When Dandara launched on PS4 two years ago, we were elated to finally share it with the world. After the launch, the huge reception to the game felt magical and we were just floored by it. Something about Dandara and the world of Salt spoke to people and it amazed us. Alongside this mind-blowing reception, we also received a lot of incredibly positive feedback. And we also got a fair amount of constructive criticism, some of it aligned with what we were already feeling and other bits were of things that never occurred to us. Since then, we’ve been tinkering on Dandara implementing some of this into our ultimate version of the game which we’re calling Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition.
When we started to think about how to continue developing and improving Dandara, our first thought was about the cuts we had to make before shipping the original version — every game has some sort of compromise it needs in order to launch — and the most interesting one was, by far, the secret ending we had originally planned. Our vision for this true path was a little too ambitious and we, unfortunately, had to keep it out in order to launch a quality game. We started jotting down ideas about how we would include it in the existing base game but in an interesting way.
Based on ideas that came to us from the community themselves, we thought that Trials of Fear could be not only about awesome new content but also address some of that feedback we received. One of the most asked topics was the narrative itself, lots of people wanted to see more from the Salt and its inhabitants. We promise that the Trials of Fear Edition now delivers on this!
The original content in Dandara has got some buffed-up descriptions and more detailed conversations that weren’t included in the vanilla edition, and it lines up really well with the new content present in Trials of Fear. When creating Dandara the first time, we inserted a lot of references to our Brazilian culture (and these are, of course, still in here) and with Trials of Fear, you could think of it as us inserting the community into Dandara. Take a look, you may find something you suggested!
On the art side of the game, you can see how much the artists evolved as they continued development after Dandara launched. The new music tracks, sound effects, and píxel art featured are on another level. Thommaz, the composer for Dandara, even went so far as to remaster all the original tracks as well!
If you’ve experienced Dandara before, we encourage you to dive back in for another playthrough because the new content and extra details to the story really make it shine again. Plus, we reworked its difficulty curve, and the new content intertwines with the original path in a way that things can play a lot differently this time. If you’ve yet to experience the world of Salt, now is a perfect time.
Dandara’s actions will not be forgotten! And we will not forget the passion of you the players, that led to us creating this new edition.
