October 1st is an exciting day for Phoenix Point as we release Behemoth Edition for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and DLC 4: Corrupted Horizons for all platforms… but we have another fun update for all PC players also arriving on October 1st: “Hypnos.”
Hypnos is our next free content update for PC players that focuses on diplomatic changes to make Phoenix Point more nuanced, Quality-of-Life improvements requested by the community, and some other additions we feel fans will enjoy. Console players will receive the Hypnos update in late October after the Behemoth Edition release, and moving forward, we aim to have all our free updates be synced across all platforms.
With Hypnos, players will see a shift in how they tackle the geoscape, as we introduce more strategic decision-making around whom to work with throughout the campaign for rewards, alongside harsher diplomatic penalties when ignoring threats or engaging in hostile actions against factions.
Revealed Pandoran colonies that are left unchecked will negatively affect faction havens in their operating range, giving the player a tougher choice as to when to deal with it or continue to suffer the diplomatic repercussions. These penalties will continue to accrue over time, meaning the longer the alien base is operational, the more the affected factions will start to turn on Phoenix. Of course, at any time, players can eliminate the colony, gaining a diplomatic reward for doing so, which now includes a bonus for those factions that were threatened.
Faction technology rewards are also being re-worked to keep research more meaningful throughout the mid/late game. Now, players will unlock research access at earlier and multiple diplomatic levels with a faction, but that tech will only come partially researched and will need to be completed by Phoenix in order to be leveraged. This helps emphasize managing faction relations if the player wants access to their knowledge… which leads us to the big one: hostile faction actions.
We’re introducing bigger diplomatic penalties when players choose to engage in hostile actions against factions; the better the terms with a faction, the more immediate and severe the consequences for that ‘bad behavior’ will be. In addition to harsher and significantly more impactful penalties for these actions, players can also expect some changes in how faction alert levels will increase. To start, when players choose to Raid, Sabotage, Steal Research, or Steal Aircraft against a faction, all of that faction’s havens will raise in alert level. Once that alert level reaches 3 “High,” the player can no longer engage in a hostile faction mission and must wait a certain period of time for the Alert level to drop. Additionally, the diplomatic penalty will impact the players’ ability to gain access to shared research and faction missions, taking much longer to earn back the goodwill required to reach those levels.
More so, we’re making some key changes to Steal Research on both the geoscape and tactical level to better equalize the “risk/reward” of it all. Faction havens with research zones will have specific research assigned to them once a player has visited. This gives more visibility into what the reward may be, if opting to engage in some technology theft. But on the Tactical level, Phoenix must now hack one of the consoles available, with the hacking operative unable to perform any other actions for 2 turns while hacking. This can be canceled if things turn sour, but the hacking will start from scratch. Upon completing the hack, players will also need to extract from the mission, making it not an easy task to swoop in and vanish.
Beyond the diplomatic changes to the game, we are also introducing a new way to bolster your ranks with the possibility of recruiting soldiers after Haven Defense/Infested Haven missions. After a successful mission, there’s a chance that one of the surviving defenders will join Phoenix, provided the player has a positive relationship with the faction and the available space via Living Quarters. This recruitment chance is affected by difficulty level, with a much higher rate than Legend, for example, but this should encourage keeping some of these defenders alive versus merely using them as cannon fodder, you cruel strategists!
Outside of some bug fixes, some additional features players can expect with this update, include:
- To help speed up income generation around ancient site resources in Legacy of the Ancients, these sites can generate passive income, earning resources for each working Archaeology lab. For example, having 1 Archaeology Lab and 2 Living Crystal Quarries will generate 2 Crystals each day. Having 2 Archaeology Labs generates 4 Crystals per day.
- Now within the game settings, you can select whether you want aircraft to auto unpause (set by default), never auto unpause for more control, auto unpause only when one aircraft is in control, or auto unpause only when all aircraft are traveling.
- A new cinematic library is available via the main menu so players can rewatch any unlocked cinematics and never miss a chance to view their favorite moments.
- A balance adjustment where players can remove Mark of the Void by disabling the eyes of the Yuggothian Entity. If you don’t know what this means, don’t worry about it… yet!
Hypnos will be available for our PC players on October 1st, alongside DLC 4: Corrupted Horizons and we look forward to hearing from you about these changes to the game. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players, look for these Hypnos updates in late October.