Part Gamma: Shedding The Weight

Prototyping continues, with a few major steps in development taking place in the last couple of months that we're excited to share.

We've been making some adjustments to the jacket to make it truly "screen accurate", and it's already looking way better than where we started.  It's still a work in progress, but we're much closer to a pre-production sample parka than ever. Just take a look...

Starting off, we've cropped the length of the parka to sit just above your belt kit for easy access. We also changed the shoulder seams from the original "raglan" to a "set-in" seam, which reflect the look of the jacket exactly in game.

But we kept running into one major issue with our initial prototype: The bulk. When you're wearing a plate carrier beneath an already pretty puffy jacket, it's way too warm, and the drape of the jacket looks a bit awkward. The N3-B parka that the devs based the hound wolf squad's jacket on was originally designed for extreme arctic and sub-zero conditions. It's very well insulated for temps way into the negatives, unlike the sleek look it has in the game.

As you could guess, by removing some of the insulation, the drape should look a lot more like the game, and layer better over a plate carrier. This also makes it way more comfortable in different temperature ranges so you can LARP more comfortably.

And hey, this actually would make the parka better suited for the coldest nights in real-world Romania where the game takes place. The N3-B Parka is almost solely for Arctic Warfare, rated down to temperatures of -60°F (-51°C) when worn with proper layering. In even the chilliest regions of Romania, we did our homework, and it really only ever gets down to about 14°F (-10°C). 

Castle Dimitrescu definitely evokes a slightly more cursed Transylvanian vibe than Peleș Castle, which sits up in the mountains near IRL Transylvania. But the vibe is definitely there - Looks like the Devs did their homework well, too.

The trim, zippers, zipper pulls, and grosgrain have all been finalized, and we've gone through a few different lab-dips to nail down the color of the main body of the jacket.

Last on the list for materials is the fur "ruff", the defining feature of the jacket that really makes it befitting of the wolves. We've gone through a few samples to match the length of the fur, and we're juuuust about there when it comes to color, but that's been one of the biggest challenges to get "game correct" for the entire project.

Bringing things from video games to real life isn't an exact science, and it takes a lot of back and forth with our manufacturers to figure out all of these little details.

We're looking forward to getting our next sample in, and we'll make sure to give you all of the details when it's here...

But for now, thanks for sticking around and keeping up with the development!