[2022] Icarus Week Twenty Five Update | FREE Styx Map & Missions Pack DLC

Styx is a FREE DLC for our fans featuring a new 64 km2 map, 14 new missions and new creatures

Thank you for supporting Icarus through our first six months since launch! As a thank you to our fans, we are making our new Styx Map & Missions Pack free for everyone who has bought Icarus.

This new 64km² map doubles the size of Icarus' playable area. With it come new missions, new creatures and fresh regions of Icarus to explore.

• An entire new 64km² map
  
• 14 new missions
  
• New creatures including crocodiles, Komodo Dragons, Kea (mountain parrot) with more to come
  
• The entire map unlocked and able to be explored including locations such as The Wall, Ring Lake and The Great River
  
• Missions that effect the map and unlock shortcuts to new areas

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The Styx Map & Missions Pack is available to play now in this week’s update. You’ll find it in the Prospect Select Screen. No separate download is required.

Styx is free for everyone who has bought Icarus so far, but in future (we’ll let you know if) it may become a paid DLC pack. Read below for a more expansive discussion on this from our Gamerunner, Dean Hall

New Map

Originally posted by author: This new territory is centered around a long braided river which the First Cohort prospectors named Styx, after one of the rivers of the underworld.

The Styx territory been locked down for several years after an ‘incident’ between the UDA and a group from the African Coastal States. Rumors have circulated ever since, but both parties remain tight lipped about the circumstances that led to the previous lockdown. Spanning forested, arid and arctic biomes, there are reports of unnatural growth rates and mutations in the planet’s wildlife.

Now the Lagos Unit has suddenly changed their stance, declaring the previously uninhabitable area as safe and opening up several new licenses for prospects. Of course, they’ll still take a cut of whatever you find…

Styx FAQ with the Gamerunner Author: Dean Hall, Gamerunner
Why do a Map Pack using the same biomes? When we started the Icarus project we knew we wanted to try doing something different. When we released the beta, it quickly showed us we needed to adapt the game rapidly to make up for some shortfalls in what we were doing. We also revisited not just what we were doing with the game, but how we were doing it. Focusing on developing a competency to quickly iterate and deliver both changes large and small at a weekly cadence.

As part of this we needed to revisit our process behind world creation, our "world builders" team. In making "Olympus", what we named our first map, we learned a great deal we wanted to do differently as we approach our future content. However, we felt uncomfortable with moving straight into doing a whole stack of new biomes until we had applied the changes we needed with what we already had. This is how this new world was born.

While I can appreciate everyone, including our own team, wants to jump straight into alien and exciting new biomes, it was critical we ensure we had a well oiled machine making our worlds before we introduced new biomes into the mix. We decided to package this work up, and join that effort with work from our design team to deliver a map and mission pack.

In the past I've done quote sections, but I think it's really important I outline some of the "sky level" thinking around Styx, based on some of the comments and concerns I've seen on the forums and from our great content creators. Hopefully this section below helps give some insight into what this Styx pack is, what it isn't, and how it factors into the learning we are trying to make as we head towards "real" new content.

How does a free DLC work? We all keenly felt the rocky launch in the team, and we've all been looking for ways to provide a thank you to those who stuck with us. So we put aside work on our "big" DLC plans to focus on the structural changes we needed to make, both in the studio and the game, and do our "homework" as a form of small DLC we could provide for free to those who stuck with us.

Everyone who owns the game now, and for the current future, will always own this DLC map pack for free. While we don't have concrete plans to charge for this map pack in the future yet, it's something we would look at down the line. However, everyone who already owns the game at that point would still have the map pack - only those buying the game new at that point would not.

If it was being sold, how much would you price it? Again to confirm, nobody who owns the game now would ever pay for it. But to give an idea into our thinking here, my estimate would be a in the "few dollars" range. We see small content packs like this as being worth, if not free, something in the range of 4-6 USD at best. As always, appreciate thoughts on this - but I'd like to labor the point that this, for now at least, is more of a "sea trial" for us rather than a realistic paid DLC plan.

DLC content vs DLC Expansions? Huh? We want to be able to grow the game especially for those we really like the unique approach we are trying with the genre, as part of this we've adopted a few broad principles approaching DLC for the game:

• DLC ownership tests should be as loose as possible; overly restrictive DLC can have massive negative impacts on the ability of people to play with their friends
  
• DLC content (like the Styx Map Pack) should be priced very modestly (a few dollars), just representing "more of the same" so their pricing should be very modest.
  
• DLC expansions should be expansive changes to the game; but should coincide with improvements to the base game as well. Care should be taken to strike a balance: it is very easy for game developers to have content in the expansions that really should be in the base game.

Our studio is independent and through this whole process we are learning a great deal. We want to learn how to produce good content, that is reasonably and sensibly priced, that doesn't restrict peoples abilities to play with friends. We will be working with you all, in the months and years, to strike this balance. Please do continue to let us know your thoughts as always.

Why not vehicles? I might be laboring the point a little, but if our beta and launch taught us anything - it was that we needed to make some changes to how we were working. Jumping straight onto complex new tasks without confirming we had learned the lessons was dangerous. We all understand, and agree, that "cool" new content is needed. Transport has been an issue we have long debated internally, and in fact we devoted an entire milestone (with good results) to how we would approach this.

It is critical that we prove we have made the required adaptions as a studio as well as balanced the game enough that it can survive changes in player travel time before we tackle issues such as vehicles. It would be very easy for us to destroy the experience, either by throwing a major new mechanic like vehicles in or changing the experience to be more like other games.

Why haven't you moved faster? It was pretty apparent to us within the first day of the beta that we needed to change not only the game, but also how we were working. In my experience, that's the nature of game development. To try bolster our suggestion we are working as hard as we can, we committed to building trust by producing a solid update every week after launch (including holidays). We're proud of achieving that, and we've been really pleased with the response to that - both the positive and negative feedback. This feedback, so long as it's constructive, is extremely useful and how we make a better game.

Where are the alien biomes? In addition to the reasons why we haven't moved to new biomes above it would likely not be a surprise to many that we aren't happy with some performance aspects of the game. Throwing some new biomes into the game without addressing any performance concerns related to them, would be adding a lot of new textures, models, sounds, animations and such and make matters much worse.

Not all our different teams work at the same cadence as every other team, and we already have a backlog of exciting (and in some cases, downright terrifying) new animals. But we can't just throw these into the game until we can confirm we can wield them properly. So, while frustrating, we are taking our time. Luckily the content work around that has been able to already begin, while we lay the groundwork.

The Kea? Take a moment and go read about one of the most amazing creatures in the world, the Kea[en.wikipedia.org], a Mountain Parrot from New Zealand. As a mountaineer it's been my privilege to be close to these incredible creatures. An animal that teach each other through play, we like to think that if the Kea could play video games, they'd love to be swooping through our terrains.

Final thoughts? I realize as a consumer it can be very frustrating watching a game, especially one you think has potential but falls short, not quite hit where you want to be. Our team definitely feels the pain for every user reporting a bug, losing their gear, or just having a bad time with a poor mechanic. We are though, resolute with the broad idea of "session based". We just have some homework still to do to deliver that.

As a thank you, and a big "sorry" for the beta and the launch, we hope Styx shows you we have improved in our ability to deliver content - and that we can take those lessons and apply them to exciting new biomes, creatures, mechanics, and features in the future.
- Dean Hall, Gamerunner

New Missions


The UDA has assigned 14 new contracts for prospectors to tackle, to complete objectives the original task force failed.

Although Styx features familiar forest, arctic and desert biomes, the map provides a fresh maze of pathways and missions to explore, including some time-saving shortcuts that can be permanently unlocked by some missions.

Your time in the Styx territory will start with an exploration mission, before branching out into more challenging extermination, expedition and research contracts with more lucrative rewards.

The first 14 missions are available now (see the Changelog below), with two more (RENDEZVOUS: Delivery and BALLISTIC: Extermination) unlocking next week.

25 Weekly Updates


If you haven’t played Icarus for a while, you may be surprised what has changed with 25 weekly updates now under our belt.

As well as new missions, items and bosses, some major changes to core game systems have been made since launch. The biggest change is the removal of Icarus' real-world timer, which sometimes caught players by surprise and left their characters and all their gear stranded on the planet permanently. Missions are now based on time spent in the game, although Icarus is still fundamentally based around time-limited missions and sessions. Other big changes include the hardcore and safe difficulty options, optimizations, more talent points and a separate talent tree for solo play.

Most of these changes are based on your community feedback and the most up-voted requests on our Feature Upvote site, so please continue to give us your feedback there.

What's next for Icarus?


While the Styx Map is intended as bonus content for our community, it is not one of our planned major expansions.

RocketWerkz has already begun work on New Frontiers, the first major paid expansion for Icarus, which is due late this year. A second expansion, Dangerous Horizons, is planned for 2023. These major expansions will feature new, more challenging biomes and more mutated or even alien lifeforms and new gameplay challenges. We look forward to sharing more about them in the coming months.

In the meantime we will keep regularly updating the core Icarus game, you can expect a lot of our team resource will be working towards bringing you this exciting next chapter in the growing story you’ve come to love, that is Icarus.

DevStream and AMA


This Sunday 29 May at 10pm UTC / 3pm PDT (that’s 10am Monday morning NZT for us in New Zealand) we’ll be hosting a Styx Dev Stream and AMA with Gamerunner Dean ‘Rocket’ Hall playing the new Styx Map and Missions, while our community manager Shammgod hosts an AMA with various members of our Vision, Art, and Design teams.

You can leave questions in our Discord and our Twitch chat. This is a great chance to ask that burning question about the future of Icarus, what Styx is bringing to the table, or why headshotting a baby goat from 100 meters feels so good. Join us over on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/surviveicarus

Detailed Changelog
New Map

• A new 8x8km map to explore, based around a large central river network.

New Missions

VERTIGO: Expedition

• Find and repair lost drilling equipment.

MALSTROM: Exploration

ZEPHYR: Expedition

• Scan for new potential drop locations to unlock more missions.

OMPHALOS: Survey

GOSSAMER: Research

• Discover more about the worm species native to this planet.

CRESCENDO: Survey

• Investigate the Shifting Sands

ALCAZAR: Construction

• Setup a Self Sufficient Powered Research Base

RICOCHET: Expedition

• Investigate Signs of an Oasis

HEADLONG: Exploration

ADAGIO: Exploration

KISMET: Exploration

CAVALCADE: Exploration

DUST: Exploration

HALCYON: Extermination

• Investigate Increased Polar Bear Presence in the area.

New Creatures

Adolescent Caveworms - Once they grow beyond their larval stage prevalent in Icarus' caves, they become significantly more dangerous and can venture beyond their subterranean nests.

Kea - Icarus' first avian addition. Colorful in both appearance and character, these mischievously clever parrots will take advantage of any undefended food-store they can get to.

Komodo - Typically distracted by food, these will likely not bother you unless you come between them and their meal. They have a nasty bite that can leave prospectors nauseous at best.

Crocodiles - Ever-present around the water bodies of Icarus, they’re most at home in the water but can still be a notable threat on land. Their thick hide make them resistant to projectiles.

Fixes

• Improved way player loadouts are handled to reduce chance of players losing loadouts/items. Modifying the way players loadouts are granted, the players dropship now controls and stores the state internally of whether or not it has granted the loadout to its inventory, no more passing of items from player. This allows disconnections to occur during the dropship sequence and players will still be able to get their loadout upon reconnecting.
  
• Fixed issue where the player could be considered ‘in a cave’ while still outside the voxel entrance.
  
• Fixed the Drill power quest step incorrectly checking whether the drill was active or not and progressing without the drill having biofuel in, slightly tweaked the worm respawn timer on the second stage of the quest
  
• Fixed the Drill power quest step incorrectly checking whether the drill was active or not and progressing without the drill having biofuel in as previous fix also broke the quest step, both fixed now.
  
• Improved game performance degradation after extended playtime due to AI getting stuck in loops constantly executing expensive GOAP action precondition checks.
  
• Fixed another instance of NPCs getting soft-locked when trying to pick between multiple incomplete actions that caused large performance drops until they died or despawned.