Written by. Nick Mosier based on the original Japanese article (publication date: 2021-12-06 21:04 JST)

Solo game developer Claudio Norori has announced that Arctico will officially release in February of 2022. The adventure game is currently in Steam Early Access and has been receiving updates for over 7 years.

Arctico is a game about exploring an extremely cold and beautiful landscape. Players travel through the snowy world by dog sled and kayak, while gathering resources. Players also have a base where they conduct research and produce crops. The base can be customized and expanded through said research and crop production, with decorations that can be placed freely. Arctico also supports 2 player online play.

When dog sledding, you’ll have a team of 4 dogs pulling you around. It’s possible to pet the dogs and give them names as well. Plus, in addition to the kayak for water exploration, there’s a parachute and glider so you can explore by air. By having the right gear for the right situation, you can explore every bit of this brutally cold island. But rather than being a game about surviving the cold, it’s more about relaxing and enjoying the beauty of the world.

But compared to now, the concept for the game has changed quite a bit since it originally hit Early Access. The game was initially called Eternal Winter and was being developed as a survival game in a tough landscape. After some changes in direction along the way, the game settled into its current form, and the title was changed to Arctico in November of 2018. As for why the name was changed, they explained in a post on Steam that the previous title didn’t really fit the current direction of the game.

Before the name change, there was another issue that caused development to be put on hold temporarily. In April of 2018, protests of President Ortega’s social security reforms began in Nicaragua, where Norori was living at the time. The situation quickly took a turn for the worse.

There were many casualties in the nationwide protests as protestors and oppressing government forces battled back and forth. It was during this tumultuous time that development of Arctico was put on hold, and Norori worked on a game titled Nightfall in Nicaragua to help demonstrate the current situation in the country. While the game was released, it is currently unavailable.

A few months after that, Eternal Winter was changed to Arctico. We look forward to seeing the fruits of this 7-year long development period. And as an aside, according to Norori’s Twitter account, it looks like they are currently based in Peru.