A Living Sky

The day and night cycle has been rebuilt from the ground up. It used to switch between a fixed "day" look and a fixed "night" look, so the world went dark all at once at 21:00 and lit up all at once at 05:00. That is gone.

• The sun and moon now travel across the sky. They follow a continuous path instead of snapping between states, and the light, fog, clouds and sky colours blend gradually through dusk and dawn.
• The sun is finally visible. A real sun disc is now drawn in the sky during the day. Previously only the moon was ever shown.
• The moon lights the night itself. It rises as the sun sets and casts the night shadows, while the sun handles the day.
• Sunlight rises and falls with the hour. It builds gently after sunrise, is strongest at midday, and fades out towards sunset.
• Clouds follow the cycle. Volumetric clouds fade out at night and return at dawn.
• Interiors breathe with the world. Indoor spaces such as the Ciliora tavern now blend their lighting with the time of day instead of snapping between four fixed looks.
• The world clock survives a restart. Time of day no longer resets to midnight when the server comes back up.

Evenings and Nights on Zip Island

• Twilight actually gets dark. After the sun goes down the world now grows steadily darker instead of staying lit, reaching its darkest point in the short gap before the moon rises, then brightening again as moonlight takes over.
• Softer night reflections. Surfaces no longer shine as strongly after dark.
• Distance fades into the dark. Far-off cliffs and trees now sink into the night instead of glowing brighter than what is right in front of you, while the area around you stays just as readable as before.

Fixes

• The blue tint is gone. An unnatural blue-cyan cast used to sit over everything, worst at night, where rocks, trees and buildings glowed blue. Nights are now dark and neutral.
• Daylight colours look natural again. Days carry their true colours with only a light haze in the distance, and that haze now starts much further away.
• No more hard lighting jumps. Every sky transition across the day blends smoothly rather than switching in a single frame.

Behind the Scenes

• Foundations and tooling. The game clock and sky system moved to a faster server-authoritative core, economy safeguards were hardened, and a large batch of internal development tooling landed alongside them.