Ahoy, Sky Sailors!
It is nearly time for our next journey, so we thought we'd prepare you for the voyage ahead.
We are soon ready to set sail with our fifth and final update for the Early Access period. After that (apart from some potential hotfixes) it’s full steam ahead (pun intended) towards full release!
Discover what’s in store for you in Discovery & Ancestry where ancient winds have picked up the world and shaped the skies anew.
This updates introduces:
A revamped open world with new exploration tools and features.
Improved progression to better fit the freedom of the open world.
New sub-biomes that define the world in a more diverse and interconnected way.
New survival conditions and updated glider behaviour.
Rebalanced chest loot and resources.
Improvements to homesteading and the day-to-day experience.
Multiple community-requested features.
And more!
Without further ado, let’s dive into all the good stuff.
An Open World
Following the world generation rework in last year’s Bloom & Blight update, we heard your feedback that the experience sometimes felt like it was steering you down a particular path, rather than giving you the freedom to choose your own. With Discovery & Ancestry, we’re giving players more agency to chart their own course through the clouds.
Before going further, let’s address the elephant in the room: yes, you’ll have to make a new world to fully benefit from the update. Too many significant changes have been made that would render it impossible to work retroactively on older worlds like we’ve done for previous updates. Let’s break it down:
Old worlds will still be accessible but unstable.
Character progression will carry over to the new game version. You can play the new update with your existing characters!
You’ll be able to bring your home islands, both shared and personal, to a new world!
Now let’s talk about the open world!
To start off, islands now have silhouettes that can be seen from a distance! Pull out your Spyglass to get a better look at distant islands, gather information, and spot special destinations you may want to explore, including some brand-new ones! Fresco Islands now also feature a massive landmark, making them easier to identify from afar.
To bring a greater sense of mystery and discovery to exploration, the Table-Map now features a Fog of War! Islands are now initially hidden on the map and are gradually revealed as you approach them. Curious destinations will appear through the fog every now and then to guide you, while some hidden locations will remain concealed until you set foot on their terrain.
This means the Table-Map remains a valuable tool for tracking where you’ve been, while the Spyglass takes on a bigger role in helping you decide where to go next, enabling you to scout the horizon, discover new destinations, and set your next waypoint. We hope this change makes exploration and wayfinding feel more organic, immersing you in the role of a true navigator.
To help you traverse this vast new world, we added two new tools:
First, the Wind Vane, a new technology that lets you shift the wind direction toward your destination, giving you the freedom to explore wherever you choose without having to battle against headwinds.
The second tool is Wind Warping which lets you travel instantly to Meditation Pads you’ve cleansed. This gives Life Trees and Life Saplings an added benefit, providing quick access to parts of the world you’ve yet to fully explore. You can also build your own Meditation Pads, allowing you to create fast travel points wherever you choose.
Unique Landscapes
By making the world more open, we also wanted to address the issue that some islands felt repetitive and lacking direction. We are therefore introducing something new with this update: Sub-Biomes.
A sub-biome is not a new biome in itself, but rather a cluster of islands themed around a specific landscape or feature. For example, you will find Fir Forests, Rocky Mountains, Vast Plains, and Lush Jungles in the Emerald Isles biome. Some sub-biomes have more crops, others have more resources, or more animals. They allow clusters to feel more unified, and hopefully give you more choice in how you explore. If you’re looking for more animals, then take out your spyglass and find the nearest plains!
We also took the time to sneak in special and very rare sub-biomes, which may surprise you in their design.
Your chosen path will also come with a new sense of discovery and challenges to overcome. Along the way, you’ll encounter new Wonder Islands, rogue islands, and environmental hazards like fog banks, tornadoes, debris fields, and more to keep you on your toes.
Survival Conditions
Aloft has always been a cozy, soft-survival game, but the data we’ve gathered since launch showed us that the lack of survival requirements meant players weren’t always encouraged to engage with some of the game’s systems. We wanted to give homesteading, farming, cooking, sleeping, and other features a greater purpose, while still preserving the cozy experience at the heart of Aloft.
After going too long without eating, drinking, or sleeping, your character may start to become Hungry, Thirsty, or Tired. These survival conditions initially serve as gentle reminders to grab a bite, take a drink, or have a lil catnap, without affecting gameplay. Ignore them for too long, however, and they’ll eventually start to take a toll, with effects such as reduced health or disabled tool combos.
Fortunately, the islands of Aloft are generous to their travelers, providing most of what might be needed to survive, so long as their ecosystems are taken care of, of course.
We’ve also introduced a new reason to keep your character healthy without making defeat overly punishing. Falling in combat now inflicts the Wounded condition, which can be treated by applying a bandage and will also tarnish any Corruption Anomalies you’re carrying. Don’t worry, Tarnished Anomalies can be restored to their original state, but staying on your feet will save you the trouble!
And for those who prefer to tailor their experience, all of these conditions can be made milder, harsher, or disabled entirely through the gameplay options menu.
Glider Deployment
With this update, we wanted to place exploration and discovery at the heart of the player experience. The glider has long been an essential part of traversing Aloft’s islands, allowing sailors to survey the land from above or make a quick escape from a dicey combat encounter.
Previously, a simple double-jump was enough to take flight from almost anywhere – from the ground or inside a cave to right in front of a wall. While convenient, this freedom came with some unintended consequences, quietly taking away from island exploration, combat, puzzles, onboarding, and more.
We’ve made a small but impactful change to address this: you’ll now need enough open space beneath you to deploy your glider, encouraging you to find a ledge or elevated spot before taking flight. Once airborne, you can immediately boost, making it faster and more satisfying to gain altitude.
After extensive internal and external testing, we’ve seen just how much this change improves the exploration loop, making the journey itself feel more engaging and rewarding. This change will hopefully encourage players to slow down, take in their surroundings, and discover what secrets the islands behold.
We know everyone has their own preferred way to explore, so we encourage you to give the new system a try and see how it feels. If you still prefer the previous version, you can always switch to the Legacy Glider in the gameplay options.
Progression Happens Everywhere
With the newfound ability to travel through any path you choose, we decided to adapt progression as well, so that you aren’t bound to visit specific locations in a certain order. And while we were reworking progression, we took the opportunity to introduce some new progression elements along the way.
For starters, visiting any Fresco will now teach you the next technology, meaning you can visit whichever Fresco island you discover first and still progress. We also changed how the Technology Tree works, letting you make more meaningful choices without having to unlock everything along every branch.
Insight is no longer granted by Life Trees and can now be earned from the comfort of your own home, thanks to a new resource: Arcadium Essence. This essence of life plays an important role in the world of Aloft and can be found in special flowers, by restoring islands, and through other means. You’ll gather essence as you explore, and once you have enough, you can exchange it with a friendly little pal to advance your Insight and unlock new sections of the Technology Trees.
Healing Life Trees has also changed, and now requires players to imbue the tree with the concentrated essence of Life Fruits, which can be found while exploring or by healing Life Saplings. You’ll also have to free the ancient tree from the chains of its past.
We’ve added an entirely new progression feature: Ancestral Memories! Venture into the Life Tree’s underground basin to enter a mysterious dreamscape, where the memories of your ancestors reveal powerful character upgrades to choose from, such as additional food and tool slots, momentum and health regenerators, and various other buffs and enhancements.
Homesteading Made Important
Another big aspect we wanted to tackle with this update was improving the gameplay loop on your home island. Many resources felt nonessential, and there was little reason to farm or cook. We made the following changes to improve the day-to-day homesteading experience.
Firstly, we made most plants fully farmable, letting you grow your own paper through Glasswort, Insight through Arcadium Flowers, pigments through Moonblooms, and more.
We've also introduced food preservation which means many meals now require salt, sugar or honey to preserve, making salt a valuable resource earlier on, and making sugar beets, and beehives important to farm as well.
We’ve changed the chest loot table significantly: chests used to provide so many resources that it made resource gathering and farming redundant. You will no longer find food in chests, but instead find seeds that you have to grow yourself. The amount of resources given is now much more reasonable as to not overshadow other systems.
This is but a small peek at the balancing changes we made to provide you with a much more compelling homesteading gameplay.
Community Requests
Finally, we’d like to take this opportunity to showcase a few community requests that we were able to implement in the game. As always, thank you for your suggestions and feedback!
All locked treasure chest rewards can now be claimed by each player, even when your loot goblin friend gets to it first!
A 2nd hotbar can be obtained through Ancestral Memories.
A Glider Compass can also be obtained through Ancestral Memories.
Exploring dark areas with a tool in hand is now made much easier thanks to a new light source that follows you around.
Moonbloom seeds can now be dyed and used to farm a variety of moonbloom colours, which allows you to craft appropriately-coloured glowing decor!
Almost all resources can now be renewed thanks to the addition of floating rock debris for minerals, Darkwood trees, Dew Catchers for water, and farmable plants!
Water can now be boiled at the cooking plate.
A new companion now follows you in your adventure, letting you explore the world a little less lonely.
We brought back the old ecosystem restoration system for some islands that will now be found with a naturally imbalanced ecosystem!
And So Much More
This update is so packed with new content that we couldn’t possibly cover it all in this Devlog! There’s still plenty more to explore, craft, and discover when Discovery & Ancestry arrives tomorrow, so keep an eye out for the full Changelog!
Get some rest, Sky Sailors! Our next voyage is just around the corner. 🗺️💙
