Don't Starve multiplayer expansion coming this summer

Klei's season-survivor Don't Starve excels as a single-player experience, where a world full of dark forests, Moose-Goose , and warm beards tickles that roguelike itch in all the right ways. A missing and seemingly expected element of the genre—and a subject of heated debate across multiple closed threads on the game's official forums—is multiplayer support so friends can huddle together against winter's chill or place hats on neighboring pig-folk. Surprise: Klei's planning a multiplayer expansion out this summer and free for current Starvians.

The expansion, entitled Don't Starve Together, brings public and private co-op to the sandbox food-forager. That means we'll see "most of" the single-player features brought into a networked capacity, including the game's lovely crafting and constructing systems in addition to its gameplay-shifting seasons. The studio is still figuring out its preferred player limit, but four players stands as the current planned minimum.

Previously, Klei sold Starve as a solo affair, with the team stating , "If we were to implement multiplayer now, we would have to re-architect all of this code, which would have unavoidable spill-over effects for the single player." A well-received launch, Steam Workshop support , and a content-rich DLC bolstered Klei's confidence for Starve's staying power. After "quietly smuggling in some new people," Klei switched its stance on multiplayer from "Could Be a Thing" to "This Is a Thing Now."

Don't Starve Together should be out sometime this summer, but Klei says it'll toss up a beta on Steam Early Access soon after alpha testing. Owners of the game get the update for free, but the games price will jump to $20/£11 after the alpha kicks off, so grab it now if that's too rich for your blood. Lots of excited discussion is also underway in the expansion's new forums , too.

PRODUCTS

Omri Petitte is a former PC Gamer associate editor and long-time freelance writer covering news and reviews. If you spot his name, it probably means you're reading about some kind of first-person shooter. Why yes, he would like to talk to you about Battlefield. Do you have a few days?