Today we're releasing Update 0.25, a smaller patch focused on quality of life improvements and bug fixes. We’re taking the opportunity with this small update to make a few announcements and share more details about what’s coming in our next Major Update.
The next Major Update is coming late october
The next Major Update will release at the end of October, about a year after our first launch!
It will be our biggest update yet, with a lot of content:
A new playable map with a completely different vibe. More than just a new environment, it will bring a new way to explore and experience Species: Unknown, with new situations, new challenges, and plenty of new things to discover. A true new environnement.
Steam Achievements was one of the most requested features is coming to Species: Unknown. Get ready for new goals to chase and challenges to complete.
In-game Rank progression system that offers a different way to progress through Species: Unknown. Each rank will introduce new challenges and objectives, encouraging you to approach missions from different angles, experiment with the game’s mechanics, and add more variety to every run.
A new glimpse of the upcoming playable map, without revealing too much so we don’t spoil the experience of discovering it for yourself.
Important note: Early Access doing Early Access things. In order to bring you these major new features, especially the upcoming achievements system, we technically need to reset all player progression to zero with this next major update (only avatar and shuttle cosmetic configurations will be preserved. All upgrades, credits, and specimen rooms will be reset). This will also be an opportunity for everyone to rediscover the game and its new content with a fresh perspective, which has been designed to be discovered progressively, without starting out with advanced equipment that could affect that first experience.
As a small souvenir for players who have played during the game's first year, they will unlock an exclusive emblem in the game to display on their suit!
Balancing modding with the new player experience during Early Access
We love mods and truly appreciate the work of modders that arrived in the game. We believe modding can play a very positive role in the future of the game. We love that players are passionate enough about Species: Unknown to create mods and alternate ways to play the game.
We’ve observed or been made aware that public games with unsupported mods can generate bugs or broken game design, which is a problem for players who have not chosen it, and sometimes report it as bugs. Having to sort through those, and to be careful about our unreleased work in progress (which might be made visible with mods), slows down the dev team’s work on major updates.
So during Early Access, we ask players who have installed mods to please only play in private games, with other people who know and consent to the use of mods. We tried to communicate one-on-one to expose this but the scale is now too big to do that, so we chose to temporarily block modded public lobbies during this Early Access.
Our plan is to reopen public lobbies to modders at a later date (V1 at the latest), when we have time to properly create filters in the game, so each player can choose to accept modded games or not. Mods are still available for private games and solo.
Technical note: For now public lobbies will be locked if you have mods installed, whether they are enabled or not. To remove mods and access public lobbies again, please check out our document on Known Issues & Solutions.
We also just created a Mod dedicated channel on the studio's discord server. Please join the community to discuss and share community-made mods.
Multiplayer services temporarily unavailable : Tuesday, September 22, 8:00 AM CEST (Paris)
Epic Online Services (EOS), the online infrastructure Species: Unknown uses to manage multiplayer lobbies and sessions, will undergo scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, September 22 at 8:00 AM Paris time. Learn more on the official statement of Epic :
https://status.epicgames.com/incidents/djsq84vjvp45
During the maintenance, creating or joining multiplayer games may be unavailable for approximately 90 minutes. Solo play will remain fully available, as Species: Unknown does not rely on EOS services when playing solo.
You can find the full changelog below, and we'd love to hear your thoughts.
Changed
If mods are installed (even if disabled), only solo and private multiplayer games are possible (public session menu disabled, explanation message displayed).
Popup on startup if unread “News” message.
Changed appearance of “News & Patch Notes” button on main menu
Changed in-game News message to info on the next major update and warning about the associated save data wipe
Thank you to everyone who continues to play, report bugs, share feedback, and help us improve Species: Unknown throughout Early Access. Every report and suggestion helps us prioritize what comes next.