Rewind 12 months: New Year’s day 2020 – down here in NZ, the sky was grey with smoke from Australian bushfires 4000km away. The sun was bright red. You could smell burning. We should have known it was gonna be ‘one of those’ years.
Now it’s December. It’s been a long, hard year, but easier for us than for many others. Over that time games have been our escape, and a way to keep in touch with the rest of the world. We’re massively proud of the work we’ve put into Stationeers, and incredibly grateful for the amazing community that’s grown up around it.
We make this game for you – and with you. It’s been three incredible years. There’s 100,000 Stationeers in the world now. There will never be enough ‘thank you’s’.
This month, we’re crazy-excited to drop ‘Weather’ into the game. It’s a literal gamechanger. We’ve also pushed hard on new player experience, with the first set of all-new tutorials, designed to help fresh players into our ‘not a casual’ game. You’ll see new menus, too, a pile of fixes, audio goodness and more.
We’ll be taking a break for a couple of weeks, then diving back in to 2021 with one aim: v1.0.
See you there.
But as for THIS update? Well that's a big one in and of itself...
Weather
This update, we’re introducing a major new system: Weather. It’s the one of several features we’re building geared toward the main game – challenging players, deepening the experience, and evolving your gameplay.
Stationeers is all about building and, more than ever, you’ll need shelter from the storm. We’re eager to hear how you enjoy Martian dust storms, blizzards on Europa, or volcanic ash assaults on Vulcan.
It’s designed to mess your base up, but like all things Stationeers, it’s just one element in a game we’re still making. So we’ve tried not to make it too punishing … yet.
New player experience
This month, we’ve started the push on our 1.0 new player experience. There’s a new tutorial system with four new basic introductions to key Stationeer gameplay – and a whole lot more to come in 2021. (Note that older tutorials have moved into ‘Advanced’, until they are replaced by new tutorials.)
We’ve upgraded menus, integrated a suite of UX tweaks and continued pouring tips, tactics and lore touches into the Stationpedia. Try them out!
Audio
This month, our audio department raises the bar yet again: check out the extraordinary dynamic sound design of our weather systems, as well as all-new ambience on alien worlds.
Bringing new levels of life to Stationeers, we’re saluting the incredible contribution of our sound designer in 2020 - capping it off with his finest work yet.
What’s coming in 2021
Stationeers’ biggest year is coming up fast: we’ve got our sights on release – get ready for the final miles to 1.0.
The game will evolve in 2021: expect new systems that give shape to the game like missions and scenarios, big content drops, key refactors, balancing, and lots, lots more. It’s going to be our most exciting year yet, and we can’t wait to share it with you.
So, here’s to the future...
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