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Coloniser News

Coloniser Reintroduction

Welcome, Colonisers!

The game is progressing well and with all of the things that are happening behind the scenes we’re making some adjustments. In particular we’ve decided to reformat how we post our patch notes and introduce proper dev blogs. These development blogs will show what we’re working on, the challenges the team is facing, and how we’re approaching these complications. Hopefully, this will give you and other players more insight into the game development process and allow you all to contribute observations and notes. We really value and appreciate your feedback and as much as possible try to consider it when we’re designing the game. But more about that in those updates.

If you are a new player that encountered our game by recommendation or accident, you probably have some questions. We’ll try to answer them below, so without further ado…

[h3]➤ What is Coloniser about?[/h3]
Coloniser is a massive persistent online RTS where survival is key. Progress through eras, forge alliances, and secure resources in an evolving alien world filled with danger, potential, and rich stories to uncover. Engage in large-scale warfare, leading epic battles for dominance!

[h3]➤ How would you explain the gameplay of Coloniser?[/h3]
Think RTS elements of Age of Empires 2, mixed with Rust survival elements and throw in multiplayer into that foundation and you get the jist of how the Coloniser will function.

[h3]➤ How will the online part function?[/h3]
Matches last up to 90-days and each server shows which day it is on and when the match will conclude. Players may join at any time if there is space available. If you are eliminated you may rejoin the server and start fresh.

[h3]➤ How many players does it support?[/h3]
Coloniser currently supports 16 players over 90 days in an RTS setting (with a higher number of controllable units), but we're working to increase this number to 90 players.

[h3]➤ 90 players over 90 days? Why so much and for so long?[/h3]
We believe that the PvP and team dynamics of very large servers, maps, and player counts will be a fun way to explore trade, diplomacy, and various tactics.

[h3]➤ Will new players be able to join mid game? How will that function when it comes to balancing?[/h3]
Players can join at any time after the server begins if there is room. You will start with the same basic level of resources each and every time you join. This can be tough if you start later on a server but there are spawn locations all over the maps, so if you are eliminated early you will respawn in another location. We also have a “Valor” mechanism we are introducing shortly and that will help players in older servers who are eliminated to rebuild a bit quicker.

[h3]➤ How will you prevent cheating and other potential explorations that some players may attempt?[/h3]
We prefer to leave the game experience as open-ended as possible and we will have only limited anti-cheat at release.

[h3]➤ Will it have a single player campaign?[/h3]
During the Early Access phase, we plan to have a small single player campaign that will function as an introduction to the game's systems and mechanics. We will introduce a full campaign for each of the tribes after Early Access.

[h3]➤ When is the game launching?[/h3]
We're still working on making a solid foundation for the game. That, along with the player's feedback, will influence the Early Access release. We'll update everyone once we have a date for it. Playtesting is available now and all the way through Early Access.

[h3]➤ For how long will the Coloniser be in Early Access for?[/h3]
Coloniser will be in Early Access for at least a year. During that time and depending on the features we implement, this will help us determine when the Early Access period will end.

[h3]➤ What languages will the game support upon its release?[/h3]
At launch, Coloniser will support English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, and Polish language. Additional languages will be added after Early Access.

[h3]➤ How much will Coloniser cost?[/h3]
We'll announce pricing once we get closer to the official release. Right now we are focused on making a good game.

And that would be all the important stuff for now. Did we miss anything important? Let us know in the comments.

Also, join our Discord as it is the fastest way to get all the necessary information and talk to the devs. We also have a Facebook, Reddit, X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram and Youtube account. It would help us a lot if you would follow us there and spread the word about Coloniser - we’re here to stay and create a wonderful community.

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Cantos Games

Battle and Visuals Patch

General Notes

The servers were full for nearly a week after this most recent patch. We tried to get more up, but "unfortunately" we had more people playing then we anticipated. We are working a massive update to our server system (waitlist, higher player counts, faster load times, servers with friends, etc) and will share more soon on when it will be available.

[h2]What's New in this Patch?[/h2]
Huge changes to our combat system and unit stats that more effectively balances the different unit classes and roughly "doubles" the length of battles. Walls are also more effective and much more difficult to destroy without siege.

Note: As part of the balancing unit stats including healthpoints are much higher then they will be long-term. We just have them at the higher numbers to expedite balance testing.

[h2]Feature / Balance Changes[/h2]
  • Minimum damage reduced from 5 to 1.
  • Attack and armor stats adjusted for several units—primarily Bladeguards and Sentinels—to reduce overpowering with the new damage formula.
  • Military buildings still retain higher resistance, addressing community feedback.
  • Catapult and Ballista: Adjusted attack, area damage, and attack speed to rebalance their effectiveness.
  • All units’ health doubled (+100%) to lengthen combat duration, encouraging more tactical engagements.
  • Visual reworks complete on most Era One buildings.
  • Arrow projectile visuals have been updated once more.


[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
  • Numerous projectile-related bugs have been resolved.
  • Health bars have been partially updated; more improvements coming soon.
  • Previews for new buildings have been fixed.
  • Stronghold material assignation corrected.
  • Line of sight corrected for several units.
  • Collider sizes updated for all animals.
  • Health bars realigned for all units.
  • UI tweaks: Multiple small interface updates and polish.
  • Attack animations that were previously cut short are now fully playing.
  • Projectile VFX tweaked for a more natural appearance.
  • Colonist’s first attack no longer gets cut short.

April Patch - New Projectiles & Visuals

General Notes
We're making great progress on several impactful system changes that will gradually start to roll out into the Playtest these next several weeks and onwards. This patch includes improved projectiles (more below).

[h2]Gameplay & Mechanics[/h2]
  • New Projectile System: Added non-homing projectiles with group and area-of-effect (splash) damage. (note: temporary vfx for splash projectiles)
  • Projectile Pathing: Updated to appear more natural and consistent.
  • Improved Animation Systems: Timing and Sequence Adjustments


[h2]Visuals & UI[/h2]
  • Updated Homestead Visuals
  • Updated Turret Visuals
  • Enemy Healthbars: Now visually respond to incoming damage.


[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
  • Unit Cancellation: Fixed bugs related to unit cancellation and receiving your resources back.
  • Farm Animations: Colonists inside farms now use correct animations.
  • Healing Animations: Should now play correctly.
  • Scipio / Justiciar Animations: Gathering animations are now functioning as intended.
  • Death Animations: Should now trigger and play properly.
  • Attack Animations: Fixed issue where animations were getting cut short.
  • SFX Bugs: Minor sound effect bugs have been fixed.
  • Typos: A large number of small text/tooltip typos have been corrected.

April Patch and Bug Fixes

General Notes
Playtest is still going full swing so please join the waitlist for access. We've paused the Demo in order to get the newest updates delivered to the playtest quicker. Our team has been working hard on the feedback from Steam Next Fest and we've started to push out updates to address those items. Some of the smaller visual/performance tweaks will show up this month, but larger items like the new server waitlist/higher player counts will take more time.

This is another smaller patch with minor visual improvements, notably to farms, and bug fixes. Our next patch will be out early this week with several more noticeable changes.

[h3]Improvements/Adjustments[/h3]
  • New Farms (note animation needs continued work)
  • Improved Stronghold design with additional details
  • All buildings with modest texture improvements
  • Added some new main menu sprites


[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
  • Fixed an issue where players could get stuck connecting when the server was full
  • Non-aggresive and domestic animals are stuck in a looping death animation
  • Text for selecting multiple buildings has a grammar issue
  • Debug text #SEARCH_OPTION and #HOME is visible in the menu
  • Chat lacks option to send a direct message to other player
  • Audio sliders are reset upon entering the Settings menu for the second time or restarting the game
  • The glow effect is too slow for Stone, Food & Ore resources
  • HP bar for animals is missing

March Playtesting Patch

Note: We will begin moving people over from the Demo to our Playtesting next week when we have our next updates. We will pause the demo sometime next month so we can test further updates on Playtesting (We have room for everybody). Atfter we pause the Demo will re-release it this Summer once we have our next big updates with all the Feedback we've recently collected.

General Notes

We've spent the last few weeks adjusting our roadmap and planning some more big overhauls to our backend code. In particular we're working to make big improvements to our tech tree, player count, and combat/animations that require some big changes to our code. This is in addition to a fairly extensive number of things we're working on in parallel (extra tribes, and so on).

These are really big system changes and are well underway. Some of these improvements will begin showing up in our bi-weekly playtesting patches (like this one) and others will arrive towrads the end of this rebuild. We'll update our public roadmap as that occurs although we're still largely on track for everything we've planned.

[h2]Adjustments/New Features[/h2]
  • Multiple loading screen tips now display while the game loads.
  • Resource deposit notifications/visuals now use a pooling system for better performance
    Slight In-Game UI Tweaks


[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
  • Fog of War (FOW) multiple issues have been resolved
  • GPU Animation System has been improved with some bugs no longer happening
  • Animal walking animations are now working
  • Steam authentication issue has been resolved
  • The start-up loading screen issue where players could get stuck has been fixed
  • House placement bugs have been resolved — houses can now be placed freely again
  • Multiple tech and hitbox issues resolved.
  • UI sometimes showing incorrect resource data
  • Line of Sight bugs from killing domestic animals or placing gates (FoW)
  • Invisible buildings after rejoining AWS sessions (connected to FoW)
  • Units losing tech bonuses after rejoining servers
  • Reappearing researched techs in menus
  • Loading screen hang-ups
  • Farm animation missing in Era 1
  • Construction HP bars not disappearing
  • Camera and MiniMap bugs
  • Steam and non-Steam account login errors