Mechanics that affect long term (forever) worlds

[DrCopper]

Hi folks!

First time posting here, currently about 200h into my first world which has sort of taken over my life over the last couple of months

My playstyle is all about settling into a nice forever world and just developing and improving it over time, slow and steady; I have been playing (on and off) on essentially the same world for the past 10 years in the other block game. But I have started to wonder if there are mechanics in VS that I don't know about that will make life impossible if/when I reach year 10 or 100.

I read that temporal storms become longer and/or more frequent over time. Will there be a point when they come every day or last so long that you just die every time? Are there other mechanics that change over time long term? Anything that affects the viability of a forever world? 

[Diff]

Just on the storms, at least based on the wiki, and a third qualifier, it looks like they only extend in duration and cap at 4.8 in-game hours.

And that's a really fun concept for a game world!

Edited August 20, 2025 by Diff

[Never Jhonsen]

14 minutes ago, DrCopper said:

I read that temporal storms become longer and/or more frequent over time. Will there be a point when they come every day or last so long that you just die every time?

From what I understand in the world creation menu, there is a max limit. I've always played at 30-40 days, 200%; I'm on year 3 of a 30-day month world, and they're still about once a month for me

 

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, DrCopper said:

I read that temporal storms become longer and/or more frequent over time. Will there be a point when they come every day or last so long that you just die every time?

Welcome to the forums! As others here have already noted, there is a limit to how long temporal storms can last(4.8 game hours) and how strong they can be(light, medium, or heavy). Heavy is the strongest a storm can be, and generally means that more monsters will spawn in addition to having the most distorted visuals and audio. How long the storm lasts is random, but it's never going to last longer than 4.8 in-game hours, unless you either changed something via mods, or encountered a bug.

As for the interval between temporal storms...it also varies. By default, the interval is 10-20 days, which means that on default settings you can expect to encounter a temporal storm every 1-2 months in-game.

1 hour ago, DrCopper said:

Are there other mechanics that change over time long term? Anything that affects the viability of a forever world? 

It depends...keep in mind that Vintage Story is very early in development; of a planned eight story chapters(the game being considered "finished" when all eight are fully implemented) there are currently only two implemented. Things could change. The developers take old worlds into consideration when they release updates(only the stable versions--never play a cherished world on an unstable testing candidate!), so as a general rule old worlds will remain playable in new versions of the game without issue. Sometimes the game needs to do some remapping, but it only takes a few minutes and you will be prompted to do so the first time you load that world in the new version. The game also adds story locations to old worlds, so you don't need to worry about missing story content as it releases.

All that being said...it's also possible that a future update could potentially require creation of a new world, for some reason. If you are playing with mods, creating a new world for a new version is almost a given, although not always. It depends a lot on what is added in the new version, and whether or not the mods update/still function if old.

[DrCopper]

Thanks for the comprehensive answers! I guess I'm in the clear then.

7 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

All that being said...it's also possible that a future update could potentially require creation of a new world, for some reason. If you are playing with mods, creating a new world for a new version is almost a given, although not always. It depends a lot on what is added in the new version, and whether or not the mods update/still function if old.

Ah, yes. One thing I learned trying to keep the same world going for a decade over multiple versions of the other block game was to basically give up on mods