Well this one took a bit longer than we expected. I guess we were a bit optimistic about the amount of content planned for this update. But we're finally here! We did decide to leave a couple of things for the next update, so contrary to our original plan, this one doesn't contain all the planned content yet. Without spoiling too much, this update includes three major areas (Crown Station, Vulcan Island, and the Pyramid Tomb), EIGHT shelters (each an unique underground level), building turrets and defenses for tower-defense-like mini game (enables entering those shelters), and lots of other tweaks and additions.

About Localizations (Part Two)

We're moving forward with the localizations. Almost all reference strings are in place, and we're getting ready to order localizations for selected languages. The current game build contains work-in-progress localizations for Simplified Chinese and Russian. The full set of Official localizations available at release include: English, Simplified Chinese, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Turkish. The voiceovers will be in English only. The bigger news is that we will also be opening up the Steam Workshop for localizations! We know we are not able to "officially" translate the game to all the languages you are requesting, but we can enable the community modding tools to add any language imaginable. This will happen some time before the release (hopefully). Looking forward to playing the game in Klingon and not understanding a word!

Update Highlights

Crown Station

You can now enter the Crown Station area via the elevator in Undercrown. You'll be finding out about the K23 radio station, listening to audio logs, and... progressing your Main Quest. (The ending is not included in this build yet, so you'll just encounter those familiar blue barriers at some point.)

Vulcan Island

The mysterious sea area beyond the west coast is now also accessible. Spoiler on how to gain access to it: [spoiler]Read all the Myth Tablets on the island and you'll see a short cutscene for a clue where to go next...[/spoiler]

Pyramid Tomb

You can now enter the Pyramid Tomb after [spoiler]you've completed all the Tombs on the island[/spoiler]. You'll find [spoiler]tons of useful, a new weapon recipe, and the sarcophagus of the king[/spoiler]. [spoiler]All photography inside the Pyramid Tomb is strictly forbidden, so no screenshot for this, sorry.[/spoiler]

Shelter Defense

You may have wondered what's inside those shelters on the island. You'll be able to open those hatches in this update. Unfortunately you won't be making new human survivor friends.
Build defenses to stop the horde of monsters, and the shelter is ready for entering. You may be surprised what you find there occasionally. [spoiler]
[/spoiler]

New Skills

A couple of new Skills added this time. There's a new Turret Specialist Skill related to turret handling. Note that you'll also be able to make new inventions that will unlock other turret type and increase the ammo capacity. The Animal Friend now has a third skill level. It makes the animals you've tamed fight by your side in combat. Unleash the Combat Bambi! We'll have to see how much tuning this feature still needs though.

CHANGE LOG

ADDED

- Access to 'Crown Station'. (THE ENDING NOT INCLUDED YET) - Access to 'Vulcan Island'. - Access to 'The Pyramid Tomb'. Requires completing all the tombs. NOTE: Revisit them if the stones don't lit up properly. - Shelters defence now accessible! - Shelters accessible after fighting the horde. - New enemy type (dweller/horde). - Added buildable Turrets. - New material: Central Processing Unit (only findable for now) - Level Cap is now 50. Up by EIGHT levels! - Ark Level 1 fully accessible. (Level 2 coming later.) - New craftables (Hard Hat, Material Transporter, turret related inventions) - Added Turret Specialist Skill. - Added Animal Friend skill level III (animals fight by your side). - Added Russian localization for testing. - Added more sound effects for different situation and actions. - Loud weapons (eg. grenades, rifle), now produce a sound which attracts enemies. - Main menu bg animations. - Showing new invention notifications when leveling up. - Home shelter Point of Interest set completed when going near it. (You may or may nor be able to enter it later, but not for now.) - Voiceovers for the archaeologist Abby.

CHANGED

- Updated Chinese localization. - Rebalanced Ark XP rewards. - Tomb sarcophagi remain open after looted. - Changed sfx falloff for certain sounds. - Tweaks to complex collider generation. - Performance improvements. - "It" spins indefinitely now. - Reworked some quests so it is more clear for the player "what to do" and "where to do it". - All deer kills accumulate into one card now instead of one per type: male, female etc.

FIXED

- Buildables are properly persistent in Undercrown. - Wolf and deer move animation fixes. - Usual open world visual glitch & terrain fixes. - CTD fix. - Fixed some faulty soundscapes where wrong ambience was playing. - Audio level adjustments. - Player making a dodge roll after a power attack in some instances. - Fixed undiggable spots in Undercrown. - Fixes to some achievements not triggering. - Fixed some collision issues with cylindrical objects. - Fixed Open the Floodgates intro where people were getting stuck. - Fixed crosshair misalignment when using hoe. - Receiving temperature based damage while fishing does not cause animation oddities any more. - Monster lure doesn't break from fall damage. - Performance improvements. - Fixed monsters trying to walk through obstacles while wandering. - Sound (XAudio2) related crash fix. - Fixed a Coop issue where it was possible to install more fuel cells than players had. - Dead actors now fall under the water. - Added some missing animations to few existing actors. - Fixed some cases where waterfalls and other particle effects would not render correctly.

Up Next

This update contains almost all the level content we're planning on including for the Launch Version. The Ark Level 2 and some small parts of Crown Station are coming in the next Update #17, which will hopefully not take as long as this one did. In addition to that we'll be also activating those Obelisks, adding one or two new monster types, and any missing or forgotten feature we've got time for. And of course balancing, polishing, fixing bugs, and optimizing. The one after the next one (Update #18) will contain all the localizations and voiceovers (English only), but very little new stuff as we're trying to keep the build as stable as possible for the big launch. We'll also have our hands full with other launch related tasks. But what happens after the launch? The game is doing pretty well at the moment, and people are liking it, so if the launch goes well, we'll also be doing Post-Launch content updates for this game. I'm not 100% promising anything as it does depend on how well the game performs, but if all goes well, that's something you can expect. And finally, I can't say this enough: thank you for all the bug reports, nice reviews, encouraging words, and everything! It's been a long ride (especially in the midst of COVID), so all positive feedback from you guys has definitely helped to get through this! We're finally seeing the light at the end of this tunnel!

[ 2021-10-06 14:19:20 CET ] [ Original post ]