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Week Eighty Six is here, and adds two new shields to Icarus for you to craft and wear.

On top of adding Bone and Steel Heater Shields, we’ve added the ability to equip these on your back in the utility (G) slot - giving you protection against unexpected attacks from behind and a new way to accessorize.

Finally, this morning we announced our biggest news since launch - the upcoming release of our first major expansion, Icarus: New Frontiers. Have a look at all the details in the links below.

New Frontiers
If you missed it earlier - we have announced the launch date of our first major expansion - Icarus: New Frontiers! Wishlist now to stay up to date with the latest news.

... Read more

Our first major expansion for Icarus is coming. Icarus: New Frontiers launches August 24th and brings with it a new map, with all new biomes, mutated alien creatures, narrative missions, craftables, exotics, and more.

Icarus' First Cohort was dropped into safe Earth-like terraformed zones. Icarus: New Frontiers will take you deep into new regions of Icarus where alien creatures and habitats survived but were altered by the terraforming process - such as searingly hot volcanic regions, murky swamplands and eerie alien grasslands.

New technology also means you’ll be able to stay on the planet in Open World mode for consecutive Missions, so you better get comfortable with your new home away from home.

Jump in and have a read of all the details of what’s to come.



Icarus: New Frontiers
New Frontiers comes packed with new content. ... Read more

Week Eighty Five brings a new mission for the fishers and anglers amongst you. You’ve been tasked to go catch some endemic species to the oasis, so get your rods and go cast your line.

We’ve also got an update on Hypatia and our ongoing work into the new mission system and performance elements.

Finally, we’ve got a sneak peek at a future patch for crop plots, and would love your thoughts on our proposed changes.

Hop in and have a read.



New Mission: OASIS: Angler
This week's mission is for the fishers and anglers among you. You’re tasked with building a fishing hut and catching some species endemic to the oasis of the desert biomes of Styx. Your briefing is as follows:

// OPERATOR: SINOTAI
// BIOME: OASIS, Styx map
// BACKGROUND: A VIP is requesting to have a taste of what Styx has to of... Read more

Week Eighty Four is here, and brings our second batch of Carved Wood Decorations to Icarus, with six new items to craft.

We’ve also updated and improved photo mode, tweaking and improving the ranges of different settings and the control players have in setting specific parameters to get the perfect shot.

You may have noticed we’ve published this week’s update one day early. In New Zealand, where RocketWerkz is based, we have a public holiday this Friday to celebrate Matariki, the Māori New Year. Enjoy this week’s update while our team enjoy our holiday weekend.



Carved Wood Decorations
We’ve added a second batch of Carved Wood Decorations this week, adding six new items to the set for you to craft and decorate your base with.

Included are three tables - a Round Table, a Six-Seater Dining Table, and a Ten-Seater Dining Tab... Read more

Week Eighty Three features two revamps of existing in-game systems, alongside the addition of a new type of ammo for firearms.

Armor Piercing Ammo has been added, and we’ve paired this with an overhaul of the Hardened Point Damage System, providing a more scalable and effective process for calculating the impact of stats when targeting different Hard Points on different creatures.

The Orbital Workshop has also received a UI pass, aiming to make it easier to navigate to make room for new items in the future.

Jump in and have a read.



Armor Piercing Ammo
This week we’re adding a new ammo variation, Armor Piercing. This will be available for firearms, while crossbows already have this perk innately.

Armor Piercing Bullets for firearms come with the Hardened Point Penetration stat, essentially bypassing the hardened ... Read more

Week Eighty One brings a refresh and rebalance of our blueprint tree, and improvements to Tier 3 and 4 recipes.

As the game has evolved, certain items have either become more valuable, or declined in their value, so we’ve shuffled where they’re unlocked and their recipe costs to make them more balanced in the current state of the game.

We’ve also fixed a couple of long-standing bugs and an update on Styx.

Jump in and have a read.



QoL & Fixes
The blueprint tree has received a complete rework and shuffle, with our intention to better group together related items and even adjust some tiers, to reflect their value to the game at this stage of its lifecycle.

This re-arrange will mean that certain pathways and familiarity will be lost, so it’s worth spending a couple of minutes having a look at the new design to acclima... Read more

Week Eighty is here and we’re introducing our newest items, the Creature Deterrents.

This is a creature spawn blocker, which allows you to create a radius of safety where creatures won’t roam, engage or spawn while you complete your tasks or try catch some needed rest.

We’ve also had a breakthrough on some of our most rare crashes thanks to the reporting done by you, the players, using our in-game reporting tool.

Finally, we’ve got some great videos of our team talking about Icarus' development with some content creators recently, so check those out.



Creature Spawn Blockers
We’ve added a new item to the game called a ‘Creature Deterrent’ with Tier 2, 3 and 4 variations.

When placed and connected to a power source (required for the higher tier versions), these will stop creatures spawning within that radius.
... Read more

Welcome to Week Seventy Nine.

Following on from the incredibly successful launch of Galileo last week, we’re following it up with a bunch of bug fixes and UI improvements that slipped through the cracks or were picked up on by players as they tested out the new features.

We also released our Interior Decorations DLC last week, a small package of mineral lamps and paintings for players who want to support our development and throw an extra few dollars our way.

Finally, we’ve got an update on the next named update and what to expect from that, along with progress on our first expansion New Frontiers.

Hop in and have a read.



Galileo Fixes
Following on from our Galileo update last week, we’re polishing up a few gameplay and UI bugs that slipped through the cracks or popped up as players checked out the new content.... Read more

Galileo is finally here.

Our first named update in our new cadence brings the long-awaited fishing system, with 53 species, 3 rods, 23 lures and so much more. Catch, record, display and fillet a range of marine life, with their own mini-game and dedicated fishing book.

The Bestiary is your one-stop-shop guide to all of Icarus’ fauna, giving unique lore, perks, unlocks and advantages as you hunt, kill, skin and display your conquests.

Finally, Steam Achievements, Trading Cards, Badges, Backgrounds and Emoticons have all been added for you to complete, trade, unlock and display on your Steam profiles.

We’ve also made balance changes to address all this new content, and included a small decorative DLC for people who wish to decorate their base with mineral lamps or artwork, and support our con... Read more

Week Seventy Seven is here, and it’s a big one.

We’ve got a ton of performance improvements, with weeks of the team's hard work on lighting, shadows, UI, meshes, and more to share.

Based on your community feedback, we also have a bunch of early-game QoL improvements, increases to talent points and new creatures in Olympus and Styx.

Finally, we’ve dropped a video explaining the new features in the big upcoming Galileo patch plus a sneaky release date announcement for those who reach the bottom of this blog.

Jump in and have a read.



Performance - Lighting and Shadows
Light Shadows

Our performance team has been actively working on a few pain points we identified for AMD GPUs and lower-end nVidia GPUs caused by point/spot light shadows. This week, we’re bringing you some fixes that we hope will address ... Read more

Week Seventy Six is here and with it comes a bunch of new home decor options that expand our Carved Wood Decorations set with new furnishings to adorn your base.

We also go deeper into the upcoming features of Galileo such as Fishing, as we move into closed beta testing. Jump in and have a read.



Carved Wood Decorations
We’re adding to our existing home decor options, by adding six new carved wood pieces with a new bed, wardrobe, narrow wardrobe, nightstand, display cabinet and dresser.

For our Open World base building aficionados, these are the first of a range of new options to style your base, your way. They provide more bespoke personalization, but don’t add any new gameplay features.

These are craftable on the carpentry bench, and most can be found by using the R key to look for variations on the base item.

... Read more

Week Seventy Five brings both a new mission, ENCROACHMENT: Extermination, and various bug fixes

This new mission will have you gathering information and valuable extermination data on various creatures inhabiting Styx.

We also have an update about Galileo. We have now entered the internal testing phase and are planning to release a closed public test build soon. We are looking forward to receiving feedback from players before launch.

Jump in and have a read.



ENCROACHMENT: Extermination
ENCROACHMENT: Extermination is a new mission on the Styx map where players have to establish a foothold and hunt various targets as they progress through the mission.

Players will need to build across most of the central Styx region, and will receive additional targets to hunt as they expand their reach across the map. Here’s your Mi... Read more

Week Seventy Four brings both a new dynamic mission, SMPL3: Lost, and fixes to the dynamic mission system to clean up some errors that have affected players over the last couple of weeks.

This new quest will have you searching for an abandoned prospector base, a new variation of a dynamic mission we haven’t done before.

We also give an update on Galileo as we move into the internal testing phase, and discuss our upcoming closed public test build for players to give us feedback before launch.

Jump in and have a read.



SMPL3: Lost
Dynamic Missions have been incredibly popular since we introduced them in ... Read more

Week Seventy Three brings Seed Packets for our recently introduced fruit and vegetables to the Orbital Workshop.

It’s also been one of our biggest weeks of work on the upcoming Galileo patch, as we’ve made substantial progress on all three key features: Fishing, Achievements and the Bestiary.

While smaller in terms of content, this week we’re giving you a sneak peek into fishing as we move closer to the launch of this much-anticipated feature.

Jump in and have a read.



Seed Packets
We’ve added seed packets for our recent fruit and vegetable additions to the Orbital Workshop. These include Avocado, Kumara, Strawberry & Rhubarb, so players can now access these without having to complete SMPL3 quests in Open World mode.

When used on the planet these provide 5 seeds each, so multiple packets can be a good idea for l... Read more

Week Seventy Two is here and brings a revamp of our bullet recipes and the introduction of our first explosive bullets.

Craftable at level 30, explosive bullets add a new variation for your firearms, with the new ‘Volatile Material’ resource introduced to create the recipe, and usable across rifles, pistols and shotguns.

We’ve also added ‘Ammo Casings’ to the bullet recipe requirements, giving players 5x more bullets per ingot invested.

Finally, we’ve deployed even more elements to our Fishing and Bestiary features in the upcoming Galileo, as we draw ever closer to its release.

Jump in and have a read.



Bullet Recipe Revamp
We’ve revamped our bullet recipes in lieu of our introduction of Explosive Bullets, to provide a more granular and realistic resource investment that decreases the cost-per-bullet overall.

... Read more

Week Seventy One is here and we’re introducing our Fruit Care Package, following on from last week’s vegetable-themed one.

This introduces Avocados and Strawberries, with seven recipes between them to craft across a range of benches. These can be earned through SMPL3 quests and come with their own unique buffs.

We also have moved further into the testing phases of Galileo, hooking up the Accolades and Achievements to Steam's backend in our development environment.

Jump in and have a read!



Avocado and Strawberries
Following our Vegetable Care Package, we’re introducing our Fruit Care Package which includes two new resources for you to find as rewards for SMPL3 quests: Avocados and Strawberries.

These come with seven new recipes that can be crafted at the Drying Rack, Cooking Bench, Potbelly Stove, and Biofuel Stove,... Read more

Week Seventy brings two new vegetables to Icarus, the Kumara and Rhubarb. These aren’t found organically growing on the surface but can be collected when completing SMPL3 quests in Open World.

We also give an update on Galileo, which is moving into its latter phases as we complete the production work and shift towards testing and refinement.

Jump in and have a read.



Kumara & Rhubarb
We’ve added two new resources to Icarus that players can plant, grow and cook with.

These are Kumara and Rhubarb, two new vegetables with their own perks for players when consumed.

These vegetables are only available by completing SMPL3 quests in Open World, and not found growing naturally on the map like other vegetables are. This limitation makes them highly valuable, and they come with seven new recipes across the Drying Rack, Fir... Read more

Week Sixty-Nine’s update brings seven new Stone Statues and a couple of new small Wooden and Bronze Statues to the decorations crafting options, perfect for decorating and personalizing your Open World and Outpost bases.

We also give an update on Galileo, with progress made on the Bestiary and Achievements as we move into the latter phases of their development.

Jump in and have a read.



Stone Statues Set
We’ve added seven large Stone Statues to the crafting menu in-game, along with a couple of new smaller Wooden and Bronze Statues which can be crafted at the Rustic Bench.

These statues are a part of our larger decorations and furnishing work, as we look to add more character and personality options for your bases.

We’re always open to suggestions for different decorations or furnishings that players might like ... Read more

Week Sixty-Eight’s update is here, and with it comes a batch of performance improvements that have been championed by our dedicated performance team, and tested by our community.

Improvements to Memory, Stutters & Garbage Collection, and Engine Performance are the core focuses, and you can read more detail about what these changes mean for performance, and how we went about identifying and improving them, below.

Jump in and have a read.



Performance Improvements
As mentioned last week, our dedicated performance team has been busy looking for areas in Icarus where we can find optimizations. If you want to read in detail about the 6 areas of focus for our team, you can do so here in our Week 59 update. To summarise, these are Engine Performance, Game Systems, Memory, Stutters & Garbage Collection, and Connection.

This week's... Read more

Week Sixty Seven focuses on providing a range of Mount improvements, tweaks, and buffs. These include changes to saddles, behaviors, and baseline stats to overcome some of the core issues that players have encountered.

We also give an update on the progress of Galileo and an insight into the ‘Bestiary’ feature. Finally, we talk about next week's update and what to expect.

Jump in and have a read.



Mount Improvements
This week we’re bringing a bunch of Mount improvements, based on feedback from the community and monitoring overall performance and usage.

• Saddles now include 'G' slots so radars, extractors, and other heavier items can be carried. Basic saddles will have one slot, saddle bags will have two slots, and carts will have five
  
• Mounts no longer take damage from thirst or hunger, mean...

Read more