The long-awaited fifth island - Iakara - is here. This is the second to last of planned islands and the biggest content drop since Helos. Iakara is the desert island we previewed before summer break, and it's now ready to be explored and conquered.
Iakara is a combination of vast savanna lowlands and scorching deserts. The Lord of the Shifting Sands has destroyed or captured most of the settlements, and she's hidden herself well. You'll need to rebuild ancient mechanisms and tread deep into the desert to find her lair, all while managing your temperature with new gear and potions. Be ready to craft steel and the new tier of equipment as you will need it! There are also numerous side quests on the island to keep you busy, with some requiring you to island hop a bit and return back to explore earlier areas in more detail.
This update also brings the crossbow - a new ranged weapon with its own bolt ammo type. There are new tiers of mines and grenades, a steel tier shield, new skills across alchemy, refining, tools and armor, and two materials that can only be found at night. We've also revised the Ananke and Sanctus main quest lines with rewritten dialogue and clearer initial objectives.
There are some work-in-progress items in this update still, like the Molotov cultists final outfit and some crossbow bolt polishing stuff among others. However, we wanted to bring this content drop out now as more eyes help us find and fix issues more rapidly. Heartfelt thanks to our closed testers who helped a lot with the initial rounds of testing!
Highlights
New island: Iakara - the fifth of six
Crossbow and bolt ammo type
Steel tier shield
New skills in Alchemy, Refining, Tools and Armor
New tiers of mines and grenades, rebalanced damage and costs
Two materials only found during nighttime
New perk: Wade Runner (run fast in shallow water)
New harbor rebuilding quest in Ananke
Revised Ananke and Sanctus main questlines with rewritten dialogue and new intros
Area attack warning telegraphs removed if attack is interrupted
Damage floaters now show actual damage, not accumulated
Enemy potion healing is now limited
Crafting screen sorts by material tier
Rebalanced wearable upgrade costs and iron tier item costs
Facelifts to few Ananke overworld areas and caves, and Sanctus Wrecked Fleet sub-location
Experimental bow secondary removed - the crossbow is your new ranged friend
Large number of terrain, multiplayer, and general bug fixes
+ lot more in the in-game change log.
What's next then? Well we're already working on the sixth and the final island and development is progressing smoothly. There will likely be some patches in-between the island releases as we still have more content to come. Stay tuned and stay frosty!
