Greetings survivors!
Our latest DLC “Shattered Hope” has just been released and we are excited to shed light on its features. Brand new challenges await as fading hope risks the entire colony’s survival. Other improvements include a new moon rock disaster, an ability to boost production with overtime and being able to hold special feasts! A new questline adds interesting buildings and resources to the mix, giving Surviving the Aftermath even more variety than before.
IMAGE: Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope
Let’s first talk about the Moon and the features tied to it. As previously established, the Earth’s Moon shattered at the start of the cataclysm years ago and now the consequences of that can be felt in the colonies. Falling pieces of the Moon can be seen plummeting from the skies at night. However, these moon rocks are not just another hazard but can be gathered and turned into valuable lunar dust. This rare material is in high demand by societies and bandits alike, but its most interesting function is its ability to greatly boost buildings’ efficiency. It allows the use of overtime, hastening production and healing speed for 48 hours!
IMAGE: Lunar dust can be used to increase buildings’ efficiency
This all comes in handy when trying to overcome new hope-related challenges. Colonists’ hope for the future is constantly shifting from good to bad to worse. Colonists are disheartened by setbacks such as being defeated in combat, dismissing events or quests and especially catastrophes such as fallout or winter storms. If hope falls too low, the colonists can become anguished. Anguish cannot be treated in normal medical buildings, but requires special treatment at trauma centers. Anguished colonists can eventually become hostile, turning against their peers if they are not treated in time! Recovering from this condition is a lengthy process, so it is wise to try to keep hope from falling into dangerous levels.
IMAGE: Colony hope must be kept high to avoid negative consequences
Hope can be increased by completing quests, making the right decisions in events, combat victories and most importantly, holding special feasts. These can be held at the colony square, a new building fit for holding these kinds of festivities. The special feasts can be costly but drastically increase hope and happiness by providing momentary entertainment. To hold larger feasts for larger colonies the building must be upgraded, which can only be done after completing the new questline.
IMAGE: Feast selection at the colony square
“The Shattered Moon” quest opens the lore behind the broken moon and how the people of the wasteland have come to exploit its fallen riches. The quest also introduces the mysterious group of bandits some players might recognize from the main quest. These fellows can also sometimes appear at the colony gates demanding lunar dust with the threat of violence. Whilst uncovering their secrets you’ll be unlocking new buildings and resources, such as the med hut and mushroom farm, which can make recovering from anguish much quicker. The med hut can also produce antibodies for treating mutations much faster than before.
IMAGE: “The Shattered Moon” quest illustrations
Other improvements include new events, some unique to the DLC and others for the base game for everyone to enjoy. Events coming with the free update aim to make the early game experience a little more varied than before. The colony clock has also gotten a facelift visible to all users, making it easier to track the shift between day and night and when specialists’ action points are replenished.
The free update includes balance adjustments, quality of life improvements, bug fixes and new visuals. We have updated over 30 building textures to make them more recognizable and added more colonist portraits for women and children. Additionally, we present our special seasonal content in the spirit of Halloween! Check all improvements and fixes from the changelog(link below).
IMAGE: Halloween pack includes new decorations and spooky variations to existing buildings
We hope that you’ll have a great time with all the new features, buildings and other improvements in "Shattered Hope". It has a lot to offer whether you’re looking for additional challenges or just more buildings to construct. You can continue your old save or begin a new one to start boosting your production, hold great feasts and mend the broken hope!
Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope is available now on Steam, Epic Store, the PlayStation™ Store and Microsoft Store on Xbox. It is also included as a part of the Ultimate Colony Upgrade with more DLC to come later.
Change notes - “Shattered Hope Xbox and PS4 release”
General
- Added Halloween content to the game. Spooky! The content can be toggled on or off in the settings.
- Added Goo Cauldron and Scarecrow decorations that can be unlocked by Prestige.
- Torch, Lantern and all Street Light decorations change to more Halloween themed lights.
- Added jack o'lanterns and other halloween props to colony buildings.
- Added halloween themed hats for colonists.
- Added three new Shattered Hope DLC achievements/trophies:
- Hero of the Wasteland - Complete "The Shattered Moon" quest.
- Mean Boss - Overtime 100 buildings.
- Beacon of Hope - Hold a special feast.
- Memory optimization. These changes improve the stability of the game especially on consoles and low-end PCs.
- Removed unused buildings, shaders and other assets from the build.
- Improved memory management of tutorial popups and help menu images.
Gameplay
- Added six new events. These should improve the early game event variation so that the same events don’t happen that often.
- Improved the way that queued movement works when sending specialists to combat in the World Map. Specialists should no longer get stuck on each other when pathing to a location.
- Happiness effects in events and quests now show an icon instead of the “+10 Happiness” text.
- Added a tooltip for repair tool that displays the amount of resources required to repair a building.
- Added a tooltip for demolish tool that displays the amount of resources gained when demolishing a building.
- Improved the day and night meter to display when night starts and ends.
- Notifications display hours instead of days when there’s less than a day remaining. Previously notifications had texts such as “0 days remaining” and that is now displayed in hours.
- Changed the way that quick tool can be accessed on a controller. Quick tool now has a single button that activates it and then it’s possible to change between repair/demolish/overtime mode with another button.
- Destroyed buildings can now be removed with the demolish tool.
- Well, Well, Well event had a hidden effect that is now visible.
- Fixed an issue that occurred in custom games when the animals option was set to ‘None’ and then selecting a resource deposit in the game.
- Fixed an issue that caused pause and demolish hotkeys to be usable on construction zones that had those functionalities disabled e.g. Campsite could be paused during the intro and would cause a softlock.
- Fixed an issue that occurred when saving and loading the game just as colony combat was about to finish.
- Fixed an issue that caused disasters to disappear after saving and loading a game while the disaster was ongoing.
- Fixed an issue that caused minor disasters and Winter Storm catastrophe to not update properly in the statistics menu.
Graphics
- Added four new child portraits and seven new female portraits for colonists.
- Updated textures for over 30 buildings.
- Added and adjusted animation visuals in most entertainment buildings. For example, Stormdome now has colonists battling in the building while other colonists cheer the fighters on.
- Added DLC icons to save game menu that displays which DLCs are enabled in the save.
- Added a tooltip to main menu DLC buttons that displays if the DLC requires a new game to be active.
- Added a popup to save game menu that informs if activated DLCs cannot be applied to a save that is being loaded.
Balance Adjustments
- Changed the way that scaling works for catastrophes. The goal is to make all catastrophes scale better with game difficulty. Previously catastrophes had the same “effective phase” that affected conditions, damage and other factors.
- Increased the happiness effects in The Great Unknown and Hidden Fortunes events.
- Reduced the fiber cost of Basic Clothing.
- Slightly lowered the protection value of Basic Clothing.
- Very slightly lowered the protection value of Sturdy Clothing.
- Increased fiber production in Fields.
