HAZELWOOD: ALL EIGHT SANCTUARIES ARE BUILT

Hazelwood can be played from start to finish.

The last week went region by region. Each one is a land of its own, with its own towns, people, creatures, tasks and music, and a sanctuary at the heart of it that won't open until the people there trust you.

Frostmarch, the frozen north

The realm

The Hazel Vale, home, and the Stone Sanctuary.
The Tanglewood and the Rootwarden's Grove, where the vines are cut in the order of the runes.
The Cinder Wastes and the Kiln: crusts over lava that sink if you stand still.
The Mirelands and the Drowned Chapel, sinking into the tide. A reed skiff takes you through the marsh.
The Saltreach and the Stormspire, a tower of winds. Sail the open sea to reach it.
The Greyholm Moors and the Ossuary of bells, under a ruined abbey, where the dead don't stay down.
The Highcrags and the Sunforge: bend the sunbeam with mirrors.
The Frostmarch and the Rime Vault, where everything slides on the ice.

Each sanctuary ends in a guardian with its own trick to beat.

And then

With all eight Shards, the Crown can be made whole, and that's when the road north opens. We won't say much about the last act, except that it ends at the Blackspire, Morvath is waiting, and how it ends depends on how you played. The endings have a tune of their own.

The playtest

Now the bugs. We have over 460 automated tests that walk the hero through the game in VICE and check the results, and the playtests on a real 64 catch what the tests can't: a task that gives away its answer, a villager who says he's leaving and doesn't, a tune that hangs while a place loads. Every one of those is fixed as it's found.

Kingsbridge, the capital