Permafrost 2h Preview

What the 2h preview was

The preview was the last public test before Early Access. The developers called it a playtest in their announcements, and the official forum account later called it our preview. It ran from October 2 at 14:00 CEST to October 6 at 14:00 CEST.

Access came through a request button on the Steam store page. Players were invited in two waves, first a smaller group to test the servers and then everyone else. Once accepted, a separate playtest app appeared in your Steam library.

Each tester also received three invites to bring friends. The preview supported co-op for up to four players. Some creators handed out their spare invites to viewers during their streams.

A survey waited at the end of every session. The official posts asked testers to fill it out once they finished, alongside using all three friend invites. That feedback fed directly into the fixes planned for launch.

How the time limit worked

At the start, every tester had one hour. The clock began the moment you launched the game and counted everything you did, including character creation. There was no pause for cutscenes or for stepping away.

Players were clear that one hour was too short. On October 3, the developers extended everyone's total playtime to two hours, so anyone who had already used an hour got one more. The playtest patch notes list the same change.

Some players still felt the limit was too tight. One detailed forum post asked for a timer that only counted actual play rather than menus and cutscenes. The official account thanked them and promised the team would read the feedback closely.

Why it now says it hasn't been released

After October 6, many players found that the preview would not start. Some saw a message saying it hasn't been released, and others found it missing from their library. Both mean the same thing: the test is over.

The official forum account confirmed this several times. The replies said the preview ended at 14:00 CEST on October 6 and that it had run from the 2nd through the 6th. The release follows on Friday, October 9.

There is no way to reopen the preview. The developers said there would be no further tests before launch. You can uninstall the playtest app safely.

Choices you made at the start

Every preview began with character creation, and the timer was already running. You picked a starting background from Survivor, Smuggler or Hunter, each with a few starting items such as tea, coffee, oatmeal or a granola bar. Then you chose a specialization that raised three skills.

The four specializations were Tracker, Scavenger, Marksman and Engineer, covering skills like skinning, lockpicking, firearms and axes. Last came the dog, with Shepherd, Border Collie, Golden Retriever, Husky and Rottweiler on offer. Testers who rushed this step saved precious minutes for the world itself.

What you can do in two hours

Two hours covers the opening of the game and a little more. Most testers went through the same steps in roughly this order. Fast players got noticeably further than the average tester.

1. Character creation: background, specialization and dog breed.
2. The tutorial cave: stone tools and your first campfire.
3. Reaching Horizon, the first safe camp.
4. Rescuing the dog in the Bone Cave.
5. Building a first base with a workbench.
6. Heading into the Woods and Hunter's Glade.

One tester who played alone finished every mission and side mission in the first area before the timer ran out. Another reached the edge of the Solar Fields and found a boss with seconds to spare. The beginner guide covers this opening stretch in detail.

What players thought

Many testers enjoyed what they saw. One said they loved the preview and would definitely buy the game, and the official account replied with see you in Horizon. Another listed the graphics, the compass with exact distances, the blueprints, bow hunting and the dog rescue as highlights.

Others were more cautious. One creator said the game was not bad but needed a lot of work, and another struggled with performance and stutter. Common complaints were low frame rates, crashes on DirectX 12, co-op disconnects and a controller bug in the crafting menu.

One creator who had to rush noted that Permafrost is story-driven, so skipping dialogue to save time meant missing a lot. They praised the clean UI and tutorial even so. The full game removes that pressure, since there is no time limit.

The same creator liked the trading post and the small settlements, and said the cold mechanics are aggressive right from the start. They also felt the build was rough technically for a game so close to release. Their view summed up the preview for many: promising, but in need of polish.

The patch during the preview

The developers released Update 1 for the playtest app while the preview was still running. Besides the longer time limit, it fixed crashes related to UI input, building and video playback. It also fixed a dog floating indoors and a building exclusion zone bug.

Two quest and multiplayer fixes stood out. Rejecting the Rat Queen's quest no longer blocked progress, and clients no longer lost their inventory when closing the game while the server loaded. Custom difficulty mode was switched off for the time being.

In their launch post three days later, the developers thanked players for the time they spent in the preview. They admitted that some testers had trouble playing over the weekend and said they had learned a lot about the causes. Those fixes were promised for the Early Access build.

Why some videos show much more

If you watched videos with far more than two hours of play, those creators were not using the preview. Some had review keys for the full build with no time limit. One forum player noted that YouTubers had unlimited time and used their videos to see more.

From October 9, everyone gets that same unlimited access in Early Access. One official reply told a tester that Early Access starts with no time limit, so they could finally get to base building. See the playtest history for the earlier tests.