RimWorld News

RimWorld Anomaly can now be set to run as normal background horror

RimWorld's latest DLC, Anomaly, is a transformative expansion that turns the game into a nexus of horror. It's an intense experience that differs substantially from the base game as your colonists fight off paranoia, invisible monsters, brain parasites, and more. It culminates in a new endgame centered on a monolith that makes the world go insane. However, now there's a way to dial that back and play a more "normal" RimWorld campaign with some of the new elements and events woven into the story.

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New ambient horror setting and tribal Anomaly support

Hi everyone!

We're here today with a new feature update to Anomaly. Today's update adds a new way to play with all Anomaly content threaded into the entire game, instead of being linked strictly to the monolith quest. This resembles more how other expansions all interact together continuously over the course of a long game. No need for Anomaly to take over an entire playthrough!

We’ve also added some new economic pathways to make it more feasible to progress through Anomaly content as a low-tech tribal colony.

Take a look:

[h2]Ambient horror mode[/h2]
Now, when you start the game, you can select from three ways to integrate Anomaly into your game:

Standard with monolith: The original Anomaly experience. Anomaly threats are linked directly to the monolith.
Ambient horror: In this new mode, the monolith does not appear. Instead, Anomaly threats are threaded into the rest of the game. All Anomaly threats can occur, even the most dangerous ones. Anomaly threats are relatively uncommon compared to normal raids by default, but this can be adjusted before and during the game. This is a good mode if you want to enrich your story without Anomaly becoming the focus. (Note that since there is no monolith in this mode, the monolith endgame won’t occur.)
Disabled: Anomaly threats do not occur, and there’s no monolith. Anomaly tools like security doors, incinerators, hellcat rifles, turret packs, and serums are still in the game.

Study efficiency setting: We added a "study efficiency" slider to the difficulty settings. Higher settings give more research points each time you study an entity. By default, study efficiency is better at lower difficulties, so even when there are fewer entities to capture, you can still make steady progress. As always, you can customize study efficiency how you like, including changing it during a run.

[h2]Better support for tribal playthroughs[/h2]
In previous versions, it was hard to progress through Anomaly content as a tribal. We’ve added new economic pathways to use for players who want to stay low-tech:

Bioferrite extraction research project. We've added a new research project that allows doctors to extract bioferrite directly from captured entities without a 'bioferrite harvester'. This is less efficient, but doesn't require electricity.
Bioferrite can be obtained from harbinger trees. Chopping down harbinger trees will give twisted flesh and bioferrite, adding a new way to obtain bioferrite without capturing entities.
Updated research tree to not require electricity. We've rearranged parts of the Anomaly research tree to allow researching more projects without electricity.
Some Anomaly items can be made at crafting spots. The following items can now be made at a crafting spot, as well as the bioferrite shaper: Ceremonial hood, nerve spiker, ritual mask, ghoul plating, ghoul barbs.

Note: For existing saves, you will need to unlock bioferrite extraction, even if you’ve previously researched bioferrite harvesting.

[h2]Thanks to all[/h2]

Big thanks to everyone who has given feedback! We're always crawling the subreddit and Discords, so whatever you said, there’s a decent chance one of us was lurking and taking notes.

There’s always fun discussion going on on the RimWorld subreddit. And if you’d like to help us test new builds and give feedback, join us on the Official RimWorld Development Discord.

And as always, if you like, please review Anomaly on Steam! (Expansions don’t get many reviews since there’s no button prompt in the Steam library.)

- Ty

[h2]Changelog[/h2]

Added new Anomaly settings dialog to the storyteller selection page.
Added a new "Ambient horror" Anomaly playstyle mode.
Added a new "Disabled" Anomaly playstyle mode.
Added a tribal method for bioferrite extraction.
Harbinger trees now give bioferrite instead of wood when harvested.
Draw "Ineffective" label over psychically deaf targets when targeting with disruptor flares.
Blood rage at 100% now forces animals to be awake.
Removed entity conditions for horror tension music.
Added field in race props to generate unnatural corpse defs.
Pit gates, pit burrows, and fleshmass hearts will now destroy and refund adjacent buildings on emergence.
Reduced the max targetable body size for devourer's leap to prevent them from eating things like centipedes.
Clarify text in regards to the revenant.
Revenant balancing: slightly reduce health, and increase min population requirement, as well as min refire days.
Skipping revenant target away will now interrupt the hypnosis.
Show the game conditions for death pall, gray pall, and blood rain.
Allow death pall and gray pall to overlap with blood rain.
Ancient beds are no longer colored to suit their role.
Pyromaniacs now consider hellcats to be incendiary.
Fix: Some names were missing.
Fix: Babies spawning with ghoul haircuts.
Fix: Incorrect dates on ideoligion rituals.
Fix: Ghoul hediffs being removed on resurrection in some cases.
Fix: Grouped behavior of atmospheric heater gizmo not working correctly.
Fix: Mutant status not being cleared when rising shambler killed.
Fix: Gorehulk and devourer lack manipulation-affecting limbs, making them weaker than intended in melee.
Fix: Nociosphere not returning to sent from location.
Fix: Ritual spectate side not respected.
Fix: MessageRevenantHeard translation key is forced lowercase.
Fix: Sanguophage reimplant reward not working in some circumstances.
Fix: Cultist abduction ritual continues despite missing caster in some circumstances.
Fix: Ghoul in caravan causes errors on the assign drug policy UI.
Fix: Psychic bond between two pawns who have psychic bonding gene don't create bond on romance success.
Fix: Ghouls getting drug dependency hediffs from implanted xenogerms.
Fix: Labyrinth exit not always accessible.
Fix: Corpses being debug spawnable.
Fix: Revenant hypnosis copying to duplicates.
Fix: Pawns try to exit pocket maps via the sides.
Fix: Clarify language around "Entity will escape soon" warning.
Fix: Nociosphere doesn't adapt to EMP stuns.
Fix: Creepjoiner babies are set to the wrong PawnKindDef.
Fix: Downed mechs were not carried out of pit gates when using exit dialog.
Fix: Metalhorror defenders spawning on unwalkable cells.
Fix: Chaos skip able to send pawns into fogged areas.
Fix: Inaccurate goodwill costs on comms console dialog.
Fix: Mechlink is kept on corpse raised.
Fix: Several mech implants are duplicatable.
Fix: Combat music playing when no colonists are present in the undercave.
Fix: Dryads getting blood rage from blood rain.
Fix: Fleshsacks act like embrasures.
Fix: Ghouls count toward ideoligion diversity thoughts.
Fix: Unintended prearrival infection pathways.
Fix: Monoliths spawned via dev tools not linking to quest.
Fix: Raid source sites getting removed upon leaving map without clearing enemies.
Fix: Draw fleshbeasts not working in caves.
Fix: Ghouls getting heart attacks.
Fix: Metalhorror inspection returning an empty letter if already discovered.
Fix: Harbinger trees not correctly consuming corpses with no nutrition left.
Fix: Harbinger trees able to consume things on shelves.
Fix: Turret packs could be thrown onto trees.
Fix: Pawns tending others not being interrupted if the target leaves.
Fix: Performance issue when selecting lots of animal beds.
Fix: Meditation offset lines are drawn between the building and itself when being reinstalled.
Fix: Starvation alert not updating for pawns in caravans.
Fix: Manhunter_Bloodrain message repeating too frequently and unable to be translated correctly.
Fix: Void structures spawning in front of monolith.
Fix: Ghouls aren't tendable.
Fix: Mutant skill disabling causing issues with various mods.
Fix: If no colonists are spawned on the map, venerated message shows when designating animals to hunt.
Fix: Revenant trance wasn't cleared if revenant was killed after attacking while stunned.
Fix: Error when hypnotized pawn is despawned.
Fix: Typo in ritual thought.
Fix: Sculpture graphic index not maintained if style was manually set in bill.
Fix: Error on growth moment dialog.
Fix: Backstory has incorrect work disables.
Fix: World pawns with duplicate sickness not dying.
Fix: Revenant progressedLetters fail to mention firefoam.
Fix: Right side of dev bar blocking colonist bar clicks.
Fix: Struck ore message look target lost after save load.
Fix: Mote attempted to spawn on null map with psychic ritual.
Fix: Attack jobs getting cancelled against faction animals.
Fix: Psychic ritual invokers being killed not canceling cultist psychic rituals.
Fix: "Form Caravan" gizmo missing on certain maps after being settled.
Fix: Constructed TargetInfo with null map.
Fix: Pack animal graphics not always being invalidated.
Fix: Typo in golden cube description.
Fix: Pawns popping out of beds if force tended.
Fix: Duplicator obelisk activation giving hostiles duplication sickness.
Fix: Needs not being updated after resurrection.
Fix: Situational music not always respecting volume settings.
Fix: Some creepjoiner downsides occurring when enslaved.
Fix: Farm animals attacking pawns without lords.
Fix: Berserk pulse working on mech bosses.
Fix: Lifters not able to empty bioferrite harvesters.

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Rimworld Anomaly is dialing back on the horror in new update

The newly arrived Rimworld Anomaly expansion, which transforms the iconic colony sim and management game into a more horror-centric experience, is already off to a great start, racking up an initial 90% Steam review score alongside the base game's mammoth 98% rating. Lead developer Tynan Sylvester of Ludeon Studios says the team is "loving your Anomaly stories," but has tweaked the balance slightly in a new update aimed at helping the horror side blend more seamlessly into the core game, with options to tweak your preferences for how much you'd like to see.

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Integrating Anomaly more with the rest of the game

Hi everyone - Ty here.

We’re loving your Anomaly stories! Please keep it up with the duplicated babies, shambler babies, and gray labyrinth baby drama. This expansion explores new ground creatively for RimWorld and it’s been incredibly gratifying to see people having new kinds of stories in the game.

Releases like this bring massive amounts of feedback, which is always incredibly valuable for us to understand how the game is playing and what people want. This time around, many players have said they’d like to be able to mix Anomaly content more into the rest of the game so it feels like less of a self-contained experience, and more like something that integrates into a normal playthrough.

Originally, we had Anomaly throw a ton of content at you guys because we wanted to be sure people would experience all the new stuff and see how much was really there. We may have pushed a bit too far there - Anomaly has tons of content and exposing it all too fast was saturating the experience. This is great for a certain type of intense, focused playthrough, but the game should also support other playstyles.

Today’s update addresses that with some key changes and new features:

Anomaly content is less dominant by default while the monolith is active. You’ll see more incidents from the base game and other expansions now.
You can customize how Anomaly-focused you want your playthrough to be. We added sliders to the game settings that let you choose how much you want Anomaly horror events to dominate the game. If you want it to be pure horror when the monolith is active, you can. If you want the horror to be a light sprinkle on top of the rest of your RimWorld, you can do that. You can alter these settings any time in the options menu by opening the storyteller settings (and this is possible on games started in previous versions).
You don’t need to see every entity on every playthrough. We reduced the number of entities you must interact with before advancing the monolith. You still can wait to see every entity, but it’s your choice now. This spreads the experience further over more playthroughs, if you choose.
We've updated the Anomaly scenario to start with three researchers and a ghoul (up from two). This gets you into the meat of the game quicker when using this scenario.

Note: If you'd like to go back to the pre-update Anomaly incident rates, just change your "Anomaly threats (active)" to 45% (up from the new default 30%).
To get to this setting, go to Menu/Options/Gameplay/Storyteller Settings and it's under Custom/Anomaly.

We’re making other ongoing minor changes as well - see the full changelog below for details.

We’re still watching and considering other changes, so please keep telling your stories! And thanks for your effort in writing useful and rich feedback.

If you’d like to help test or report bugs, please join the official RimWorld Development Discord.

Join us on Reddit to discuss the update here.

Also, please don't hesitate to review Anomaly on Steam! (Expansions don’t get many reviews since there’s no button prompt in the Steam library.)

Thanks all,
Ty
[h2]Changelog[/h2]
- Added storyteller options to increase or reduce inactive and active presence of Anomaly events.
- Reduced entity codex entry count required for monolith level 3 from 17 -> 12.
- Drastically reduce the chance of getting a faction leader from skip abduction.
- Reduced metal horror infection chance when an infected doctor performs surgery.
- Skulls can now be consumed by harbinger trees.
- Minor optimizations for food searching.
- Added safety checks to RoofCollapserImmediate to prevent out of bounds.
- Reduce revenant flammability to prevent it being trivialized by fire.
- Increase the upper end of blood rain duration for both the incident and psychic ritual.
- Added missing default constructor to PawnRenderNode_Apparel.
- Added some null checks to getting invisible versions of materials.
- Prevent strange signal quest from firing if the monolith has been disrupted.
- Removed awoken corpses from scenario editor.
- Clarify that ghouls created by the ghoul infusion operation aren't hostile.
- Added custom descriptions to the diagnosed (hidden) versions of organ decay and crumbling mind to make them less confusing.
- Remove min threat points for obelisk incidents to allow discovering more incidents with low colony points. Increase the earliest day that they'll occur to compensate.
- Update The Anomaly scenario to start with three (up from two) researchers and a ghoul.
- Clarify Anomaly threat settings tooltip.
- Adjusted active monolith threat frequency calculations to allow for 100% anomaly incidents in all active levels if desired.
- Added a dev tool to force end revenant hypnosis.
- Removed "Simulate not owning X" options to prevent mods from disabling expansions in users' games.
- Reduced entity count required to advance to waking monolith level from 8 to 7 to avoid softlocking in ice sheet biomes.
- Pocket maps count towards the wealth of their parent map.
- Corpses now have a 6 hour window before they'll resurrect in a death pall.
- Improved target highlighting for incinerator and beam verbs.
- Updated player creative rewards content.

[h3]Fixes[/h3]
- Fix: Cultist faction not generating with their preset ideoligion on older saves.
- Fix: Drafted tend only tends one injury.
- Fix: Pawns can teleport into very dangerous labyrinth rooms.
- Fix: Error when trying to debug spawn an unnatural corpse.
- Fix: Corpse unburied mood not being applied if in stockpile.
- Fix: Sightstealers won't attack colony mechs.
- Fix: Shamblers sometimes get stuck in rising state.
- Fix: Strange signal quest not ending if the map is removed.
- Fix: Revenants can be infinitely studied by killing them then taking their spine to a holding platform.
- Fix: Kidnappers won't try to dig their way out if they get stuck.
- Fix: Ideology members count does not increase on prison release until save/reload.
- Fix: Crash trying to use psychic slaughter on escaping entity in niche circumstances.
- Fix: Resurrection serum fails to draw mote after pawn is devoured.
- Fix: Typo "burner charges" -> "burner charge".
- Fix: Twisted meat is allowed in hoppers by default.
- Fix: Pawn growth points and vatGrowTicks aren't copied when a child is duplicated.
- Fix: Abductor obelisk duplicating pawns.
- Fix: ShipJob error with null ship.
- Fix: Removing an ideology role via meme does not recalculate disabled work types.
- Fix: Recipes not setting random styles correctly.
- Fix: HediffComp.NotifyPawnKilled passing in instigator rather than target.
- Fix: Error trying to duplicate pawn in some circumstances.
- Fix: Duplicates have royalty title of original.
- Fix: Typo in dreadmeld discovery message.
- Fix: Head apparel is using the body mesh set instead of the head mesh set.
- Fix: Icons in FloatMenuOption do not scale with text size.
- Fix: Duplicate translation entries for crawling inspect strings.
- Fix: Duplicated pawns will be the mother of the child if the original was the mother.
- Fix: Messages about cube withdrawal for gone temp pawns.
- Fix: Errors while mouse cursor holds a jumppack jump order while pawn is flying.
- Fix: Rare edge case where a worshipful village spawns without a terminal due to lack of room size.
- Fix: Inconsistencies with shambler tending rules.
- Fix: Raised shamblers getting bestowing ceremony quests.
- Fix: Revenant hypnosis not wearing off in specific circumstances.
- Fix: Typo in hate chant letter.
- Fix: Peeking with an incinerator could sometimes set the shooter on fire.
- Fix: Babies could have void curiosity.
- Fix: Containment tooltip flickering when changing.
- Fix: Situational pathfinding error when studying.
- Fix: Temp quest pawn corpses counting as colonist corpses after save/load
- Fix: Error on taking ghoul on caravan regarding drug policy.
- Fix: Ghoul tried to be a part of a marriage ceremony.
- Fix: Harbinger stump descriptions mention wood.
- Fix: Error with psychic harmonizer.
- Fix: Analysis projects would throw an error if attempted after finishing event.
- Fix: Conversion warning from prisoner guest tab.
- Fix: Refueling campfire canceling dance party.
- Fix: Nociospheres sending unstable letters after already departing.
- Fix: Books in scenario parts not being initialized.
- Fix: Colonists unable to take items in containers into portals.
- Fix: Bioferrite not showing up in ingredients list for ceremonial hood.
- Fix: Typos in backstory.
- Fix: Carry to biosculptor pod job fails on colonist prisoners.
- Fix: Starting animal edit interface not displaying correctly on large UI scales.
- Fix: Performance drop calculating containment strength for outdoor holding spot/platform.
- Fix: Analyzable gizmo disabled if no research bench available.
- Fix: Void provocation unable to fire harbinger tree sprout incident.
- Fix: Error when rendering belt node with null wornGraphicData.
- Fix: Duplicates' unborn babies not inheriting source unborn baby's xenogenes.
- Fix: Caravan ambushes ending despite colonists having death refusal.
- Fix: Prisoners getting both “monster by bed” and “imprisoned with entity” mood debuffs.
- Fix: Creepjoiners can be enslaved without responding.
- Fix: Returning from labyrinth not using the correct map when selecting the return cell.
- Fix: Revenant causing permanent stun.
- Fix: Shard inhibitors can be rotated.
- Fix: Desiccated deer artwork had incorrect scaling for North/South directions.
- Fix: Colored text broken in mod config for some translations.
- Fix: Error when targeting empty colonist bar entry.
- Fix: Monolith spawning too close to geysers in rare circumstances.
- Fix: Player shamblers show up in the schedule tab.
- Fix: Able to order monolith activation when there is no path.
- Fix: Cubes enthralling pawns on different maps/caravans.
- Fix: Nociosphere not returning to its original location on activity activation.
- Fix: Metalhorrors not emerging once enough of your colonists are infected.
- Fix: Deathless pawns dying without correct injuries from failed surgery.
- Fix: Child shamblers can arrive with children disabled in storyteller settings.
- Fix: Child ghouls causing errors on attempting to get body graphic.
- Fix: Chaos skipping into a fogged area doesn't clear fog.
- Fix: Incinerators with shield belts cause "shield user has ranged weapon" alert.
- Fix: Error when wastepack infestation occurs near map edge, attempting to spawn outside of map.
- Fix: Custom xenotypes lose their custom icon when duplicated with obelisk.
- Fix: Gender typo in creepjoiner letter.
- Fix: Text formatting for nociosphere gizmo inconsistent.