It’s been a little while since the cozy mech-based multiplayer farming sim Lightyear Frontier popped on our radar. As a reminder, this early access title made its debut last year and MOP’s Tyler found it to be full of charm. The game has otherwise kept on making regular updates including neighbors and animals while promising “large-scale experiments” for this year.

Well, one of those planned experiments caused a bit of concern among fans of the game: During a Q&A video to mark the game’s year of early access, creative director Wilmer talked about, among other things, how the game’s next update will bring changes to the title’s narrative as part of a planned expansion of the game world. “We feel the map was sort of made to tell our story, but we want it to tell your story instead,” Wilmer says. “That means the story isn’t going to be told in the same way it has been so far. […] We strongly believe that it’s better for us to focus on gameplay and systems.”

This led fans to post in the video’s comments and in Steam discussions their concern that LYF would be removing story altogether. Cue a recent (read: extremely late because it took developers Frame Break and Amplifier Studios two months to respond) dev blog, which takes a closer look at the changes to narrative – and promises that there will still be story to experience.

“We should start by underlining that we are NOT removing all narrative and storytelling from the game. […] We are moving the conveying of narrative to mechanics within the player’s control, so that it doesn’t happen without your intent to engage with it. That way, we can ensure that the player’s attention is not split between other tasks.”

What this means mechanically speaking is that artifacts will now tell a wider story added to a journal, while specific POIs called investigation points will add little flavor context to the game’s wider world.

This change to story will all be part of the Shifting Gears update arriving on June 4th, which will also include the expanded and reworked world, the ability to create and manage much larger farms, automation of crop watering via drones, and the ability to create custom homestead buildings.