Personally i think a return to the usual cycle is the most likely, so mid june i guess?
I'm flip flopping when I think the next pack will be released, but I think I am leaning towards a June release. Not everyone watches the streams and follows along, so even though they addressed it, there will still probably be people who are concerned that there is no more packs if they wait past June/July. Plus, seeing how this DLCs content (not the update) seems pretty lacking in terms of high effort animals (seeing all the animals today confirms this, one is literally a dark brown somali wild ass and the cow doesn't have a lot of detail in its coat like the sloth bear, kinda sloppy imo but we'll see on launch day) I think that this was their extra time to finish up the high budget animals for the next pack, hopefully applying that sloth bear fluffiness to my baboon friend.
I'm really not sure what to think. The fact that they said "later on this year" rather than "this summer" makes me think it could be a fall release.
But that also feels like way too long...
Late June could be a nice middle-ground. It's about 2 months since the last pack released (which is later than usual, anyway) and any later... July just feels like a bad month to release what is probably intended to be a major release. And, TBH, getting another outsource_lqa update within the 2-3 weeks following launch would put it on pace with that next JWE2 DLC and when that is likely coming.
My gut was initially telling me a fall release was likely but, like I said above that just feels like too long a stretch to go without anything new. I'm already hoping they tease a little something like they did for JWE2 in the next monthly Unlocked. I feel like that's a nice, fun little way to keep folks at bay.
The animals i would be excited about, and there are actually quite alot, are almost exlusively oddballs, aside from the coati, mara and whatever monkey frontier puts in the Pack (I swear to god frontier, i know youre chronically allergic to them but there better be a monkey in there).
And this is why even though SA deserves the attention way more and it will probably get some in time, I prefer another Africa pack because it serves to frontiers strengths, or at least some sort of hot climate desert pack - and no, not just "Arid 2.0" a Safari expedition style pack that has a free update alongside it introducing larger safari vehicles as well as more interactions between animals and the vehicles, or giraffe feeding - essentially expanding on the concept of encounters in the current update. I brought this pack idea up earlier but it didn't get much notice cause SA was the focus as usual lately. A cat, a couple unique ungulates, and 2 meta wishlist animals that have been heavily wanted recently seems like a banger to me.
Man, I just want them to deviate away from any particular biome or region for a final pack. Doing that would leave far too many animals on the table that we might get otherwise. I'm with you in that a safari pack could be really cool (e.g., secretary bird, baboon, serval, honey badger, rock hyrax, and an ungulate or two). And the features they could add would be great. But given the focus on South America that's seem to have taken hold I think people would be really disappointed. And honestly, the two key animals for that pack (secretary bird, baboon) would fit just as well with a broader theme.
And that's where I'm leaning. Something broader, more general. They could focus on the meta wishlist as a final hurrah. It's got a ton of variability up top and could also explain why they opted for a pack theme that ignored the wishlist completely. It would also be a nice book-end to focus on a broader scope of the world rather than one specific region or environment.
And TBH, contrary to popular belief most of the high-ranking animals now aren't "extra effort" given the existing rigs or animation sets they could use as a starting place. I'm sure a lot of love and care would be put into them but... They're very feasible within a normal pack "budget." At least that's what I'm parroting and choosing to believe from people smarter than me who have knowledge of Frontier's processes, how the rigs and animations work, etc.
The focus on the "standard" themes on this forum is interesting. Because Frontier has proven with multiple packs now that if there's a feature they want to implement, an animal they want to get in-game, or scenery to add? They're gonna do it. That's how we got Aquatic, Conservation, Twilight, and now Barnyard. That's 23.5% of the DLC packs! Why not one last time?
