Hello Climbers!
The time has come, the climb must continue. The fourth region, the Abyss, has released.
But before we get to details, WE WILL BE ON SALE during this Autumn Sale!
The game's price will be increasing after the sale, so fair warning if you're thinking about picking up the game that this is the best deal it'll be for a good while!
Spoilers Ahead: You have been warned!
White Knuckle Beta 0.50
New Region: The Abyss
The campaign expands into a fourth region, with new hazards, tools, and threats. The Abyss makes up the inter-structure transit line, connecting Habitation Yellow to the distant Habitation Blue.
You won't be alone on this journey, unfortunately.
The Mass, now warped and transformed by its ceaseless hunger, follows in an entirely new form.
New Subregions
Interlude 3: Evacuation
Transit Scaffolds
Deadman's Handle
Hanging Gardens
Your journey changes in unexpected ways, as two Shortcut Regions become available, should you seek them out. Each shortcut skips an entire Region, replacing it with a much shorter, much more difficult climb, allowing you to reach the Abyss, and beyond, quicker than ever before.
Be warned, as valuable as the shortcuts are, the safe areas they lead into are less developed than their regular counterparts, providing no save points and a more limited selection of perks.
The Tangled Sink
Deep in the facility lies the Basin sector, an old network of tunnels and sluices where runoff from the Pipeworks and the surface pour into the earth. Long since abandoned by the SRA, strange alien life now occupies it's halls. Once unlocked, the Tangled Sink lets you skip all of Silos + Interlude: Lockdown.
The Expulsion Chute
An old access hatch extends from the elevator shaft at Interlude: Lockdown, connecting it to the disposal systems of the Hab. Climb through falling trash, past hazardous grinders and incinerators, and skip all of Pipeworks + Interlude: Ascent.
At the entryway to the Abyss you can choose an ARTIFACT ITEM, a powerful tool imbued with anomalous extra-dimensional capabilities that can change how you approach the Abyss and beyond.
Five Powerful Artifacts
The Timepiece
Lets you rewind your personal timestream to dodge hazards or recover from a fall. With some clever thinking, perhaps you can utilize your reverse momentum to reach higher than would otherwise be possible.
The Translocator
A gnarled eye from beyond our reality has been shoved into a makeshift scientific contraption, allowing you to teleport short distances before recharging.
The Spear
A gift from something darker and distant, the spear can be thrown like rebar to make a handhold at a distance, and then recalled to you once you have moved on.
The Remote
From the Delta periphery, the remote is imbued with the ability to form structure from static, and can create holds mid-air with each use.
The Glove
At the height of Delta Lab's research, the science team extracted an anomalous glove which could lower the wielder's gravity in short bursts.
Once unlocked, Artifact Items become available in Endless mode.
Silos and Pipeworks get new content!
Once Abyss is beaten, new rooms will be added to the regions to make subsequent playthroughs even more interesting. In addition, new hazards, notes, and other lore tidbits have been added throughout.
A slew of new perks have been deposited into your upgrade consoles. Grow rebar, get hungry, hoard roaches, and much much more.
In addition: various balance changes to older perks, new QOL adjustments, and more!
Oh, and don't forget, [REDACTED]
But, you wouldn't do that.. would you?
The Abyss marks the halfway point of the planned Campaign. Keep an eye out for an updated roadmap, showing details on upcoming content and seasonal events!
Next Up: The jungle-like Nest, an alien infestation spilling out of the ruins of Habitation Blue.
Thank you all so much for everything, we really hope you enjoy all the new stuff!
-Dark Machine Games
As a heads up, Most Leaderboards are being RESET!
You can still see the old boards and score on them if you opt into the 0.44 beta branch on Steam, but due to the larger changes to the Campaign and Endless we will be resetting the main boards with each new campaign region (until we hit 1.0!)
On to the changelog!
New Zones
Interlude: Evacuation
Abyss
Three subregions
Transit Scaffolds
Deadman's Handle
Hanging Gardens
Shortcut Regions
Tangled Sink - Silos Skip Region
Expulsion Route - Pipeworks Skip Region
Region Expansion
+3 Silos levels
+5 Pipeworks Levels
New Denizens
The Face
A new form of the Mass, exceedingly dangerous!
Hanging Gardens
Shrale
Bloodbug Worker (Friendlier than you would think!)
Harpoon Barnacle
Ropebag
New Roaches
Lemon Roach
Ruby Roach
Hopper Roach
Breeder Roach
[REDACTED]
Artifact Items
Five Artifact Items
The Timepiece
The Remote
The Translocator
The Glove
The Spear
Perks
New Perks
Consumptive Reflex
You automatically eat food in your inventory when you run out of stamina, gaining a small boost in the process.
Adrenaline Pumps
Falling provides a temporary buff, which increases the further you fall.
Autotomous Skeleton
You can grow spears made of bone by holding the drop button for each hand when nothing is held. Hurts like hell.
Muscle Relaxants
You can open and close your hands quickly to restore stamina faster. Jazz hands!
Portable Bank
Roaches in your inventory automatically get banked.
Profit Motive
Gain a movement and climb buff which increases the more roaches you have in your inventory.
Steadied Stance
Reduces knockback from hazards and denizens.
Balance Changes
Unstoppable Conviction
Has been moved out of the Experimental perk pool, into the Regular pool.
No longer runs out after six minutes.
Provides +3 single-use mid air jumps for every food consumed.
Peripheral Binding
Provides it's gravity reduction buff the less items you have, as long as you have under 6 items in your inventory.
Removed stamina reduction debuff.
Quality of Life
Perk icons are colored based on their rank/class.
You can now look at your perk icons in your inventory to get a description of what they do.
Other Changes
Distance vs Ascent
The 'Ascent' tracker on the score screen has been changed to a 'Distance Climbed' tracker, to account for the horizontality of the Abyss.
Items
Auto Pitons
Auto-Pitons will now be placed and held simultaneously, so long as you continue holding down the use button.
Auto-Pitons now deal damage when swung at Denizens
Explosive Rebar
You can now explode vending machines to get a few free items.
Downstream Leaderboards
Scoring in a more difficult category (Iron Knuckle, Hardmode) now scores for leaderboards in their lesser respective categories so long as you would have a higher score in those.
Settings
Moved the Run Timer into the settings menu.
Added a Run Info setting into the settings menu.
New "Announcer Volume" setting.
New 'Tier 2' Vendor
Can be found in the Delta Labs Lobby
Only supplies Tier 2 items (Pills, Injectors, etc)
Sacrifices
[REDACTED]
Bugfixes
So many, but here's a few of the big ones:
Fixed an issue in endless mode which could rarely prevent the game from loading more chunks during it's 10k meter recentering.
Fixed instances of z-fighting across many levels.
Fixed double jumping resetting your vertical speed to your jump speed.