Icarus News

It’s finally here. The sand is stirring and the canyons are open. Prepare to venture into the unforgiving wastes of the Desert biome.

Beginning 22nd October 5pm PDT and ending 25th October 10pm PDT, you will have just over three days to experience the raw beauty of our latest biome.



[h2]MISSION BRIEFING: BLACKSAND[/h2]

Journey to the heart of Icarus’ uncharted desert biome, enduring arid conditions to gather survey data for the UDA. But beware – threats are unknown, and few have returned from this barren region.

With no trace of their whereabouts, we can only recommend you watch your step.

There have been rumours of a subterranean route to the desert, but Minos, the gas giant planet nearby, exerts such immense tidal forces, so these paths are anything but stable. You’re on your own out there.

Certain stages of the mission will require a member of your team to be at minimum, level 25. It will also require certain recipes, so save some blueprint points.

[h2]New challenges[/h2]

The desert biome brings with it a whole new arid environment. Scorching heat is just one of the challenges – be on the lookout for wildlife that feels familiar but shouldn’t be trusted, weather that threatens even the most seasoned Prospector and geological limitations that may force you to plan your route.

Heat - Keep an eye on both the environmental temperature and your character’s. Thirst and heat can drain your stamina and you’ll need to rehydrate more often - so managing your water intake wisely can become critical. Wear appropriate armour and clothing that offers protection but doesn’t overheat you.

Water - The Desert canyons have been carved by both water and Icarus’ powerful geotechnical forces. Remember where your water sources are before venturing into the sands – there’s nothing more painful and frustrating than slowly slipping into hallucinations as you dehydrate.

Cold - Remember, deserts are not always hot. At nighttime the temperature can plummet too.

Flora- Plant life like fiber and wood will be harder to harvest in the arid Desert. You may want to stock up on ingredients for Pills such as the Anti-Poison Pill from the Kitchen Bench or Tonics from the Herbalism bench and before you leave the relative safety of the Forest.

Sandstorms and heatwaves - These aren’t storms for the faint of heart. There’s nothing more violent than the ground around you shifting, lifting and flying in your face. Don’t take a storm warning lightly, and make sure shelter is always available.

[h2]New Wildlife[/h2]

While we won’t spoil all the new wildlife for you, here are a few of your new neighbours:


[h2]Expanded Playing Area[/h2]



Your playable area for Beta Weekend Five’s Blacksand mission includes the Forest starting area, then opens up the desert canyon to the North West. The Arctic is not accessible on this Prospect.

The Prospect from Beta Weekend 4 (Broken Arrow) is still available for you to choose and includes the Northern and South-Eastern Arctic zones, if you have unfinished business with polar bears.

Your level cap is at 30 again this weekend.

[h2]Extra Day (Again!)[/h2]

Monday here in New Zealand is a national holiday, so we’re extending the Beta Weekend by one extra day again, so the team doesn’t have to put a new build out on their day off. This also gives you more time to complete the new Mission: Blacksand and last week's Mission: Broken Arrow.

[h2]Reporting Bugs and Suggestions[/h2]

Please continue to report bugs, issues or suggestions during the Beta Weekend here

Please search to see if your suggestion has already been posted before you submit, and upvote it if you find it!

We love it when you share your screenshots and clips with us. Be sure to tag us @surviveicarus on all socials, and join our Discord server to hang out with us and our community over this Beta Weekend!

[h2]Patch Notes:[/h2]

Below is a selection of key bug fixes and QOL improvements that we’ve actioned since the last Beta Weekend. This doesn’t reflect every change, but gives you an idea of where our effort has gone. Thanks - many of these bugs were reported by you on Feature Upvote.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed an issue where the crafting bench could be fooled to think it had enough items to continue crafting
  
• Fixed a bug where the shelter trace stops functioning and does not resume until reload, causing players and deployables to incorrectly take exposure damage
  
• Fixed an issue with the ‘More for Less’ talent where the crafting recipe was incorrectly using resources and requiring double the intended amount
  
• Fixed a bug where dying and Respawning and then fitting Fur Armor leaves armor in first person
  
• Fixed a bug where the medicine pills weren’t providing any buffs due to the modifier removing itself immediately
  
• Fixed a rotation issue of Polar Bear eating a carcass animations (start and end)
  
• Fixed a bug where player appears in Out of Bounds Area when dropping in 011 for Broken Arrow mission
  
• Added a patch where the system will deny animal spawns for a period of time in the location one was killed
  
• Fixed an Error 024 by allowing the host to update the prospect heartbeat during the loading phase
  
• Fixed an Error 020 by fixing incorrect append type for wrapping associated member character slot data
  
• Adjusted the physics on the Cougar model to ragdoll more realistically
  
• Animals that are fleeing from you are no longer able to be hit with stealth attacks
  
• Fixed a bug where ammo was unloading into hotbar before main inventory, when there was still space for it
  
• Fixed a bug where arm armor wasn’t visible when in first person
  
• Fixed a bug where doors were being double-placed if the existing door was open.
  
• Fixed an issue with solo talent tree being blocked by 'coming soon' nodes
  
• Removed debug plane placed on one tree stump (looked like a white target)
  
• Fixed a bug where punching was causing 0 damage, it will now cause 5. Remember though, Bears punch harder.
  
• Fixed a bug where doors stopped rendering at certain distances
  

QOL improvements:

• Certain deployable items will now produce recipes concurrently instead of consecutively to follow a more logical experience and progression
  
• Added a Stat Modifier which modifies the held time to activate an item (i.e repair hammer)
  
• Added a variation on the wall piece to allow for double-windows
  
• Reworked the rain particle visual effects to provide a more realistic experience
  
• Added a bleeding modifier to injured animals to provide a more realistic tracking experience
  
• Split foliage quality and foliage distance into separate settings to help improve load speed and depth of field
  
• Added Incendiary Rifle Rounds for those who just want to watch the world burn
  
• Added Steel and Iron Repair Hammers
  
• We felt firearms were too strong, too early, so we rebalanced the tree to include a Bolt Action Rifle, with the Hunting Rifle moving to level 30.
  
• Set minimum charge required for Longbow, Recurve Bow and Compound Bow to 0.9 so arrows cant be launched at snail's pace
  
• Added messaging on solo talent tree to inform players that these talents are only activated when solo
  
• Doubled range of fire warming aura modifier for easier sleeping
  
• Added bench requirement tooltips on item repair context menu (i.e Longbow)
  
• Added variants keyprompt on deployables with variants (i.e Wall)
  
• Adjusted the min/max yield of the Rabbit so it produces less Fur
  

-Liam

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Mission Achieved, Prospectors![/h2]

Beta Weekend Four provided a challenge like never experienced before on Icarus, but you took it head on with confidence, creativity and a lot of courage. With the largest journey yet to complete on foot, changing biomes and fierce new predators, it took careful planning and resource management to successfully complete.



Mission Broken Arrow saw countless warheads recovered, bosses defeated and recovery missions completed. We also include several successful performance improvements (always more coming) and balance changes for this Beta Weekend, and put out a couple of hotfixes during the weekend that addressed some spawning issues and bugs.

Make sure you keep sharing your clips and victory photos with us. We love seeing all of them, and it inspires us to keep daring to make something great for you all.

[h2]You should all be Creative Directors[/h2]

Once again, we struggled to choose some favourites from all the clips you tagged us in over the weekend. Thank you to all our content creators, players and future gaming artists, you’ve outdone yourselves. Here’s a few we particularly enjoyed:

So close, yet so far - Jeff_the_maniac I'm going to make you into a hat! - SlothOcelot WOAH WOAH WOAH - WhoopWhoopGamin Mammoth go Brrrr - Râ



[h2]Getting the most out of Feature Upvote[/h2]

FeatureUpvote has become familiar to most of you, as our hub for players’ ideas, bugs, features and dreams. Our development team actively combs it for information.

We’ve been working on optimising this over the last few weeks so it becomes an effective, efficient and easy hub for making sure the most popular community issues get recognition, and want to explain how you can make sure your feedback is heard.

[h3]1 - Before submitting a ticket, do a quick search that a similar ticket doesn’t already exist[/h3]
Often, your great idea or bug has already been reported, even if in slightly different words. Before you submit a new ticket, search for some keywords to see if someone else has said something similar, and add to it as a comment, along with upvoting it, so we know it's important. Submitting a duplicate ticket might result in 20 tickets getting created for an issue rather than one ticket with 20 votes, which is more likely to be prioritized.

[h3]2 - Make sure you’re super clear and detailed in your explanations[/h3]
We’re combing through thousands of tickets a weekend, so providing good, crisp and clear information is critical if we’re going to be able to take your feedback. Where, when and how does the issue occur? What steps could we take to reproduce the bug ourselves? If relevant, what graphics card and drivers do you have?

[h3]3 - Keep it constructive, we’re all building this game together[/h3]
We know bugs and imbalances are frustrating, but that’s why we do these Beta Weekends! When submitting your tickets or comments, make sure to breathe, think through your feedback, and provide it in a constructive way. Getting upset just makes it trickier for us to decipher what you mean which leads to us not being able to include your feedback in our sprints.

We’ve loved so many of the ideas, suggestions and thoughts you’ve offered over the last four weeks. Let's make the next three even better by using feature upvote to its full potential!

[h2]Screenshots[/h2]

If you want to get a picturesque shot, remember to press 9 on your Number Pad to hide the UI, and post them in #screenshots in our Discord.

Credit: Quiet

Credit: Chill

Credit: Tiberius

Credit: Septic Falcon

Credit: Beinn

Credit: Lolly

Credit: Munnky

[h2]Get ready for Beta Weekend Five[/h2]

We might have just finished Mission: Broken Arrow, but the sands are stirring and the Desert is ready for its first adventurers. Beta Weekend 5 is almost upon us, read about how our Beta Weekends work here.

Beta Weekend Five begins on:

• 5pm Friday 22nd October PDT
  
• 1am Saturday 23rd October UTC
  
• 1pm Saturday 23rd October NZT
  

Helpful links:

Discord Twitter

- Liam

It begins on Friday 8th October at 5pm PDT and lasts an extra day until Monday 11th 10pm PDT.

As we posted yesterday, we’re adding an extra Beta Weekend. This means the Desert biome will be unlocked in two weeks’ time, and the other Beta Weekends are all pushed back two weeks too.



[h2]MISSION BRIEFING: BROKEN ARROW[/h2]
[h3]RECOVER ENZYME WARHEADS FROM THREE DOWNED TERRAFORMING SATELLITES.[/h3]

BACKGROUND:

When terraforming failed, the UDA tried to put the political and environmental catastrophe behind them. Mothballing the Inaris-designed atmospheric processing satellites, Icarus was supposed to be forgotten. A decade on, these orbital bio-factories are de-orbiting. The UDA wants no more scandals.

MISSION:

Recover the enzyme 'warheads' from three crashed Inaris satellites, before anyone else.

TERMS:

Geo-data in this region is unavailable, so your team will be inserted at a known drop point. At least two of the satellites impacted in the arctic. Expect a demanding journey, heavy weather, sub-zero temperatures, and fierce wildlife.



For more background on Icarus’ terraforming and the UDA check out the History of Icarus on our website. This will be expanded as more of Icarus’ lore is unveiled over time.

[h2]An extra day on Monday[/h2]

Since this three-part Mission spans the Forest biome, the northern Arctic biome as well as the newly-unlocked southern Arctic region, we’re going to give you an extra 24 hours to complete the Mission. That’s right, this Beta Weekend will continue until Monday evening (PDT).

[h2]New wildlife detected[/h2]

The satellites’ crash sites have drawn the attention of some of Icarus' most fearsome wildlife. The cause of their heightened interest and aggression remains unclear, but research suggests a potential connection to the terraforming technology. Group 15 has refused to release any further information at this stage.

The Arctic poses familiar threats, with reports of another Mammoth and the largest Polar Bear yet seen roaming the ice, but a new predator has been reported deep in the forest. Without further data available, we can only suggest you tread with caution and keep your eyes focused on the undergrowth.



[h2]An Expanded Playable Area[/h2]

This Beta Weekend another Arctic zone has opened up - in the South-East of the map. You may have come across the entrance to it when exploring previously (and got a warning if you ventured in).

While the in-game map still lacks terrain data, the locations of the three satellites have been marked. One is in the Central Arctic, one in the Forest valleys and one in the new Southern Arctic region.

Here’s the area you can explore this weekend:



[h2]Tech Tree and Talents Reset[/h2]

Your characters have all been returned to the Orbital Station ready for a new Prospect.

We’ve rebalanced and made several changes to the Talent Tree and the Planetary Tech Tree - so have reset all your points for you to spend again.

Overall we have reduced the number of Blueprints awarded with each level. We know many of you have strong opinions about whether there are too many or too few unlocks at each level, so we’ll be paying close attention to how you progress this weekend. Solo players are encouraged to check out the Solo Talent Tree, and give us feedback on FeatureUpvote.



[h2]More Languages[/h2]

Icarus will be available at launch in English, German, French, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Latin American Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Mandarin, Japanese and Korean!

Beta Weekend 4 will include the first versions of our translations for some of these languages. These are all very much in development and will include a lot of missing text, typos and gaps, but it gives us a chance to see how they work when deployed to you, the players. We know there will be gaps, and are not looking for feedback on translation errors on FeatureUpvote just yet.

You change languages in the Settings menu.

We know people would like even more languages and after our launch we may introduce tools for the community to contribute their own translations.

[h2]Reporting Bugs and Suggestions[/h2]

Please continue to report bugs, issues or suggestions during the Beta Weekend here.
Please check to see if your suggestion has already been posted before you submit it, and upvote it if you find it!

We love it when you share your screenshots and clips with us. Be sure to tag us @surviveicarus on all socials, and join our Discord server to hang out with us and our community this Beta Weekend!

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]

Check our Steam Forums for detailed Patch Notes and any Known Issues when the weekend begins.

Notable Quality of Life changes:

• Added a requirement for prospectors to be near a source of warmth to be able to sleep
  
• The Rain Reservoir now has slots for ice and containers
  
• Rebalanced recipes for benches, concrete buildables, weapons/tools and cabinets to now require iron nails and steel screws, and adjusted the ingot requirements accordingly
  
• Added a blueprint to the armor bench allowing you to turn leather into rope
  
• Now only the players dropship will show on the minimap, rather than all prospectors’
  

Some of the key fixes and improvements this weekend are:

• Rebalanced animal respawning
  
• Fixed a bug where other languages would not load when the player switched to them in the settings
  
• Fixed a bug where any stack that was 50%+ of the crafting requirements for a recipe was consumed and considered enough to execute the craft
  
• Fixed a bug where some players couldn’t see a deployed fireplace
  
• Fixed a bug where concrete buildables had a distorted visual appearance due to corrupted LODs
  
• Fixed a bug where ctrl+clicking an item could lead to it being ‘lost’ rather than shifting inventories
  
• Fixed a bug where the shovel wasn’t reducing in durability as it was used to collect ice
  
• Fixed an issue with the polar bear and mammoth movement where they were interacting with the ground incorrectly
  
• Fixed a visual issue where the snow on a roof didn’t have the effects of snow in the terrain
  
• Fixed a visual issue where the fireplace didn’t have flame particles
  
• Fixed a bug where the dehumidifier could only be deployed through the hotbar and not the inventory
  
• Fixed a bug where there was no stamina penalty for using a axe, knife or pickaxe as a client on someone else's prospect
  
• Fixed a visual error where some trapdoors and windows weren’t ‘flush’ with their wall/floor piece
  
• Fixed an issue where certain benches weren’t breaking into the correct materials when impacted by elemental damage
  
• Fixed a visual glitch where a player who respawned would be in the swimming animation in first person
  
• Fixed a bug where loading in consumable wood logs caused players to be unable to load in to an existing prospect
  
• Fixed a visual glitch where a players dropship would remain highlighted from a large distance
  
• Fixed the visual bug when carrying a chamois carcass
  
• Fixed a bug where the steel knife would do a spooky hover when dropped by the player (Happy Halloween!)
  

Helpful links: Reporting Bugs Discord Twitter

Happy gaming, Prospector!

- Liam

[h2]On Icarus always be prepared for change, Prospector.
[/h2]
Our first three Beta Weekends have absolutely exceeded our expectations. Nearly 200,000 people have played, many returning every Beta Weekend, for an average of 8 hours each. Many of you have sunk more than 20 hours into Icarus so far.

You, the players, have given us more insight, feedback, love and support than we could have ever imagined. We’ve aimed to reciprocate this in our work on the game, making an array of updates and changes to ensure each weekend is an improvement on the last. We’re feeling confident about our progress towards Icarus’ 1.0 launch.

With all these new insights, we have made a big decision that impacts the upcoming Beta Weekend (Oct 9th - 11th) and our eventual launch date that we want to explain below.

The key changes are:

• A new three-part Mission this Beta Weekend (9-11 October)
  
• An extra 24 hours on Monday for this Beta Weekend
  
• Desert Beta Weekend moved to 23-24 October
  
• All Beta Weekends rescheduled by two weeks
  
• Icarus’ scheduled launch date is now 4 December - but is still subject to change

[h2]Changes to our Beta Weekends Schedule[/h2]



We’re adding an extra Beta Weekend. This weekend (9-11 October) we’re going to send you on a three-part Mission to recover crashed bio-satellites and learn more about Icarus’ terraforming, rather than dispatching you to the Desert.

This epic three-part Mission spans the Forest biome, the northern Arctic biome as well as the newly-unlocked southern Arctic region, so we’re giving you an extra 24 hours to complete the Mission. That’s right, this Beta Weekend will continue until Monday evening (PDT).

This means the Desert biome will be unlocked in two weeks’ time, and the other Beta Weekends are also pushed back by two weeks. This lets us include more improvements to the Desert biome, based on the environmental tech art optimization lessons we learnt for the Arctic Beta Weekend. It’s a great example of how the focused Beta Weekends format lets us learn from one weekend and apply it to another.

Players loved the ‘hunt the Mammoth’ mission from the Arctic Beta Weekend, so we’re giving you more of it. Faction Missions, set by the various corporations and organizations operating on Icarus, with specific goals and rewards, are one type of Prospect that really showcases Icarus’ session-based gameplay. They provide a goal and purpose on top of our core survival experience.

We’ll share more details about the Mission Beta Weekend #4 with you tomorrow.

Expect more additions to the schedule in future. In the coming weeks we’ll announce details of the next Mission Beta Weekend (6-7 November) as well as plans and prizes for the Community Beta Weekend (20-21 November).



[h2]What this means for our 1.0 launch[/h2]

If you’ve done the math, you’ll know this pushes out our launch date from the date on our Steam Store page of November 20th, and we wanted to talk a bit about that here.

We’ve always maintained that we’d make any changes to our timeline necessary in order to deliver you a world-class game that we’re proud of. We have chosen to act on that promise here.

This means the new projected launch date is 4th December - although this could still change.

(This date may take a few days to update on our Steam Store page)

While we’re confident in our timeline, you can be the judge. There are two more months of Beta Weekends until then for you to measure our progress. Remember, during the Beta Weekends you can refund Icarus at any time. Once we launch, Steam’s usual two-hours refund policy applies.

Giving us this extra window of time allows us more room to polish all the new features and content we’ve been adding over the last few weekends. On top of this, an unexpected covid-19 lockdown here in New Zealand has put extra stress on our team and resources, and taking care of everyone's well being comes first for us. This has meant readjusting timelines, capacity and workloads.

And to cap it all off November 20th is a big day in gaming with the arrival of Battlefield 2042! While this title isn’t a direct competitor for our audience, it will take up a lot of airtime in the gaming world, so moving our launch outside this window is the best idea for us (and the players ultimately).

Delays are a common practice in gaming, as they are with any creative media. While we never take them lightly, they’re a decision we will confidently make in the interest of the game, the players and the team. The beauty of RocketWerkz self-publishing is that this decision is our own, and we will strive to communicate this to you at the earliest possible convenience.

Remember, there are some key features we are purposefully holding until our 1.0 launch. These include Exotics Missions, Outposts and the Workshop tech-tree in the orbital station. While some of you have already surpassed 20 hours in-game (wow!), there is so much content we’re yet to introduce.

[h2]How the Beta is Going[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Check out our latest Making of Icarus video to hear our views on how we think the Beta is going.

As we said earlier, our expectations for player numbers and feedback have been exceeded. The every-two-weekends format has worked really well for gathering player feedback and for our team. These regular updates are something we intend to continue post launch too. Icarus, both the planet and the game, will be a living and ever-evolving world.

- Liam

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Now that we’re nearly halfway through Icarus’ Beta Weekends, Game Runner Dean Hall reflects on how the process is going, including responding to the player community and the need to keep iterating.

Tech Lead Ben Carnall drops in to squash some bugs, and our Narrative Designer Henry shares the thinking behind Icarus’ backstory.

We’ve been filming the Making of Icarus series since November 2019. If you want to go behind-the-scenes of the game’s development and our thinking check out the complete series on YouTube.