The fifth update shifts focus to power—who has it, who loses it, and how far you’re willing to go to reshape the world. A new Tier 1 goal, Bionic Secret, introduces two major routes to pursue in Chapter 2 and beyond. If that’s not enough, three new side goals now let you collapse a criminal syndicate, take down a federated corporation, or trigger a civil war.
You can exploit corporate data, blackmail companies over their own scams, or engage in economic destruction on a much larger scale. Play your cards right, and you can become a trillionaire—or, if profit isn’t enough, you can collapse the entire economy instead.
Elsewhere, Parkour Bears have entered the equation. An underground ursine racing ring hides a deeper conspiracy, and it’s up to you whether the bears are rehabilitated or repurposed as anti-armor specialists (with questionable battlefield discipline).
Seventeen new achievements have been added, along with improvements to task stack attack displays, mech targeting logic, and mission progression. Also, if you’ve been tipping Vorsiber’s federated corporations toward open war, you now have the option to push them into an endless conflict.
Proceed with caution.
"You’re never out of the game until you’re dead. And sometimes not even then.” — Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon
Building the Machine
Thank you all — Heart of the Machine has blasted past 500 reviews! That’s 500 people who took the time to put thoughts into words, whether to praise, critique, or warn future players about the unforeseen consequences of weaponized bears. We see them all, we appreciate them all, and they help keep this machine running.
Update 5 Changelog
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- New Major Tier 1 Goal: Bionic Secret is now available in Chapter 2 and onwards, with two major routes leading to it.
- Three New Side Goals: Collapse a Criminal Syndicate, Collapse a Federated Corporation, and Cause a Civil War. Each has one route at this time.
- Corporate Exploitation: You can search for data to exploit federated corporations, with three broad paths (each branching) leading to the above activities.
- Technology and Economic Manipulation: You can invent new technology and sell it with the help of criminal or corporate partners. You can find out about a scam that a corporation is running and either blackmail them over it or do a more extreme version of it yourself. You can collapse the entire economy. You can become a trillionaire. You can betray your shell company's customers in a disturbing and lethal way.
- Parkour Bears: You can investigate an underground ursine racing ring and a plot that keeps part of the city underdeveloped. If you rescue the bears, you can either rehabilitate them or use them as anti-armor specialists that have a tendency to get distracted.
- Federated Corporate War: You can tip all of the federated corporations under Vorsiber into an endless civil war of open hostilities. Be careful with that.
- 17 New Achievements
- Task Stack and Targeting Improvements: Some improvements to how the incoming attacks are displayed in the task stack and how you cycle through them, based on player requests. Some improvements to the targeting logic of your own mechs to keep them from attacking economic transports, troop carriers, and similar.
- Mission Progression Fixes: Tasering enemy mission combatants now properly progresses the mission.
- Ambush Balance: The Ambush ability from your Shadowdweller units is very powerful, but when using it against certain kinds of targets it was quite exploitable. The simple solution that is now in place is that each of your Ambushers can only ambush a single time per turn.
- Shell Defender Balance: Your shell company operatives are now fully able to defend themselves against any of the hyper-aggressive units, like invading space nations or exo-corps, without fear of revealing their relationship to you. Everyone in the city is defending themselves, so this doesn't stand out.
- Targeting Improvements: Fixed a couple of regressions from yesterday's build regarding bulk android targeting, and made worker androids and worker animals far better at finding appropriate prey.
- Worker Movement Improvements: Your worker androids should now stay out of military bases and similar areas above their security clearance, rather than walking in and causing aggro.
- Clarity Items: You can now search several more of the resource tabs, the Securing Alumina project has clearer instructions, and the suppressing fire tooltip is more clear.
- Bugfixes: Fixed a bug where the longest-range mechs during WW4 sometimes did not deal damage appropriately. Fixed another item where buildings reported themselves as broken right after construction when really they were fine. Fixed an issue with several rebel groups being hostile to your Workers when they should not have been. Fixed the display of hours if you have more than 24 hours of playtime in a single timeline. Fixed the saving of dates when achievements were logged. And several other more minor things.
Full Changelog
A full, comprehensive breakdown of every change from this patch can be found in the Heart of the Machine Wiki, found here.
Guides to Tame the Machine
Even the most brilliant mind needs guidance when faced with a system as vast as this one. To help you navigate, we’ve pinned two essential resources from the Heart of the Machine wiki:
New Minds, Start Here
For those just stepping into the Machine’s world, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the basics. The Heart of the Machine Beginner's Guide is your gateway to understanding the systems at play and building your foundation. After all, every complex network starts with a single connection.
We've recently released the Heart of the Machine Hacking Guide as well! Knowledge is power. Guard it well.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3422241019
Connect with the Machine
Want to stay in the loop or share your thoughts? Join the conversation across these platforms:
💬 Discord – Best place to share feedback, get direct responses, and to talk about Heart of the Machine.
📜 Reddit – Discuss strategies, share ideas, and exchange tips with the community.
Here is a link to prior recent patches in case you missed them.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/509572340673151074
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/532089704231732298