere drops.

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Szczuku said:

Frankly speaking, I think that Together has ran its course.

It is clear that each update the devs are just trying to one-up themselves and don't really have a solid direction. Characters get changed in ways that result in the game being less about how your character interacts with the world and more about how your character interacts with their own kit. Non-character updates are also just vaguely related by the overall lore of the rifts' storyline.

Together has outgrown its original purpose, just like singleplayer did. It'll be good for the devs to start with Elsewhere's fresh canvas, with the experience that dst has given them. Hopefully with a solid grip on what themes they want this game to have and how they'll approach content and characters.

Keep a skeletal crew around for QoL, bugfixing and maybe some small, new skin batches but in my opinion dst should be considered finished and done once Elsewhere drops.

It’s not just about that… though, unless Klei wants to take the additional time and resources to upgrade DST to PS5 and Series X/S versions, then when Sony & Microsoft shutdown services for the PS4 and Xbox One same as they did for the PS3 & 360, then DST will become “Obsolete” and won’t actually be playable anymore unless Microsoft and Sony make the old game backwards compatible.

(Or Klei releases a new version of it one or the other) 

Personally I just want Klei to start releasing details on Elsewhere, what platforms they intend to release it on, how many players 4? 8? That sort of thing.. 

[00petar00]

On 4/10/2026 at 3:22 AM, HowlVoid said:

Im more surprised more people dont think that this is completely separate from dst and does not affect dst.

Klei works on multiple games at once and has been steadily expanding since they got money from tencent. 

Why would this not have a separate team and completely separate developement? Just because they share a name? Hamlet was worked on alonside DST, and that was when they were smaller.

If it was separate how would you explain the decrease in update content over the years? It is quite obvious that they were working on another game or fired some developers that worked on DST.

Just because they can work on multiple games it doesn't mean that DST will ever get the same amount of effort and time put in.

On 4/11/2026 at 11:50 PM, Mysterious box said:

I find it hard to believe this won't replace dst with time people will still play dst but most will likely migrate to dse if it truly ends up being the next dst. There's just things that can be done in this new game that just wouldn't be possible with the current game otherwise they would have attempted them during the current rift arc or dst. New fresh mechanics that expand on what's possible will draw a large crowd as will a new fresh take on survival and base building and just building in general.

DST playerbase is a miracle in a way, I don't think most players will move to the next game and forget especially since it doesn't feel like DST and it looks like the focus will be RPG elements, at least the gamey feel it gave me from watching the trailer was not something I liked. The trailer we watched had some flaws like jumping from island to island or high altitude makes characters look like they have superpowers and the rotating camera to emulate 3d, I don't think camera will move like that when game is played because it would make us dizzy.

I do think that DSE has a lot of potential but it will be hard to convert players from DST because it feels so different. DSE seems too niche, I think DST will be the game that will have more players after some time passes from DSE release.

On 4/13/2026 at 12:28 PM, Hungry French said:

Man. What do you know about cruel ?

Although I understand. It's sad. But DST had 10 years of updates.

20 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Frankly speaking, I think that Together has ran its course.

It is clear that each update the devs are just trying to one-up themselves and don't really have a solid direction. Characters get changed in ways that result in the game being less about how your character interacts with the world and more about how your character interacts with their own kit. Non-character updates are also just vaguely related by the overall lore of the rifts' storyline.

Together has outgrown its original purpose, just like singleplayer did. It'll be good for the devs to start with Elsewhere's fresh canvas, with the experience that dst has given them. Hopefully with a solid grip on what themes they want this game to have and how they'll approach content and characters.

Keep a skeletal crew around for QoL, bugfixing and maybe some small, new skin batches but in my opinion dst should be considered finished and done once Elsewhere drops.

I think you guys just want DST development to end, it makes no sense to want something like that when it has around 50 000 concurrent players every day. Do you really think DSE will have 50 000 players in 12 years after release like DST? DST can be crowned as one of the best games to ever exist, what are some other games that have managed to keep such a high concurrent player count? CS, Rust, Terraria? I don't think you can name many more games.

Edited April 28 by 00petar00

[Jussatoon]

21 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

If it was separate how would you explain the decrease in update content over the years? It is quite obvious that they were working on another game or fired some developers that worked on DST.

Just because they can work on multiple games it doesn't mean that DST will ever get the same amount of effort and time put in.

DST playerbase is a miracle in a way, I don't think most players will move to the next game and forget especially since it doesn't feel like DST and it looks like the focus will be RPG elements, at least the gamey feel it gave me from watching the trailer was not something I liked. The trailer we watched had some flaws like jumping from island to island or high altitude makes characters look like they have superpowers and the rotating camera to emulate 3d, I don't think camera will move like that when game is played because it would make us dizzy.

I do think that DSE has a lot of potential but it will be hard to convert players from DST because it feels so different. DSE seems too niche, I think DST will be the game that will have more players after some time passes from DSE release.

I think you guys just want DST development to end, it makes no sense to want something like that when it has around 50 000 concurrent players every day. Do you really think DSE will have 50 000 players in 12 years after release like DST? DST can be crowned as one of the best games to ever exist, what are some other games that have managed to keep such a high concurrent player count? CS, Rust, Terraria? I don't think you can name many more games.

I'd say you watched the trailer incorrectly to have such an opinion, but I digress.

[Mysterious box]

23 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

DST playerbase is a miracle in a way, I don't think most players will move to the next game and forget especially since it doesn't feel like DST and it looks like the focus will be RPG elements, at least the gamey feel it gave me from watching the trailer was not something I liked. The trailer we watched had some flaws like jumping from island to island or high altitude makes characters look like they have superpowers and the rotating camera to emulate 3d, I don't think camera will move like that when game is played because it would make us dizzy.

I do think that DSE has a lot of potential but it will be hard to convert players from DST because it feels so different. DSE seems too niche, I think DST will be the game that will have more players after some time passes from DSE release.

Thing is survivors do have super powers at this point it's wasn't originally the case but many survivors just outright use magic like Willow conjuring flames and dst has long since moved into a rpg like progression as well with ability wheels and active click abilities with cooldowns. There's even more things that can showcase this like the planar system and some other things.

Personally I see a lot of potential for base building such as lake or ocean decor that you wouldn't be possible in dst or potentially the ability to make artificial cliffs and layered bases. There's will definitely be resistance without a doubt as people are often resistant to change even I'm worried about some aspects like how the roster will go but it has a lot of potential to replace dst as the main game. I'd imagine it'll start small but likely within the first 2 to 3 years of being out dst will likely lose between 40 to 70 percent of it's playerbase if it turns out well with the rest potentially just sticking with dst regardless.

I don't think dst will "die" but it's playerbase is definitely going to shrink if the new game is good.

[Jussatoon]

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Thing is survivors do have super powers at this point it's wasn't originally the case but many survivors just outright use magic like Willow conjuring flames and dst has long since moved into a rpg like progression as well with ability wheels and active click abilities with cooldowns. There's even more things that can showcase this like the planar system and some other things.

We don't even know if anything related to "superpowers" will even show up in the game. You'd think at least one instance of that would be showcased in the trailer, but for example, even though Willow has Bernie, not once did he come to life, let alone transform into BERNIE!

More likely, or at least what I'm hoping, is that the characters themselves are simpler, while the environment itself is more spectacular.