Volcanic Activity — Black Ice News

Following up on the Tree Fort update, the Volcano needed more complex terrain and servers to spice up the early game. This update increases the routes and platforming in each area and replaces key servers with more stylized ones. Combining a few servers into larger ones speeds up the progression, getting you to the open world faster.

Plus, more routes to survive the submerged lava caverns and a new bridge to the volcano with better platforming and jumpscares.

Einar's Legacy

Complementing Einar's trophy servers, billboards for his companies expand their backstories and the progression of his career.

Gameplay Balance, Continued

There will be a lot of balance changes as we close in on final launch. We decreased the levels for the post-volcano missions to match the recent changes to the early game. The Prank War also lost its first 2 hacks to shorten the tutorial sequence.

The inbox was reporting server levels that included the boosted levels of defended servers, making missions appear much higher level. This fix should also speed up the progression.

Looking ahead, the story is about to get an overhaul to match the progression and connect with the final chapter. The UI will get a major rework to offer more prompts during special events and hack types. This will also improve waypointing and mission objectives. The rework should improve inventory and progression usability. This may be an ongoing project that spans the next few updates. See you soon!

0.9.222 - Volcanic Activity (5/31/25)

Major redesigns to each area of the volcano and new servers to improve combat flow and get you through the volcano faster
Added advertisement billboards for Einar's companies
Moved the volcano boss fight respawn point to the Skyward server and shop area so you can restock or buy items before retrying the boss fight (previously you respawned directly outside the boss area and had to return to Arcade)
Added a grappling hook mission reward in the volcano for extra fun
Fixed navmesh on the bridge to the volcano
Fixed mission text to show the base level of a server, not the upgraded level (this was causing the story mission in Quarkus to show as a level 38 hack instead of 28 due to linked servers adding levels)
Shortened the Prank War by 2 hacks
Fixed low level items missing stats
"Sell All" button in shops no longer sells "New" items (next patch will sell them on second button press)
Rebalanced the levels of Act 2 (post-Volcano) missions
Fixed and brightened the map colors for better visibility

- Nonadecimal & superdupergc

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