[Gameplay Mechanic] Turns out Elsewhere features a Backpack Slot innately! (+Bonus Neat Thing!)

[Maxil20]

(Shoutout to @-Variant for pointing this out!)

Not sure how many people noticed it, but the trailer features something neat: in the short with Combat, Willow is wearing armor... and a Backpack!


I highly doubt this would somehow be done for a gameplay trailer for the funs of it. It very likely is an integral part of the gameplay loop to have a separate slot.

At first you might think "Wow! That's cool!" But if you dig deeper, it explains something else!

Remember in the 2023 roadmap, where the promotional pieces showed Wilson, consistently, Wore a backpack and armor? 

Spoiler

Well, it turns out if you take a small tidbit from @Kacpert25, it turns out the date Klei acquired the Steam page for DSE, is December 2022! approximately 4 months from this roadmap!
 

Quote

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

So, now we finally have (some) explanation why they were drawn with both pieces! So that's cool!

Edited April 11 by Maxil20
Forgot Discord is a Bad way to host images… *sigh*

[Picklesaurus]

This is  really really interesting. the Armor backpack conspiracy was right all along!

[Kacpert25]

Oh wow... oh wow.
My brain just exploded seeing that this backpack and armor at the same time, on this graphic, wasn't a mistake after all.

[Well-met]

I'm now convinced DSE's purpose is to just satisfy every forum fantasy

[Von Nix]

Yeah, I like to imagine it was a slipup from an artist, forgetting about the new mechanic
 

[Echsrick]

now the question is what armour willow is wearing, seems new and not very grass or wood

[flamboyant wolf]

7 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

now the question is what armour willow is wearing, seems new and not very grass or wood

vaguely reminds me of the shell armor. mussel armor? chitin armor?

[VaskalRascal]

Unfortunately, nothing new for extra equip slot players.

[aidancode]

Aw, that's unfortunate. I always really liked the body slot dynamic of DST. Shame they might be killing it. This worries me a lot, though. If they gave in to this, does that mean the uncompromising vision is going to go away elsewhere, too?

[Jakepeng99]

2 hours ago, Kacpert25 said:

Oh wow... oh wow.
My brain just exploded seeing that this backpack and armor at the same time, on this graphic, wasn't a mistake after all.

I mean… it was a mistake they probably just switched over to do art for dst after stuff for DSA and forgot that wasn’t a thing

14 minutes ago, aidancode said:

Aw, that's unfortunate. I always really liked the body slot dynamic of DST. Shame they might be killing it. This worries me a lot, though. If they gave in to this, does that mean the uncompromising vision is going to go away elsewhere, too?

I mean it’s probably compensation.

[Jussatoon]

11 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

it’s probably compensation

That's pretty likely. I mean, there are surely other ways to have the game be more uncompromising without relying on limited equipment slots, right?

Who knows, depending on the challenges the game has, giving us an additional equipment slot might be doing us a favor. 

[aidancode]

8 minutes ago, Jussatoon said:

That's pretty likely. I mean, there are surely other ways to have the game be more uncompromising without relying on limited equipment slots, right?

Who knows, depending on the challenges the game has, giving us an additional equipment slot might be doing us a favor. 

The thing with limited equipment slots that's cool is it's a totally fair challenge that the player gets to make decisions about. I'd much rather that than like, them obscure every game system really hard and make enemies way stronger, personally.

[Jussatoon]

6 minutes ago, aidancode said:

The thing with limited equipment slots that's cool is it's a totally fair challenge that the player gets to make decisions about. I'd much rather that than like, them obscure every game system really hard and make enemies way stronger, personally.

Well, paranoia aside, I guess we'll see.

[Capybara007]

if they make the game with extra backpack slot its only logical to assume they are going to increase the difficulty, like maybe stop making every piece of armor have more than 80% damage reduction

Edited April 11 by Capybara007

[goblinball]

2 hours ago, Capybara007 said:

if they make the game with extra backpack slot its only logical to assume they are going to increase the difficulty, like maybe stop making every piece of armor have more than 80% damage reduction

I hope they redo how armor works because I really think the armor balancing in dst (and also base ds) is really silly. 80% DR for early game armor? Come on man. I think separating backpacks and body slot armor will enable them to make more unique backpacks and body armors since they won’t have to compete with eachother.

[Cheggf]

How disappointing. I was looking forwards to this game but the first gameplay related thing (unless you count verticality, I guess) I learn about it is they've conceded the fun slot mechanic away and just let you permanently have everything on at the same time. 

[Zeklo]

6 hours ago, goblinball said:

I hope they redo how armor works because I really think the armor balancing in dst (and also base ds) is really silly. 80% DR for early game armor? Come on man. I think separating backpacks and body slot armor will enable them to make more unique backpacks and body armors since they won’t have to compete with eachother.

They really do have the opportunity to do whatever they want with weapon & armor balancing. If we see even a bit of the stuff they messed with in the Forge, we very well might get a combat system that's much more engaging. 

[Mike23Ua]

12 hours ago, aidancode said:

The thing with limited equipment slots that's cool is it's a totally fair challenge that the player gets to make decisions about. I'd much rather that than like, them obscure every game system really hard and make enemies way stronger, personally.

I’m just gonna go ahead and spoil it for you right now… DSE will be like comparing Moonlighter to Moonlighter 2, yes that means that previously “flat” words will now have new challenges because the world is no longer “flat”

One such obstacle that should be fairly obvious from the start is that Plato’s (is that how it’s spelled?) of land that are above the playable character will now also become walls that we maybe can’t climb up and need to walk around to reach the area where it paths upward. What does this mean for the game as a whole??? 
It means that if you need to go around a specific route to reach base, or a cave entrance carved into the side of a mountain, that you’ll now need to go AROUND the terrain till reach the area your intended to be able to go through it.

Technically this means that the really cool “choke hold” enemy bases like the Pigman tiki torch set piece can be a proper challenge, forcing you to actually go through the area rather then just being able to do like we currently can in DST by walking around it.

I would draw concept arts to convey through images exactly what I mean but unfortunately my drawing skills are horrendous so I’m hoping someone with art skills understands this post I’m making and can draw up pretty art to show how I’m about to try to explain it a bit better.

For reference- here’s what one looked like in solo DS.

Now imagine that area of water between their camp being a slope you can climb up into the Pigman camp, and the the area where the pigs are is elevated ABOVE the two areas on the left and right filled with water (pretend there’s no water that’s just land that’s LOWER) you’ll need to go up the slope through their camp, and down the other slope to proceed from the left vally to the right side otherwise: there’s an elevated hill that’s serving a double purpose of restricting access to the opposite side of it, and forcing you to go through an enemy infested camp to reach the other end.

Edited April 11 by Mike23Ua

[Hungry French]

This is a great change ! The lack of a backpack slot is one of the worst things about DS and DST, making body clothing pointless for most players.

Why should you lose protection for the sake of faster farming? It's not an equal exchange... It also reduces the variety of clothing...

It won't affect the difficulty. You'll still have to change your seasonal clothing for armor every hour... And you can easily survive without a backpack in DS and DST because it's not help for survival‚ but for speedruners...

As for me, there were 2 ways:

1. Remove the backpack.

2. Add slots to the inventory.

Thank you, that now the toxicos will stop spewing kilometer-long insults at the back puck slots...

Due to the double standards of the toxic people - Klei is safe. Although it is hard to conflict with someone you can't talk to)

[Wormboi]

11 hours ago, goblinball said:

I hope they redo how armor works because I really think the armor balancing in dst (and also base ds) is really silly. 80% DR for early game armor? Come on man. I think separating backpacks and body slot armor will enable them to make more unique backpacks and body armors since they won’t have to compete with eachother.

Also maybe fix enemy damage numbers? A lot enemy hit like a tank without armor and barley starch you with a football helm.

[aidancode]

7 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Thank you, that now the toxicos will stop spewing kilometer-long insults at the back puck slots...

Due to the double standards of the toxic people - Klei is safe. Although it is hard to conflict with someone you can't talk to)

As somebody who much prefers having the backpack slot separate, I swear we're not trying to be toxic 😭 we just think it makes decision making more fun and interesting

You're 100% right that not having a backpack slot makes body clothing bad. This is a big problem with body armor that admittedly didn't have a good fix

What I personally liked about the body slot is that it has so much utility variety, and anything you choose has big tradeoffs. Between bone armor, mags, backpacks, and general body armor, there's so many options and they all have big pluses and minuses. But at the heart of it all was the backpack

There's big advantages to having a separate backpack and armor slot, though. For one, it means your head slot doesn't HAVE to be a football helmet all the time, so that's nice

But there's something really cool to me about running through the world armorless, equipt with a tam and backpack, and just hoping nothing sneaks up and hits you. It's kinda cool idk

 

I'm really sorry in advance if this sounds condescending or rude, it's really not supposed to, I'm really just trying to give one of legitimately my favorite core mechanics in the game a fighting chance here. I totally get where you're coming from but I just promise there's more to it than convenience versus hardcore

[Cuernito.]

21 hours ago, aidancode said:

does that mean the uncompromising vision is going to go away elsewhere, too?

Isnt the dificulty abandon this ship the moment we get multiplayer? i mean DST is the easiest of all DS so i dont think making the next game harder should be priority.

or at the very least make the game harder but lower the level of frustration, like for example a mode to not lose all your stuff when dying.

[Hungry French]

21 minutes ago, aidancode said:

As somebody who much prefers having the backpack slot separate, I swear we're not trying to be toxic 😭 we just think it makes decision making more fun and interesting

You're 100% right that not having a backpack slot makes body clothing bad. This is a big problem with body armor that admittedly didn't have a good fix

What I personally liked about the body slot is that it has so much utility variety, and anything you choose has big tradeoffs. Between bone armor, mags, backpacks, and general body armor, there's so many options and they all have big pluses and minuses. But at the heart of it all was the backpack

There's big advantages to having a separate backpack and armor slot, though. For one, it means your head slot doesn't HAVE to be a football helmet all the time, so that's nice

But there's something really cool to me about running through the world armorless, equipt with a tam and backpack, and just hoping nothing sneaks up and hits you. It's kinda cool idk

 

I'm really sorry in advance if this sounds condescending or rude, it's really not supposed to, I'm really just trying to give one of legitimately my favorite core mechanics in the game a fighting chance here. I totally get where you're coming from but I just promise there's more to it than convenience versus hardcore

Don't worry bro

13 minutes ago, Cuernito. said:

Isnt the dificulty abandon this ship the moment we get multiplayer? i mean DST is the easiest of all DS so i dont think making the next game harder should be priority.

or at the very least make the game harder but lower the level of frustration, like for example a mode to not lose all your stuff when dying.

What about the legendary difficult bosses ? ( Power creep bums who are difficult because of their hp due to the curve of multiplayer balancing )

[aidancode]

31 minutes ago, Cuernito. said:

Isnt the dificulty abandon this ship the moment we get multiplayer? i mean DST is the easiest of all DS so i dont think making the next game harder should be priority.

or at the very least make the game harder but lower the level of frustration, like for example a mode to not lose all your stuff when dying.

DST is the easiest Don't Starve game to survive in, yeah. It's the hardest to complete by far though, for obvious reasons. The amount of people who have like, beaten Adventure Mode, compared to even just beaten the Shadow Pieces in DST, is a big difference I'm sure. I've only beaten CC once in a singleplayer world, and I've never beaten AFW, and even in multiplayer worlds it took many attempts.

[Ridley]

On 4/10/2026 at 10:04 PM, Cheggf said:

How disappointing. I was looking forwards to this game but the first gameplay related thing (unless you count verticality, I guess) I learn about it is they've conceded the fun slot mechanic away and just let you permanently have everything on at the same time. 

I wouldn't be so quick to judge. Armor got a huge nerf from DS to DST, so maybe armor/inventory is getting reworked in DSE in some similar way. You could be right, and I would disappointed too, it is just too early to really say.