Polar Bears in COTW.

[olive rose]

Many years ago ... we, the community, came together and made Turkeys happen in this game by showing devs how much we want them. Now it's time we come together once more and make one of the most iconic animals on the planet, one of our dream animals that we didn't get on the latest map released, the mighty king of the Arctic, the Polar Bear come to this game.

[Class 9] • Polar Bear
Named "Sea bear" in Latin, this is the world's Largest bear and land carnivore. They are solitary, skilled swimmers, and spend most of their lives on Arctic sea ice. Polar bears can grow up to 9 ft long and weigh 800–1,300 lbs (males) or 300–700 lbs (females). They have white, hollow fur for camouflage, black skin to absorb heat, and thick fat for insulation. 
They hunt to survive, and will hunt you if that's what it takes.

Expansive Worlds, we want this animal, and this is our petition.

[timber hinge]

Who wants to be a Great One?

[hidden whale]

Great One with unrealistic furs, no.

[olive rose]

Great one with realistic furs, would be nice

[lapis turret]

No not really, just want em ingame

[naive moss]

I dont really understand this decision if this is really a northern Canada map. They would be easy to implement since we already have 3 bear species.

[olive rose]

Exactly

[jade dawn]

Signed

[trim mirage]

20 upvots after an hour is record, make that happen EW!!!

[azure rose]

They really need to do this at some point. A map with Polar Bears would sell like hot cakes.

[tulip matrix]

GO with battle scars maybe?

[olive rose]

It's crazy how everyone was SO sure that Polar Bears are coming that some were even sure that's the new Great One

[tulip matrix]

sad day to check news about new map tbh

[olive rose]

Goes to show ...

[kind echo]

Yep, they missed a huge opportunity here

We’ve waited for so long for a second true snow map like medved. And they didn’t add polar bears…what a huge disappointment

[versed solstice]

This map could ave been the bear reserve of kings with 3 kinds of bears. No I doubt there's even 2

[olive rose]

I think we're just gonna have Grizzlies, probably remodeled and hopefully now aggressive

[versed solstice]

I have my doubts

[trim mirage]

EW makes fast changes and let only albino remodel Grizzlys spawn on the new map which were renamed to polar bear 😂

[faint kraken]

after what we see via the map, there does not seem to be much coastal ice floe area like we see in Medved Taiga, but if I am not mistaken it is the habitat of the polar bear

[lapis turret]

Polar bear will not come

[faint kraken]

Yes, I know because its habitat is not on the map (well, it is still vague and we don't know much about it). Its habitat is the ice floe, which could explain why we don't have the polar bear.

[azure rose]

either way we really should have polar bears in this game

[pastel nebula]

EW would probably get backlash from Native communities if they don't ask permission to add them, so that'd probably be first on the to-do list

[versed solstice]

I sincerely doubt they care about video games enough to notice

[pastel nebula]

You'd be surprised

[lapis turret]

I highly doubt so

[versed solstice]

They didn't care when polar bear was the first animal you hunted in Cabela's Alaskan Adventures, doubt they'd care now

[lapis turret]

They didn't care when you hunted polar bears in classic...

[golden crown]

[thorny vector]

New map is sub-Arctic ... probably holding Polars for a true Arctic map

[lapis turret]

I think the problem is the open space of the Arctic idk if they can handle a completely open environment

[long ember]

Tundras aren’t as flat as you think… atleast most of the time there’s massive swooping hills with lichen and medium sized shrubs.

Enough to break up the environment a bit as well as keep sight lines within 300yds or so.

[hidden whale]

Rugged icy landscape

[lapis turret]

I've been to tundras and I agree with that, depends on the region tho, as far as ik eastern Canada's tundra and the ones of northern Alaska can be very flat but those in northern Canada aren't...

[hard temple]

Finally adding another artic map and not including arguably the most requested artic animal to the map is just a huge fumble.

[thin robin]

Agreed

[celest laurel]

They owe us a Nunavut/Greenland map

[lapis turret]

40 likes already, were close to a record

[celest laurel]

🇨🇦

[versed solstice]

Largest land carnivore = largest missed opportunity

[glad grotto]

Signed.

[long ember]

48!

[split parcel]

🐻‍❄️

[kind echo]

🪧 we want polar bears🪧 (repeat 3 times)

[versed solstice]

I was looking forward to trying this too

[azure rose]

[long ember]

Gah! Now I have to completely rearrange the loadout I made to compensate for the lack of ice bear.

[olive rose]

50 likes in a day, devs are seeing this btw

[naive moss]

It doesn't matter, like when did they ever do any of the suggestions here. Except adding class 9 for the nepal rifle, which was basically correcting a mistake.

[potent fiber]

Come on Devs we want polar bears! Not the same big animals we already have on other maps

[olive rose]

You're not gonna believe this, but when Vurhonga was added, there was no Lions on it, the community came together just like this and made it happen!
Also everyone few years after started asking for Turkeys the same way, so they added them asap

[celest laurel]

The community also wanted more White-tailed Deer maps and now I'm sick of them and Red Deer appearing on new maps

[olive rose]

We wanted many things I guess 😂 regardless as long as we showed it, they did it

[long ember]

EC took inspiration from a post on here.

[lapis turret]

We also asked a lot for a central Asia map and Nepal came like 1 or 2 years after

[thorny vector]

May also be an indication that EW feels like they have plans to do a full Arctic map down the road at some point .... I don't think they would just ignore such an iconic animal ....

[lapis turret]

60 Likes in less then a day, these likes tell more then words...

[fast cairn]

Thing is, the winter map will obviously not be the Arctic, and I doubt they do it next summer either, just to mix it up

Which means the earliest we'll get an arctic map with polar bears is be winter 2026, if that

[thorny vector]

They can always do a small arctic map at some point as well ....

[azure rose]

I highly doubt it, Polar Bears usually have massive home ranges, so a bigger map will be needed for it to make sense to have any substantial Polar Bear population on it.

[thorny vector]

How did they do it with classic?

[azure rose]

Whiterime in Classic is one of the biggest maps in that game. Also obviously they couldn't make maps as big as the COTW maps in that game, but that was more of a limitation of that game's engine than anything else.

if you can have a full-size map with Polar Bears, you might as well make it a full-sized one because you're gonna probably have other species on it that also need a lot of room to roam around in (like Muskox, Caribou and Arctic Wolves)

[thorny vector]

Well I know we have been spoiled by the larger maps in COTW and yes realistically Polar Bears need a larger area .... But we may have to suspend disbelief for the sake of getting them ....

It really comes down to how much longer they intend to develop on a 10 year old engine ....

[celest laurel]

I could see a couple more years which could mean
• An Amazon Reserve with Jaguar, Tapir and Caiman
• An African Plains Game map
• Central Asia with Argali
• A couple more maps like Salzwiesen Park
• Canadian Arctic
• African Dangerous 7 Map (Big 5 plus Hippo & Croc)

So 4, maybe 5 more years
That is me being hopeful

[olive rose]

Please no more maps like Salzwiesen Park lol

[thorny vector]

I mean a small map is around 22 to 32KM and a large map is 64KM .... How large of a home range would we expect polar bears to be found on a Large map ?

[azure rose]

there are plenty of small maps they could potentially do, but Polar Bears just isn't the best choice for one of them

[olive rose]

They said they're going back to 2 reserves a year, and what that means to me is that they're gonna keep making 2 maps a year every year and both are always gonna be full size reserves

[thorny vector]

Sounds to me like were saying that 1 large map would be all Polar Home range???

[azure rose]

not necessarily. We still want maps with more than one biome, right? To make that work with an arctic map (so it's not all just open tundra) you have to make it a bigger map to make room for both Polar Bears and other species. You don't usually see herds of muskoxen out on the sea ice, and you usually don't see Polar Bears very far inland. Unless you want a map that's pretty much nothing but coastline and sea ice, you need a bigger map for Polar Bears.

like I said though, there's plenty of other small maps they can do. Polar Bears just aren't ideal for one.

[celest laurel]

I personally enjoy Salzwiesen and last week I found a new reason: Waterfowl hunting with friends, now granted you could do that on other maps

What I meant by more Salzwiesen-like maps is same size but with more focus on upland birds and small game and for some potential settings we have

• The Yucatan with Ocellated Turkey, Brocket Deer, Great Curassow, Crested Guan, Coatimundi, Paca, Agouti, Iguana and Ocelot
• African map that focuses on members of the Tiny 10, small cats, porcupine, hyrax, monkey and upland birds
• A UK map with muntjac, water deer, fox, badger and birds like partridge, quail, golden plover, wood pigeon and woodcock

[thorny vector]

As far as maps with more than one Biome it really doesn't matter to me if you have 3 biomes on 1 large map or 1 biome on 3 small maps ....

The way we fast travel around the map it really doesn't matter ... At least for me anyway ...

[thorny vector]

Sure a small map that focuses on 4 to 5 species instead of 8 to 12 ....

They could even design a map so that you have a fast travel location that takes you to another small map which is just another segment of a much large map ....

[versed solstice]

Personally love the idea that a lodge is just in a small map, you hang some trophies, grab a rifle from the locker and go out to hunt a few new critters, maybe a deer or two and then go to a bigger map.

Like if the Layton cabin had blacktails, turkeys, ducks, and rabbits around it that you could go out and hunt

[lapis turret]

https://discord.com/channels/393040947006406657/1375853270890840245

[olive rose]

I get that, but even with waterfowl hunting, I rather them do big maps, like Revontuli than Salzwiesen, meaning instead of small maps, we should get full size UK map, Yucatan map and a full size African waterfowl focused map with some other species too (Heck Africa should have at least 5 maps anyways)

[hidden whale]

The Polar Bear is a big animal for a small map and the Walrus is too.

[long ember]

I really don’t want to see 5 polar bears at one zone…

[thorny vector]

I get that ... But this game already compacts lots of animals into a space that is realistically too small ... Of course they do that so that you'll have something to shoot without getting too bored ...

The challenge with the Polar Bears will be to implement a relatively solitary animal into a small area ...... The best approach will be something similar to how they handled Tigers and Snow Leopards ... Making them rare and elusive with a very small population ......

[lapis turret]

Depending on how much area and what season I don't think polar bears would be an issue of a decent part of the map would be decent habitat for them

[long ember]

That’s an argument I’d agree with IF we didn’t already have tigers and snow leopards. And it really shouldn’t need to be said because in my opinion they’d obviously only have like 5-10 individuals

[swift crown]

do not be fooled, this seal dismembered the polar bear 3 seconds after this picture was taken

[versed solstice]

I.love the idea that there's just 5 bears on a map and you have to fully commit to searching them out

[trim mirage]

100 upvotes till the new map annoucement ?

[azure rose]

[lapis turret]

[dusky stone]

Funny thing is we have them on classic so why not in cotw

[azure rose]

[split parcel]

https://tenor.com/view/polar-bear-love-gif-19602874

[kind echo]

That’s how I feel about everything right now

[brittle marsh]

This one’s from Marty Stouffer’s Wild America, i’m not sure how many people grew up with this but this guy was great. 😌

[onyx crest]

How cool would this be in game?

[long ember]

Is he shooting that thing with a Lewis gun?

[onyx crest]

I have no idea 😭, I just drew a random gun

[unreal cipher]

I’m the 100th person to talk in here yippi

[lapis turret]

80!

[half shore]

Let this happen EW

[versed solstice]

I could make it work

[lapis turret]

Make it to 100 already

[rocky mica]

my polar bear great one

[azure rose]

[lapis turret]

[fast flume]

(Old comment i know, apologies) The way i see it polars are gonna have to go on a map other than this one, I’d much rather have this kind of effort be put into adding dall sheep on yukon (which to my knowledge EW did promise at some point but never followed through on) but sadly i don’t see much hype for it these days.

Polar bears eventually though is definitely something i want to see

[olive rose]

Let's get to 100 before the full trailer drops on Tuesday

[celest laurel]

That should be easy to accomplish, its only 7 more needed (Compared to the 57 needed for #1070045518002147458 to reach 1000), I think this Polar Bear Thread could make it to 200 before the Alberta Reserve actually releases

[fast flume]

Bump

[azure rose]

bump for Polar Bears on a future map

[azure rose]

[fast flume]

[azure rose]

bump

[half shore]

Is that Neymar looking at the world cup? Can't really see what it is supposed to be, but I presume it's something about EW holding a barrier between us and Polar bears with them being in classic too (?) Correct me if I'm wrong please

[azure rose]

bumping this up again.

[azure rose]

bump

[azure rose]

bump for Polar Bears

[lapis turret]

Bump

[azure rose]

bump again

[lapis turret]

Keep this bumped

[lapis turret]

113

[azure rose]

bump

[azure rose]

bump again

[azure rose]

[lapis turret]

Paint me like one of your french girls