The Isle News

Dinner for four.

Experience the shift to Unreal Engine 5 with the overdue 6.5 update. Discover the ravenous appetite of the Ceratosaurus, a predator and scavenger capable of gorging itself on decaying corpses to inflict devastating bacteria-infected wounds. Immerse yourself in the aquatic realm alongside the Beipiaosaurus, as it breaches the water's surface with grace and dives for prey along the riverbeds. Unite your flock and sprint across the plains as the Gallimimus, the embodiment of speed and finesse. But beware, when night falls the horde stirs. Troodons are cunning predators armed with venomous strikes that leave their prey vulnerable.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

If you encounter client performance issues, it's highly recommended that you wipe your Config folder.

1. If running The Isle, exit the game.
   
2. Open File Explorer.
   
3. Click the address bar at the top.
   
4. Type %localappdata% then press Enter.
   
5. Find "TheIsle" folder. Open it.
   
6. Open the "Saved" folder.
   
7. Delete the "Config" folder. Note: This will reset any of your custom settings to their defaults.
   
8. Start the game.
   

[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Upgraded project to Unreal Engine 5
  
• Converted Spiro from World Composition to World Partition (for the first and last time)
  
• Added playable omnivores category
  
• Added beipiaosaurus as a playable class
  
• Added ceratosaurus as a playable class
  
• Added gallimimus as a playable class
  
• Added troodon as a playable class
  
• Added foraging mechanics to beipiaosaurus and gallimimus
  
• Added unique bleed modifiers to all attacks
  
• Added dryosaurus dodge "charges" instead of consuming its stamina
  
• Added the option for server admins to enable/disable certain species via the admin panel. This will save automatically to the server config files and can also be adjusted there
  
• Added replay system. F2 ingame to start/stop recording on servers that have the system enabled (bAllowReplay=true in Game.ini). Replays must be a minimum of 5 seconds and cannot be viewed until 30 minutes has passed
  
• Added new graphics settings menu
  
• Added new skin colors for carnotaurus / hypsilophodon / pteranodon / omniraptor / tenontosaurus
  
• Added support for individual leg fracture regen so it heals only if resting
  
• Added sounds to hypsilophodon hatching animation
  
• Added new deinosuchus fast waterwalking animations
  
• Added ability to hear vocals in spectator mode
  
• Added blunt impact sound to pachycephalosaurus' alt attack
  
• Added diet bleed resist to malnutrition.
  
• Added pteranodon left and right skimming animation when turning
  
• Added new omniraptor lunged animation loop
  
• Added fall damage to mud
  
• Added camera offset when resting/sleeping
  
• Added red color to a couple debuff diet status
  
• Added grab hint for gore
  
• Added a different hint for not being able to swallow if the amount of food would cause you to vomit
  
• Added small and tiny jump foley sounds
  
• Added support for different, front/back footprint scales, made tenotosaurus front footprint slightly bigger
  
• Added boar pinned and bucking sounds
  
• Added LODs to gore meshes
  
• Added new birds erupt wingbeats sound
  
• Added physics to tail when poucing a large target
  
• Added new dirt, mud, sand and grass vfx
  
• Added new hint for grabbing corpses underwater for deinosuchus
  
• Added scalable body splash sfx
  
• Added corpse dragging sfx
  
• Added new swim fast and slow water vfx
  
• Added a modifier for characters to have a different carry weight threshold
  
• Added physics sleep system to gore for performance
  
• Added new sounds to juvenile tenontosaurus drink animations
  
• Added new carnivore grab soundcues
  
• Added carnivore grab notifies to drag grab animations
  
• Added "hold" to accept group call message
  
• Added pounce points to compsognathus AI
  
• Added condition to use high eat animations when eating fruits from the tree
  
• Added condition to stop eating if corpse is dragged away
  
• Added seaturtle animations and setup new movement
  
• Added timer using notify state on grab animations for herbivores
  
• Added pounce points to crabs and frogs. Added their missing animations
  
• Added missing animations to goats and rabbits
  
• Added sound for animals passing through most types of foliage
  
• Added "commands" to RCON command list
  

[h2]Enhancements[/h2]

• Updated all carnivore diets
  
• Big improvements to spatialisation on both dinosaur and animal vocals
  
• Setup new nightvision range values due to Spiro lighting changes
  
• Made alt attacks be used by default when not sprinting, added settings toggle
  
• Made deinosuchus water sense ignore underwater characters
  
• Prevented deinosuchus from sprinting when holding a character with its lunge on land
  
• Made salt lick remove vomit debuff over time instead of all at once. Allowed input release to interrupt the ability
  
• Enabled head tracking while carrying something
  
• Updated player spawns and plant spawns
  
• Disabled charging for hatchling carnotaurus
  
• Improved juvenile carnotaurus run footstep sync
  
• Tweaked tenotosaurus pounced animation sounds
  
• Removed tail drag sound from juvenile deinosuchus run
  
• Corrected stegosaurus walk and trot footstep sync
  
• Allowed dryosaurus dodge when carrying something
  
• Increased boars aggressiveness for relationship algorithm
  
• Increased scavenger AI spawn range, AI improvements to boar
  
• Adjusted bucking stamina damage to decrease based on pouncer growth
  
• Improved alt bite sound sync and improved broadcast and death sound
  
• Set deinosuchus to be knockdown immune
  
• Changes to pachycephalosaurus headbutt regarding head fracture against carnotaurus charge
  
• Greatly reduced the wind sway on vines
  
• Disabled spawning footprints when in mud
  
• Adjusted lunge location point and rotation
  
• Adjusted carnotaurus and tenotosaurus pounce sockets
  
• Prevented players from pouncing a target that is being lunged
  
• Reduced air control based on scale
  
• Disabled pteranodon latching when not flying
  
• Changed dryosaurus rest end transition blend
  
• Added proportional food value to represent bone amount when corpse is swallowed
  
• Made tenontosaurus tail attack hitbox extend below the ground to make the attack more reliable
  
• Adjustments to sounds being occluded by water
  
• Updated and add a few more pounce points on dinos
  
• Adjusted growth based gravity scaling
  
• Adjusted heart and intestine ragdoll settings
  
• Changed respawn values for mango and coconut trees
  
• Adjusted carno charge hitbox width
  
• Adjusted deinosuchus swallow curve
  
• Slide dust and blood drip vfx updated
  
• Updated pteranodon run cycle UI animation to match ingame animation
  
• Adjusted underwater ocean ambience volume
  
• Increased schooling fish hit chance to 100%
  
• Updated deer vocal sounds
  
• Updated hypsilophodon and compsognathus ragdolls
  
• Adjusted deer vocals volume, adjusted footsteps volume
  
• Improved audio latency settings, increased reverb amount for medium animal call attenuation
  
• Improved drink vocals
  
• Improved pteranodon wing flaps velocity base volume, pitch modulation and notify sync
  
• Made lunge clear target value if hitting a target that was already lunging or lunged
  
• Made root plants expire after a while once dug up and not eaten
  
• Boar aggression range slightly increased
  
• Adjusted footstep soundclasses volume
  
• Changed blend in amount for lunge shore animation
  
• Improved medium breath sounds and medium flesh bite sound
  
• Made salt licking loop the animation
  
• Adjusted volume and blend of drag sound cues
  
• Made full body to partial body animation transition slower, especially for quadrupeds
  
• Edits to character shader instances
  
• Forced organs to rotten on spawn if source corpse is rotten
  
• Changed headbutt launch direction calculation
  
• Made death sounds to set age parameter
  
• Disabled some eating hints for hatchlings
  
• Made blood clot UI more obvious
  
• Increased volume of omniraptor begging sounds
  
• Corrected Omni adult bite sound pitch
  
• Improved sounds on all hatching animations
  
• Adjusted boar movement
  
• Changed attenuation on boar attack
  
• Made carnotaurus not a cannibal anymore
  
• Prevented hatchlings from catching schooling fish, unless deinosuchus
  
• Prevented grab hint if skeleton is underwater
  
• Disabled hypsilophodon spit for hatchlings
  
• Made lunge and ram not stagger targets
  
• Reduced knockdown duration from 2.1s to 1s
  
• Adjusted blood percentage icon
  
• Updated deer animation system
  
• Slowed deer AI sprint speed
  
• Underwater post process material changes
  
• Made latched pouncer to disengage if target is pinned by another pouncer
  
• Made sure logout does not call load title map more than once
  
• Lowered Cinematic settings to Epic.
  
• Improvements to lunge floor detection on release a player
  
• Reduced volume of medium body splash sound
  
• Improved deinosuchus grab sounds and jaw sound size scaling
  
• Setup lunge animation for deer AI
  
• Improvements to anti hack
  
• Improved carnotaurus charge breaths
  
• Adjusted boar pounced animation
  
• Improved tiny and small footstep attenuations
  
• Updated skin preview map
  
• Adjusted logic for deciding normal or high eating animation
  
• Adjusted tiny footsteps volume curve
  
• Balanced crossfades, modulations and volume of all footsteps
  
• Finalized frog animations
  
• Improved pachycephalosaurus vs pachycephalosaurus headbutt sound attenuation
  
• Made weight calculation to increase stamina cost of pounced target bucking while having pouncers latched
  
• Disabled headtracking during blinded animation
  
• Improved physics when chunks are dropped
  
• Added more pitch variation to deinosuchus' regular pain sound
  
• Adjusted levels of land body impact sounds
  
• Made all hatchling/juvenile attacks use smaller attenuation
  
• Pitch and volume adjustments to herbivore diet sfx
  
• Updated stegosaurus grazing animation
  
• Adjusted deinosuchus bite and swallow volume
  
• Made some minor corrections to pitch modulations for some drag loops
  
• Made all juvenile sounds use smaller attenuation relative to adult
  
• Adjusted pitch scaling for tiny sit and stand foley sounds
  
• Improved tiny and small footsteps volume and crossfade balance over growth for medium/large creatures (e.g deinosuchus)
  
• Reduced food amount received from schooling fish as deinosuchus
  
• Made lunge speed boost only constant if holding the button
  
• Set non-water footsteps to be occluded in water
  
• Improved some deinosuchus, carnotaurus and modular grab/swallowing sounds
  
• Changed hypsilophodon spit attenuation
  
• Reduced volume of old sounds used for nest building
  
• Minor tweaks to swallow sounds
  
• Improvements to grab sounds
  
• Adjusted instant movement stop when water boosting hit a shoreline
  
• Updated river and swamp underwater materials
  
• Improved deino submerging animation, swimming angle after stopping movement
  
• Made lunge water boost speed to last as input is hold.
  
• Adjusted small and medium gore sounds
  
• Increased occlusion filter frequency on a few attenuations
  
• Made characters uncrouch in knee deep water
  
• All footsteps vfx set to render distance
  
• Adjusted math for eat low/mid and high animations
  
• Adjusted spectator mode teleport to be more accurate
  
• Adjusted lunge collision trace
  
• Adjusted South East location on Spiro to be closer to swamp
  
• Small change to fruits base to avoid them despawning early
  
• Amphibian AI now wander if they are not near water
  
• Reduced scavenger AI spawn distances
  
• Adjusted seaturtle pounce point and added missing animations
  
• Changed frog idle anim to still for corpse, dragged and lunged
  
• RCON now accepts multiple packets on the same connection
  
• Increasd RCON buffer size
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

[h3]Global Mechanics[/h3]

Staggers

Staggers removed from all attacks except the following:

• Tenontosaurus tail slam
  
• Tenontosaurus rear kick
  
• Carnotaurus charge
  
• Pachycephalosaurus 360 attack
  

Knockdown

• Knockdown recovery time reduced across the board
  

Night Vision

• Night vision ranges all adjusted across the board
  

Diets

• All carnivore diets updated with the addition of the new characters
  

[h3]Carnotaurus[/h3]

Special Ability: Charge

• Charge Hit trace size reduced.
  
• Activation cost set to 10%
  
• Stamina cost per second no longer scales with growth
  
• Knockdown threshold reduced slightly
  

Movement

• Acceleration rate reduced
  
• Subadult sprint speed scale reduced
  

Bucking

• Stamina damage reduced
  

[h3]Deinosuchus[/h3]

Special Ability: Lunge

• Recovery time of lunge stagger increased substantially
  
• Sprinting disabled when holding a character on land
  

Water Sense

• Will now only detect players on the surface of water
  

Movement

• Subadult speed modifier decreased
  

Hunger

• Consumes food faster, resulting in it needing more food to be sustained
  

[h3]Dryosaurus[/h3]

Special Ability: Dodge

• No longer uses stamina, instead uses charges
  
• Max stored charges set to 2
  
• Charge recharge time set to 10 seconds
  
• Cooldown set to 1.5 seconds
  

Turn Rates

• Turn rate cap increased
  

[h3]Hypsilophodon[/h3]

Turn Rates

• Default turn rate increased
  
• 180 turn rate increased
  
• Turn rate cap increased
  

[h3]Pachycephalosaurus[/h3]

Special Ability: Ram

• Tap Knockdown threshold reduced
  
• Tap Ram stagger threshold reduced
  
• Held Ram Knockdown threshold reduced
  
• Held Ram stagger threshold reduced
  

[h3]Omniraptor[/h3]

Special Ability: Pounce

• Stamina damage against moving targets now scales with growth
  
• Pounce miss animation removed
  

Turn Rates

• Turn rate cap increased
  

[h3]Stegosaurus[/h3]

Bucking

• Stamina damage reduced
  

[h3]Tenontosaurus[/h3]

Special Ability: Tail Slam

• Tail slam damage reduced
  

Bucking

• Stamina damage reduced
  

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

• Fixed several issues related to UE5 engine upgrade
  
• Fixed spawn crash when multiple people spawn at same time in same area
  
• Fixed server crash when attacking Rabbit borrow
  
• Fixed amphibious and aquatic spawns not spawning on mostly land bounds
  
• Fixed lunge latency when dropping target
  
• Fixed foliage hit dismount for omniraptor pounce being only client side
  
• Fixed omniraptor scaling issues
  
• Fixed swallow issue that caused despawn issues
  
• Fixed impale causing stego input issues and allowing the player to grab corpses
  
• Fixed pachycephalosaurus vomit animation issue
  
• Fixed footsteps being inaudible from behind
  
• Fixed deinosuchus jaw audible underwater
  
• Fixed juvenile deinosuchus water attack duplicate jaw sound and splash vfx issue
  
• Fixed deinosuchus sounds playing when underwater in rivers
  
• Fixed carnotaurus charge animation blending
  
• Fixed issues with nest placement
  
• Fixed chunks not being destroyed if swallow is interrupted during animation
  
• Fixed hitting pounce/lunge on any potential target that may be already pouncing
  
• Fixed sliding sometimes auto-cancelling
  
• Fixed landing animation when jumping into mud
  
• Fixed pachycephalosaurus graze animation speed
  
• Fixed boar root motion
  
• Fixed stomach alert for deinosuchus
  
• Fixed hypsilophodon eyebrows not having a default color
  
• Fixed AI not having correct look pose values
  
• Fixed issues when pouncing the same spot of a target as another player
  
• Fixed DLSS settings not working correctly
  
• Fixed wallow message not showing up if near water
  
• Fixed NIS not applying on start up
  
• Fixed pachycephalosaurus ram not working on foliage
  
• Fixed admin panel bind error and fixed text box colors
  
• Fixed spectator mode not showing AI sometimes
  
• Fixed various gore ragdoll stretch issues
  
• Fixed stomach content % hint not showing when hovered with cursor
  
• Fixed carnotaurus t-pose if lunged when resting
  
• Fixed carnotaurus charge against lunge causing the target to auto-walk
  
• Fixed leg fracture healing if standing
  
• Fixed vomit not reducing max hunger for diet values calculation
  
• Fixed issues with meat chunk ragdolls when dropped
  
• Fixed meat turning invisible or stuck in mouth if dropped when swallowiing and hit by a stun ability
  
• Fixed dino profile max speed value being incorrect sometimes
  
• Fixed not being able to toggle crouch while vocalizing
  
• Fixed organs disappearing upon relogging, but were still interactable
  
• Fixed pack scent not working
  
• Fixed chat entry text color suddenly changing to black
  
• Fixed stamina consumption when sprint flying downwards
  
• Fixed stamina decay increasing instead of decreasing with certain diets
  
• Fixed being able to get organs from corpses that are too heavy
  
• Fixed organs food/nutrient amount per size
  
• Fixed scent clouds lingering after they were supposed to disappear
  
• Fixed various issues related to pounce interaction.
  
• Fixed actors and gore clipping meshes during swallow
  
• Fixed hypsilophodon aim particles not disappearing
  
• Fixed being able to lunge multiple targets at once
  
• Fixed not being able to perform vocals more than once while resting
  
• Fixed juvenile jump heights
  
• Fixed 3D preview only using juvenile animations
  
• Fixed health decay not increasing if in malnutrition state
  
• Fixed diet slots not respecting max amount set by vomit debuff
  
• Fixed reverted blood resistence boost/debuff from diets
  
• Fixed poucing a target already pouncing making them detach
  
• Fixed dryosaurus rest to idle blend issue
  
• Fixed blood scent clouds not disappearing
  
• Fixed diet slots fill icon amount mismatched after vomiting from admin panel
  
• Fixed carnotaurus charge crash
  
• Fixed group leader not being set on server properly
  
• Fixed jump sometimes not working
  
• Fixed coconut eating closed condition
  
• Fixed loaded nests not being set correctly
  
• Fixed nest scavenger crash
  
• Fixed wrong multiplier being used for growth
  
• Fixed pounce animation interrupting once target is knocked down
  
• Fixed swallow organs sometimes not giving the proper food/nutrient amount
  
• Fixed overlap issues on underwater sound and pp for rivers
  
• Fixed some graphics settings not reloading correctly
  
• Fixed cooldown issue with drinking
  
• Fixed cooldown on end for some abilities
  
• Fixed pachycephalosaurus ram stopping mid-air sometimes
  
• Fixed chicken LODs and updated ragdoll
  
• Fixed socket issue client side
  
• Fixed various issues with player group names
  
• Fixed plants with roots showing the empty mesh version for a moment once the root is fully eaten
  
• Fixed organs sometimes stretching on the floor when body is being dragged
  
• Fixed boar animation when pinned
  
• Fixed bypassing group limit with courted pairs
  
• Fixed bleeding tooltip % not showing
  
• Fixed some fall damage issues
  
• Fixed various issues with ram, pounce and lunge
  
• Fixed blood sometimes not updating the UI properly
  
• Fixed material instance issue with growth
  
• Fixed regenerating/decaying attributes not being clamped
  
• Fixed not using LOD0 with low/medium view distance
  
• Fixed organs stretching during corpse drag
  
• Fixed nutrients not respecting hunger cap
  
• Fixed fracture audio playing multiple times
  
• Fixed foliage contact audio not playing correctly sometimes
  
• Fixed animations not playing properly when pounce is interrupted by specific situations (such as knockdown or instant death)
  
• Fixed footsteps notifies being named and velocity parameter being turned on incorrectly
  
• Fixed multiple players being able to pick up gore or corpses
  
• Fixed omniraptor, pachycephalosaurus, pteranodon and tenontosaurus drink animation loops
  
• Fixed some drink montage issues
  
• Fixed max stamina not respecting vomit debuff limit when growth tick applies
  
• Fixed schooling fish falling through the ground
  
• Fixed hungeroffset wrong calculation in swallow ability
  
• Fixed boar hit reaction and attack
  
• Fixed corpes sliding after a knockdown launch
  
• Fixed deinosuchus quick get-up from resting animation stuttering
  
• Fixed spectator mode showing invalid characters (such as logged out players)
  
• Fixed rotation rate issue when moving after alt attacks
  
• Fixed tiny body splash playing small sound
  
• Fixed crash when logging sometimes
  
• Fixed pteranodon not being able to peck while flying
  
• Fixed gore rotten value not setting rotten state
  
• Fixed juvenile hints related to not being able to grab and eat a closed coconut
  
• Fixed organs pickup spawn not setting weight multiplier
  
• Fixed lunge and pounce bleeding value
  
• Fixed fall damage after client correction
  
• Fixed stegosaurus impale issues
  
• Fixed lunge not causing damage to an already lunging deinosuchus
  
• Fixed pounce camera issues
  
• Fixed blood decay not updating correctly
  
• Fixed pounce hit impact animation overwriting pinned one sometimes
  
• Fixed coconut hint not showing occasionally
  
• Fixed character mesh scale sometimes being incorrect on death
  
• Fixed some shader issues
  
• Fixed some montages not looping correctly
  
• Fixed some vomit montages playing full body
  
• Fixed plants not updating mesh on begin play if dug already
  
• Fixed drag loop in deinosuchus eat loop animation
  
• Fixed graze not ending right after input release if near water source
  
• Fixed small code mistake breaking dragging
  
• Fixed meat chunks and organs not becoming rotten when they should
  
• Fixed some vocal types of sound in animation not getting interrupted as they should
  
• Fixed character spawn hitch
  
• Fixed boar headtracking
  
• Fixed boar alert mode loop
  
• Fixed organ weight multiplication happening twice
  
• Fixed pounce client jittering and stamina fall not reseting target state
  
• Fixed carnotaurus charge speed and animation
  
• Fixed issue with organ weight/food calculation
  
• Fixed vocals not replicating properly
  
• Fixed hatchling hatch body impact sound too heavy/loud
  
• Fixed and improve salt lick sounds for all playables
  
• Fixed deinosuchus jaw pop sound echoing
  
• Fixed no audio when biting or swallowing as deinosuchus hatchling
  
• Fixed deinosuchus juvenile having double vocals
  
• Fixed stegosaurus impale making fruit/piece of plant disappear when carried
  
• Fixed hatchlings being able to dig up plants
  
• Fixed stamina reduction when trying to rest on top of a corpse
  
• Fixed boar targeting corpses
  
• Fixed deer targeting everything
  
• Fixed draw distance value
  
• Fixed radial impulse firing for organ that's not attached
  
• Fixed never recovering from knockdown
  
• Fixed fish movement
  
• Fixed duplicated vocal audio for some species
  
• Fixed apply button becoming hidden
  
• Fixed settings saving before finishing applying some settings
  
• Fixed corpses occasionally still being visible after swallowing them
  
• Fixed corpses not being able to be picked up after it was carried in the mouth of a pteranodon that flew into the ground and died
  
• Fixed stego call crossfades
  
• Fixed graphics options value being reset in the UI
  
• Fixed pounce checks to avoid specific interactions sometimes failing
  
• Fixed balances to vocal calls
  
• Fixed deinosuchus lunge body drop sound
  
• Fixed carnivores not being able to get meat chunks or organs from corpses sometimes
  
• Fixed medium sprint footsteps modulations and carnotaurus charge stomp layer
  
• Fixed small walk/crouch attenuation issue
  
• Fixed body splash sounds and water steps not firing correctly
  
• Fixed tiny body splash not playing
  
• Fixed underwater river PP not working sometimes
  
• Fixed vocal and attenuation curves across the board
  
• Fixed all vocals to sound hoarse at low stamina
  
• Fixed carnotaurus charge sometimes consuming stamina when failing to activate
  
• Fixed medium broadcast reverb coming in at close distance
  
• Fixed crouching animation transition issue
  
• Fixed footsteps being audible underwater
  
• Fixed deinosuchus juvenile bite sound
  
• Fixed duplicate pitch mod on medium sprint dirt and rock steps
  
• Fixed vocal type sounds spam check not working correctly
  
• Fixed oceans not blocking vocals underwater
  
• Fixed large body drop on land sound
  
• Fixed various issues related to carrying
  
• Fixed deinosuchus bite crossfades
  
• Fixed sprint footsteps spatialisation radius
  
• Fixed blunt impact sound issue
  
• Fixed no sound when eating in shallow water as juvenile deinosuchus
  
• Fixed juvenile deinosuchus swallow sounds
  
• Fixed juvenile carnotaurus attract core layer not playing
  
• Fixed pounce end setting ability state back to none if player was pinned while latched
  
• Fixed vocals not attaching to owner correctly
  
• Fixed organs being destroyed if an actor was destroyed or turned to bones
  
• Fixed corpses sometimes falling from mouth when grabbed/carried
  
• Fixed chunks/organs/ragdolls falling through floor in some areas
  
• Fixed vocals issue where another player can interrupt vocals
  
• Fixed pawns not being destroy correctly server side if a player logged out while in spectator camera
  
• Fixed sprint steps non-spatialised radius
  
• Fixed pounce input lock
  
• Fixed ragdolls reseting during carry/dragged causing issues of some recently spawned or stasis AI to fall from mouth
  
• Fixed rivers not blocking vocals occasionally
  
• Fixed tracked footprints being flipped and scaled incorrectly sometimes
  
• Fixed and improved sniffing breath sounds
  
• Fixed gore destroy time causing issues when something was recently dropped
  
• Fixed gore latency issues on the client when they are destroyed
  
• Fixed corpses being destroyed while being dragged/carried
  
• Fixed camera offset for underwater sfx
  
• Fixed pounce start animation not playing if already falling
  
• Fixed being able to build nests underwater
  
• Fixed schooling fish scale pulsating when caught sometimes
  
• Fixed pressing G while pinned freeing the target
  
• Fixed spectator mode widgets not updating in real time
  
• Fixed online admin getter
  
• Fixed debris causing issues
  
• Fixed some sound cues not playing
  
• Fixed certain vocals not working for specific sounds
  
• Fixed pickup activation being possible if pounced
  
• Fixed hypsilophodon blinded animation sounds
  
• Fixed deinosuchus wateridle sounds being audible above water
  
• Fixed swallow mechanic (visuals) not working on other clients sometimes
  
• Fixed pickup interrupting movement even if there is nothing around to pickup
  
• Fixed swallowing not destroying a corpse
  
• Fixed player actor staying in game if the player disconnected while in spectator mode
  
• Fixed certain fruit trees not respawning fruits over time
  
• Fixed thrashed organs scaling incorrectly when spawning
  
• Fixed deinosuchus lunge grabbing a target on the end of the ability
  
• Fixed pickup end causing rotation rate to be 0 if player press G during pinned
  
• Fixed attempt to replicate being deactivated when fruits or gore is picked up
  
• Fixed deinosuchus not being able to start moving up/down while sinking
  
• Fixed carbs causing stamina decay to increase instead of decrease
  
• Fixed water culling trace not blocking on rivers
  
• Fixed juvenile stegosaurus wallow sounds being incorrect
  
• Fixed subadult pachycephalosaurus crouch animation looking strange visually
  
• Fixed juvenile stegosaurus animation walk speed not matching how fast it was moving
  
• Fixed lunge releasing target occasionally if going from water to land
  
• Fixed deinosuchus camera clip when zoomed in and moving
  
• Fixed deinosuchus dropping objects causing them to fall under the map
  
• Fixed certain fruits not vanishing after being eaten completely
  
• Fixed hatchling stego wallow body drops not audible
  
• Fixed river culling vocals incorrectly sometimes
  
• Fixed target animation lock at struggle if pouncer dies during pin action
  
• Fixed hypsilophodon's mouth being open too wide when holding something while standing idle
  
• Fixed camera offset when moving for deinosuchus being too high for hatchlings/juveniles and also to be avoided when swimming
  
• Fixed scars disappearing when logging out
  
• Fixed stomach giving the highest % nutrient of the player character instead of the target corpse when organ was pulled out instead of thrashed
  
• Fixed rare/strange issue when chunks/gore get stuck on face for other clients
  
• Fixed fruits not respawning at all if eaten from the tree
  
• Fixed some material parameters not being set once replicated
  
• Fixed issue if eating was canceled due to corpse dragged or carried
  
• Fixed plants not replicating when dug up or eaten fully
  
• Fixed targets becoming locked in pinned animation if pouncer died during the pin
  
• Fixed bones showing as a nutrient icon
  
• Fixed how plants verify used sockets for spawning fruits
  
• Fixed animals injured animations not using normal locomotion ones to avoid then t-posing
  
• Fixed tail physics not being disabled when sprinting at subadult stage
  
• Fixed seaturtle idle look pose
  
• Fixed being able to use deinosuchus alt attack with a leg fracture
  
• Fixed deer lookpose causing jaw issues
  
• Fixed fruits not be cleaned up on clients once destroyed
  
• Fixed sounds with boar locomotion
  
• Fixed interactor box scale during crouch
  
• Fixed frog carried animation
  
• Fixed rabbit carry position being wrong due to animation
  
• Fixed idle special animations playing even if pinned
  
• Fixed corpses resetting to non-fresh if eaten too fast
  
• Fixed tiny slow swim sounds being occluded in water
  
• Fixed mud body drop sounds occluded in mud pools
  
• Fixed stamina decay not increasing during malnutrition
  
• Fixed scavenger perception
  
• Fixed an issue where scavengers would not always make it to carcass and would not flee from bigger characters
  
• Fixed fruits auto fall timer being reset by auto respawn
  
• Fixed fast moving clouds after death
  
• Fixed footprints spawning when walking in water
  
• Fixed lunge causing oxygen damage on surface or land
  
• Fixed gore floor correction not detecting static meshes
  
• Fixed swamp water on Spiro
  
• Fixed coastal AI spawning in nesting grounds
  
• Fixed chicken, crab and frog AI not reacting to players
  
• Fixed boar and chicken health being incorrect
  
• Fixed an issue with RCON not saving correctly
  
  
• Fixed over 500 additional issues that were introduced with the new playable classes
  
  

[h2]Known Major Issues[/h2]

• Ceratosaurus charged bite audio is delayed
  
• Organs, fruits and meat chunks can become uninteractable and stuck to the player's face if left too long before swallowed/dropped. Safelog to fix
  
• Occasionally, a 2nd giant moon will appear in the sky that fixes itself after a few minutes
  
• Elite fish will sometimes desync and appear to be flying. They are not interactable and will fix themselves when approached. This is usually caused by an admin being in spectator mode
  
• Additional observation issues with admin spectator mode
  
• Deinosuchus has an issue where dropping an organ or meat chunk causes it to return to the corpse it was pulled from
  
• Corpses will occasionally be seen falling from the sky when first rendered
  
• Group nametags will sometimes disappear and not return if you leave render distance of a player. Regroup to fix
  
• Sometimes night vision does not work correctly underwater as deinosuchus and beipiaosaurus. Safelogging will fix this
  

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month, my main focus was on enhancing and resolving issues with various mechanics. We had several strange behaviors concerning physics and other various interactions when multiple abilities occurred simultaneously. Such as with the introduction of troodon, a new playable capable of pouncing, that brought forth additional scenarios that had the potential to disrupt existing mechanics. On the topic of pounce; I’ve made some significant changes to the aftermath of missing a pounce, now it does not “stagger” the pouncer anymore, allowing it to be more fluid, fast and more visually accurate. Moreover, with troodon, I developed a system where nearby troodons will emit specific vocal sounds whenever a target becomes envenomated. This feature aids in synchronizing attacks and will be further improved upon in future updates.


Pickup is another mechanic that has received some attention. We noticed some odd behaviors relating to both Organs and Meat Chunks, especially when their physics decide not to simulate properly. In that regard I also added a dynamic math that allows “Grab High” animations to play, when grabbing fruits, for example, from tall trees. I also fixed a bunch of smaller issues such as loading screen causing a crash, double calls issue, UI hints, the “pitch black skin” bug, vocal distance being short and much more. Overall I’ve squashed hundreds of bugs this month.


[h2]Fred - 2D Artist[/h2]
I've been hopping around different types of assignments for a while now, one of which is returning to the environment concepts. Specifically, I’ve returned to finish the line of Underwater Environment Concepts.

After discussions about visuals and gameplay needs, I do what I always do and start looking for references and inspiration. A bit of a challenge was the visuals. Normally, when we think of coral reefs and kelp forests, we think of images like those from Blue Planet 2 & Planet Earth 2: beauty and serenity with all kinds of gorgeous colors. This would need to be toned down to fit our horror gameplay and visual style for the game. It can be pretty at times, but not always. I also had to take into consideration the types of terrains and biomes of the ocean and to hopefully create an interesting environment for players to traverse and explore.

So, as you’ve seen before in the “isle-phase-three” channel on the official discord, I started by making a simple study of how these biomes and formations will be loosely mapped out based on depth. As you can see below, we’ll start at the shallows with coral reefs, and as we get lower, we’ll see more rock formations. Kelp forests will be sprinkled throughout both. As rock formations become bigger, corals start to disappear. Eventually, at the barrier of the map, we plan on making it pretty desolate.



For the reef concept above I wanted to keep variations of color, but needed to make sure I didn't go too far to where it looked like an underwater paradise or a screenshot from ‘The Little Mermaid’. My color choice of rocks could’ve been better, but with the different forms and corals, I think it looks good. On the right, we see a rough sketch of Rock formations. We can look forward to placing them around the medium depths of the environment. What I have here is probably the largest these formations will ever get. Not only does this show how they will fill some open waters with interest, but how we can look forward to bridging the gaps between our underwater players and coastal pterosaur players above. Underneath the Rock formations, we have a scene of animals interacting at the edge of a Kelp Forest. Typical Kelp forests in documentaries look really beautiful and welcoming, with rich, full fronds of bright green or orange leaves. We probably won't be doing that and taking that opportunity to make them feel dark and claustrophobic. Hopefully that will be reflected in our lighting and assets.



Finally, after studying and planning, we get to the fully rendered concept above which showcases all the elements mentioned before. There was a lot of coral and rock to paint, as well as getting the right hues and colors down, but I’d argue this is one of the better Underwater Concepts made. I look forward to seeing this being built in game by our lovely Jace, and eventually seeing the player base take a dive and explore what we have planned.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
This month has been a month with a variation of bug fixes and massive in global, but seemingly minor updates to the Modular Kit. We’ve now solved the stair, door, and all kinds of problems that were linked just by being modular. Not only that, the kit for now, features over 250 objects, making it the most granular kit we have so far, and it being new, and this granular allows us to do so many variations with the buildings.

This is by far the end of the kit, as the kit will now only get upgraded by new parts as we go on. Not only that we will feature a distinct and clearcut way of knowing which building serves what purpose, with various techniques.

That and the, in the works, new shader to support this level of modularity, should bring a lot of life to the island and the human environment and its effect on the world.

Keep in mind these images are still work in progress and do NOT feature the new shader, and is one of many possibilities. This is just a very rough showcase of what we can show, without any detailing done to the buildings.



While waiting for the magic shader, and before we proceed to new textures to encompass it and make it fully functional.

That is it for this month!


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
Main priority and the majority of my time this month has been occupied with fixing as many bugs as possible, as well as making improvements and addressing any missing or incorrect audio cues where possible.

Other than any work that I’ve done this month to go towards the polish of audio in 6.5 I’ve also made some more headway on some Diablo sounds, however the focus on the new update has slowed this progress slightly. I have the majority of Diablo’s adult sounds designed or at least undergoing iteration and finalization, only a handful remain to create such as courting, sparring and some generic or filler vocal sounds for use in idles, resting and filling in gaps where necessary etc.

I’ve started bringing dilophosaurus’ calls up to the quality bar we are setting with Evrima, with its attract and broadcast vocals already complete. These two calls are revamped versions of the original legacy calls, retaining the sonic quality and character of the existing sounds but bulking them out with a bit more presence and weight using various additional layers and some cleaning and processing techniques on the existing raw files. The other three calls are going to need more work and some deviation from the original concept to get to a similar standard.

I’m also working on a new sound that will be used in place of the broadcast call for gallimimus’ mobilize ability, a brief honk with that signature gallimimus flavor effectively clearing some space in the mix so it's not a barrage of long and noisy calls.


[h2]Seiza - Video Editor[/h2]
My focus in the last weeks was completely on finishing the release trailer for update 6.5. Since the new species bring many new mechanics into the game, there is again a lot to explain in the trailer. While the trailer starts relatively calm with the beipiaosaurus, the atmosphere gets more and more stressful. At the latest when the troodon is introduced, you notice the horror aspects of the game, because this is the first time I used night shots for a trailer.

I also got inspired in the stress test, so I was able to try out the game mechanics myself and thus better represent and explain them in the trailer. As always, I'm staying rather abstract in explaining the mechanics, but I hope it's easy to understand. The presentation of the gallimimus mechanics was the biggest challenge in this project, as he has to keep moving all the time. However, I found a smooth solution that shows the mechanics well. In the coming days I will finish the final touches.




[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
This month has been rather weighted to be honest. Got the stress test cranked out which has greatly assisted in helping us track down bugs and refine mechanics. So thank you to all that participated! It has been fun to see how the new playables are being wielded and all the new strats that are emerging with each. Especially how they fare against the already established animals. Each new creature changes the island's dynamics and that is very interesting to observe. Once we iron out the kinks we’ll be in a good spot to release update 6.5 which is much larger than we originally intended but in a good way. So thank you for a thousand years of patient waiting. It has definitely taken a bit longer than we would have liked. But we want to get you in on the fun as much as you want to have it and want it to be as solid as we can get it. So hang tight.

The team has also grown and will be growing further still. Lots of new talent swirling around, keeping me on my toes. The animation team has been expanded by several artists which are performing spectacularly. I’m crazy proud of their strides! The diablo, dilo and herrera are well on their way to being the next creatures you’ll see running around on the map, decimating your hp and adding to the soundscape. When their unique mechanics are a bit further along I’ll try to slip some content of them to you so you’ll have an understanding on what they will play like and be capable of. Following in their footsteps will be the Tyrannosaurus Rex which enters production fully next week and boasts some interesting adjustments I’m sure the keen-eyed will notice. .

All in all, this month has honestly been a bug hunting slog but we’re clawing our way to the surface and seeing the light at the end of the 6.5 tunnel. I am very excited to turn these creatures loose on the general public and affix my gaze on Update 7 which I personally have been anxiously awaiting forever and the team is probably tired of hearing my talk about. Also, alongside the release of Update 6.5 or very shortly after will come roadmap changes as previously mentioned which will alter the way we disseminate information and how we update the game as a whole. Aiming for something that suits us better as a development team and is better for you all as well. With the media embargo lifted, I’m sure there’s a lot of 6.5 content to snack on while we rev this bad boy up! Bye bye for now!

[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
In our previous testing the gallimimus was only able to forage near shores, where it could dig up frogs. This does not really fit the playstyle of the dinosaur, so I added support for foraging on land. The system is still essentially the same, with the difference that compies can be dug up instead. They provide a little food, but no nutrients, serving as a more interactive version of grazing.

Originally we tried a leaping attack with a lot of movement for the gallimimus' "alt attack", but it didn't feel right in the end. So it was replaced with a quick kick towards where you're looking without turning the character. On the topic of kicks, I also added support for controlling which leg you attack with while running or jumping. This is not just a visual difference, be sure to use the appropriate one to hit your target.

With some of our dinos having really high juvenile speeds relative to their size (in particular the gallimimus and troodon) it was time to change how our character speeds are determined. Previously it was blending the animations as you grew and determining your speed to match that, but unfortunately this came with issues such as dinosaurs becoming way too fast during the transition period or not having as much flexibility. So I turned things around and speeds are being set directly, while the animation system was updated to figure out the right animation to play. This was actually quite challenging, since the animation blend spaces don't necessarily match the speed you'd expect when you just blend them as they are. So I came up with a solution to adjust the blended animation to make sure there is no foot sliding.

Unfortunately when it comes to programming it can be hard to explain why we have to change things that "already work" just to make them work differently even though the end result is very similar from a player perspective. Sometimes these refactors just have to be made for things to work better.

With update 6.5 moving into the testing phase there were periods where I had time to move on to new tasks. For me this meant the diabloceratops. The base character was already set up with the basics, just missing unique abilities and several animations. Many of you might be able to guess already, but I started work on the sparring mechanic. It's not an easy one, there are two players constantly moving around, performing actions that can affect each other's movement, many different things can happen. It's in early stages, but there's strafing movement, interlocking and basic animation support in place already. Naturally at the moment update 6.5 takes priority, but it's coming along nicely in the meantime.


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
Once in a while a dinosaur comes along in Evrima where we have to do a bunch of legwork we haven’t done before, diabloceratops is definitely one of those now. I’ve been busy working on the locomotion and watching yaks try to bully each other on Youtube for the ‘sparring’ mechanic and hoo boy that was a lot to do, you don’t wanna know how many animations that was to do. It was 48.

Been a busy month for dinosaurs in general, with the last bits for gallimimus and ceratosaurus being finished at the start of the month. Been nice to continue the trend of breaking away from expanding necessary features for the base Evrima dinosaurs like omniraptor or carnotaurus and working on bringing new animals into the ecosystem. Ceratosaurus will definitely be a welcome addition to remind carnotaurus that it isn’t normally an apex predator just because it’s bigger than omniraptor.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
I’ve been full steam ahead working through designing sounds for the diabloceratops. Both primary and directional attack vocal sounds are completed as well as vocals for vomiting, drinking, regular/extreme pain and death sounds with more currently in the works. When I have the sounds for all shared mechanics I will be experimenting with sounds for its sparring mechanic

I made some edits and designed some new sounds for gallimimus, its attacks had been reworked. The existing sounds for its directional attack were edited to fit the new animations, and new sounds were made for the others, for its running kick, a short grunt with a bit of oomph, and a bird-like growl for its peck attack.

I have also put some attention towards fine tuning the crossfades and pitch/volume modulations for all 4 of the new playables to ensure there is a smooth and appropriate transition across all vocals when blending between juvenile to adult sounds.


Besides working on creature sounds I also finished up on a fairly demanding design, a sound to accompany the pulsing of a colony of bees displaying near synchronicity. The sound consists of a bed layer, the ambient hum of the swarm. The clattering and vibrating of the wings is made up from various sources, such as rice on plastic, foil packaging inserted into a handheld fan etc. They are processed granularly to emulate the clustered sound of dozens of tiny wings vibrating against each other. The pulsing motion is created using dopplers to simulate the motion with dialed in variation to amplitude, pitch and panning. I then processed with a resonator to extract some subtle natural pitch and added a synthesized low bass sound that compliments the pulsing rhythm and adds some restrained tonality.


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]

They are small, they are many and if you thought compsognathus were bad for stealing food, wait till you meet Pterodactylus. They are ravenous little corps cleaners and it was fun helping come up with different ways they could be tiny menaces on The Isle. Like breaking down large bodies, bullying smaller creatures off their kill and some potential egg thievery too. So keep a close eye on anything of yours that could be deemed food, you might find it munched on or snatched away when your back is turned by the mini toothy pterosaurs.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
This month has been a whirlwind of action for the team all around. Stress testing has begun and we’re fleshing out the new playables as testing dictates their adjustments for live release in addition to a lot of engine problem solving. As with any engine change or update there are unforeseen issues, interactions and bugs that can arise that may not play nicely with old tech or downright break something entirely. Luckily, many of these engine bugs and incompatibilities are known to the gamedev community and the engine developers and will hopefully be tackled soon. Aside from that the troodon’s testing phases have been promising for their intended playstyle feeling unique among the roster. With a few knob twists and lever pulls it should be in a nice spot that doesn’t leave it feeling too under or overpowered. Though we’ll have to keep an eye on especially coordinated groups. Completion of ceratosaurus, gallimimus and beipiaosaurus playtesting should go much swifter. Fingers crossed.

Additionally, the diabloceratops is animation complete pending any alterations to established animations for the sparring mechanic. dmIV has laid down some impressive first iterations that we should be able to share soon. We hope you like it! The dilophosaurus is also well on its way to being animation complete after some directional attacks and injuries. So there’s a chance it will enter testing alongside the diabloceratops. If that weren’t enough, the herrerasaurus is also entering full swing production. Some team changes have been made that should allow us to crank animations out a bit faster than usual which will be a welcomed change of pace.

There’s also been a lot of pre-production rounded out on some features to come for both the Gen 1 and Gen 2 humans which I am excited to work on despite being more of a dinosaur fan personally. Getting 6.5 out the door will be a welcome relief for us all and get us one step closer to the reality of what The Isle really is as a horror survival experience. Catch ya next time!

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
Much of my work this month revolved around the gallimimus, which has a different way of grabbing things, as it may use either its mouth or hands, so I developed a small system to control when to use one or the other, including swallowing something that was grabbed using the hands, the system adapts automatically. Included to that change, pickup also adapts to the size or position of the target. Like for tall trees it would use a Pickup High, or Pickup Mid animation in some cases. For stuff on the floor it would use Pickup Low.

Some more work animation related to beipi and diablo too, for all the shared abilities. Did some work on troodon Venom pounce visuals, mostly, but also adding support for the future uses of Pounce and transitions mid pounce, interesting things that are coming. Troodon is also getting some new small mechanics for Venom Pounce to help the troodon players to know about the condition of the target, envenomated or not, which stages, etc.

Lots of work done for fixing a significant amount of bugs or wrong behaviors, including diets. Besides that some code improvement, balance changes, optimizations and new things for camera and audio.

I have also added the option for server admins to enable/disable species through the admin panel, allowing or preventing further spawns of those animals.





[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
I continued working on some gallimimus abilities. Its main damage source is from a kick attack, which can be performed while standing, running or jumping. If the animal is swimming or had its legs fractured it can use a peck attack, but it’s not very effective. When playing as a gallimimus it’s very unfortunate to break your legs, since you not only lose your ability to run away quickly, you also can’t fight back properly.

To help with that, there is one more trick in the gallimimus’s bag. It can protect itself from some fall damage by automatically springing forward to soften the landing. Falling from too high can still result in fractured legs or death, but it’s safer than other dinos.

Other than that I’ve been looking at various smaller tasks, such as the ceratosaurus’s vomit scent, bug fixes, balance changes, moving some blueprints to C++, smaller optimizations here and there.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
The Dome and only the dome has been my soul focus this month, as it's a magnificent, yet massive object and point of interest in the map. Since transitioning to nanite, we are now open to options of having massive modular pieces like this dome, which we will feature in the new Gateway map.

To further reveal this massive structure, it will have four primary entrances for now, three of which are land based, and one directly connected to the river.

To ensure this all works and fits perfectly, I’ve made a Dome kit as we do work with modularity here at The Isle for human structures, which now consists of various height elements of the dome, and its main features like the massive window hexagon shape details.



Alongside that I’ve translated one of the small parts of the Dockyard kit to fit into the Dome kit to ensure more flexibility for the interiors, especially giving a lot more to the dark metallic look of the Dome, as it's far more industrial.



Dome Kit which features more concrete and industrial look.








[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
The majority of this month I was focused on working on audio for the gallimimus, which now has all the sounds it needs for both adult and juvenile stages. I have also created some ambient spot sfx such as rustling and twig snapping that are implemented to play for Galli when in forested areas to keep players on their toes and consciously aware of the sounds that are happening around them.

I have also spent some time cleaning up and improving diablo’s calls, introducing processing to the legacy sounds, especially increasing the level of the higher frequencies which previously were lacking leaving the sounds seeming dull, as well as adding additional layers to elevate the recognisable calls in line with Evrima’s sound. Its adult calls are complete and implemented, but I am experimenting with a slight change to its 3 call, instead ending the call on a quick and sharp beak clack in a threatening display.

I’ve also made some adjustments to certain elements that relate to audio, the positions of ambient zones on gateway have been adjusted, volume balance to the ambiences as well as the volume and attenuations on the waterfall and ocean surf sounds.

I am now spending time play-testing troodon, cerato, beipi and galli to make any necessary improvements to their sound design as well as balancing audio levels and tightening up the implementation of audio for these creatures so they are sounding their best.


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]


This was an interesting animal to approach. Fun to draw, but difficult to come up with scene ideas for. We had to hash out a few conceptual ideas to nail this one down. It’s similar to tenonto, but more visually limited, lacking utility of its tail or something like claws. How and where does it travel, or what can it do in the face of predators? Thinking of ways Maia can use its bodyweight or how it can interact with its environment were among the main features.

The other focus was maia’s motherly rep. A characteristic predominantly depicted by gentleness, but one can’t forget the other side of being a good parent means defending the hell out of your offspring. Good (vengeful) mother lizard.




I’ve been looking forward to this one.

Anatomically it’s a mix of clunky and elegant which is an interesting combo of characteristics to find poses for, how dynamic can you even make the pose without having the animal look completely off balance? There’s definitely a balancing act to say the least. We definitely wanted to make sure the deinocheirus looked dominant when holding its own in its native environment.

On the shading side, this was a perfect opportunity to play with water effects for the swamp setting. It’s mostly just doubling up on the shading layer, but it works well for differentiating between what’s above and below water.


[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
This month has been a busy one for QA as far as bug reporting and balance testing is concerned. With 4 upcoming playables, it has proved a challenge that we were more than happy to take on.

There have been hundreds of issues that cropped up over the course of integrating the new species to EVRIMA. New playables introduce new mechanics that can break almost anything we had previously done. Now we have to consider totally new scenarios, such as what would happen if a deinosuchus is to lunge at a ceratosaurus while a troodon is envenomating it. Does it cause a crash? Maybe! We didn’t know until we had tried as many possibilities as we could think of. I am happy to say that all playables now seem to be in a good place as far as bugs are concerned, so we’re now getting to the part of just playing the game. Stress testers will play a big part in this process soon, as they will be our first line of feedback after QA to determine how fun or unfun they are to play as, and will allow us to make tweaks to them accordingly.

On the topic of tweaks, have a look at some of these more notable balance changes we’ve made for this update:

Unique night vision ranges have been set up for all existing and new playables. Much like in legacy, there are some characters that will excel in the dark, while others will have a more difficult time. In most cases (not all), playing a larger character will result in reduced night vision range as a way to balance their immense power.

Dryosaurus:

Tenotosaurus:

Omniraptor:

Carnotaurus:

Unique bleed modifiers have been set up for all bleed attacks. Specifics will be detailed in the changelog for the update. This is something that we have been meaning to add for some time now. As it was in legacy, we now have the ability to setup unique bleed modifiers for all the basic attacks in the game – for example, this will allow us to give the tyrannosaurus bite more flat damage than the giganotosaurus, but deal less bleed than the giga bite, etc.

The deinosuchus water sense passive ability has been adjusted to only appear for prey that swim on the surface of water. This was done so that both juvenile deinosuchus and beipiaosaurus have a more effective way of escaping an adult deinosuchus, making for some interesting cat and mouse scenarios between the two playables.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Dryosaurus’ dodge ability now has 2 “charges”, as opposed to it consuming stamina. The time it takes to recharge these is not set in stone, but you can see how it looks here.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Ceratosaurus has a “Charged Bite” ability. The longer you charge the attack, the more damage it will deal. This will also deal an increased amount of bacteria to the target, meaning you do not need to land as many bites to cause them to vomit.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As many of you already know, the beipiaosaurus can breach the surface of the water akin to a dolphin. We decided to take this a step further and allow this ability some use in gameplay, by having it restore a portion of the character’s oxygen when performed.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Gallimimus, when grouped, has a “Mobilize” ability. When performing a broadcast, all members within close proximity will receive a speed increase for a few seconds. When timed right, this can allow a large group to maintain the speed boost by “stacking” their broadcasts, at the cost of being obnoxiously loud to any nearby predators.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Unfortunately, I do not have anything to show you on troodon at this time – its venom needs further work to be clearer to the player what stage it’s at and whenever it has reset.

You will, however, be glad to hear that performance has once again been a large focus of the upcoming update. On top of our move to Unreal Engine 5, we have also been adjusting our default config files to ensure a smooth playing experience for those that meet our recommended hardware requirements.


[h2]Seiza - Video Editor[/h2]
For the past few weeks, I've been focusing on VFX in the video editor. Since we want to give many of our videos an older look, I started using Red Giant in the editor. This will give me a better workflow in the future when I want to create VHS, Terminal or Analog looks. I was able to try this out directly on the latest trailcam video, it's the first trailcam video at night, so I imitated the night vision in the video editor and made it look as realistic as possible.

And of course, the planning of the next release trailer is already in full swing, but the stress test will give me another impression of what is really realistic and makes sense in the end and what doesn't.

I especially want to look at the interaction between beipiaosaurus and deinosuchus and get more inspiration. Otherwise, it's now time to start implementing the first scene ideas.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
No rest for the weary as they say. While our move to UE 5.1 has been relatively smooth, it has not been without issue which is to be expected with any engine update. This month has been chock-full of hoops, hurdles and bug boss battles. But we’re coming out of the otherside relatively unscathed. 6.5 has been expanded to include a lot more playables than originally intended which we’re excited about and hope you are as well. We look forward to getting this update to stress testers as soon as we can so it can go live pending tweaks. Very excited to see how the new creatures interact with the current roster in your hands.

Aside from the above creatures which the team has gone into decent detail about, work is in full swing on the diabloceratops and dilophosaurus which will be the next playable additions after the current 4 are debuted. The diabloceratops in particular ushering in a new mechanic specific to ceratopsians and those best suited to deal with them. I’m sure the programming team is going to LOVE that process. Sorry guys.

Anyway, expect to see me in the community discord periodically over the coming weeks to take public temperature of a few legacy animals that may or may not be making their way into production after the aforementioned. Wish us a powerful tailwind as we round out this update and move forward. Take care!

[h2]FTessaro - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month the focus has been adding onto and improving all the new dinosaurs, but also fixing the enormous amount of issues caused by our migration to Unreal Engine 5. But not everything has been about fixing issues, we have new additions such as bee hives (with some very angry bees) and new vocals for the troodon’s venom pounce that triggers simultaneously for each group member of the attacking troodons, to give players a hint of when to apply the target with an additional dose of venom. Some visual indications may be added as well. The new ‘grab high’ animations were also added for all herbivores/omnivores, which are useful for grabbing from tall plants, etc.






[h2]dmIV - Programmer[/h2]
My first task was some foundation work for the gallimimus mechanics. I extended our movement system with individual multipliers for each movement mode in each growth stage in a way that also changes the play rate of that specific animation. This basically lets us modify movement speeds without having to change the play rate for the related animations manually. It’s something I thought about doing before for other reasons, so I’m glad there was a good time to do it now.

Then I moved on to actually making use of the system with new mechanics. The gallimimus’ speed will depend on its diet; you will run faster if you take care of your nutrients. Group leaders with a good diet will also be able to have a positive effect on teammates’ speeds when traveling together. It’s also possible to give each other a speed boost using calls. This will all need to be tested and balanced for gameplay, but as you can see there are many different factors that contribute to the final speed of the dinosaur.

A change that’s been planned for a while is to use the “alt attacks'' automatically depending on your movement state. A few things had to be changed in the background, but it is now working as intended. This also helps controller players, since they had no access to these actions previously. I also added a new setting in the menu for those who prefer the old control scheme.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
As you’ve seen, last and this month marks the end of the cages, which was the main starting point of the new year. These cages will be featured in various conditions, and will showcase something down the line. They are featured in 5 sizes, from the smallest transportation ones, to the largest that can house a sauropod.



Alongside that there have been some minor tweaks and a new variation of the crowbar, which now features a pointy end.



Starting from this month, I’ve been tasked with a large structure that will surely be a massive point of interest on Gateway which spans 15 km on its longest distance.




[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]

This month was a slight change of pace for me.

We have a new dome in the works! With the kind of biome it’s supposed to contain it needed to be bigger than the aviaries and simply scaling-up the current domes/aviaries wasn’t going to look good. So a new design was called for. We took the opportunity to try something a little more industrial and generally simpler shape-wise with a hexagonal based angular design.



Once the base outer appearance was settled on, my task was to start conceptualizing entrances and interior aesthetics of the new dome with the guiding rule of ‘can it be made out of primitives?’(cubes, cylinders, etc)



If so, awesome. Because when making something large like this, you really need something as structurally simple as possible with details coming from the variations of the simple shapes it’s made out of.

Aside from the base structure, the tone of the interior was also drafted, with yellow tinted lighting and winding halls to create a sense of anticipation and unease as well as serving a technical purpose when it comes to something like load times to create that smooth transition from the outer world to the inner dome.



You mess with the bull you get the horns; It’s time for the trike (and not the kind you’d let your kids play with).

Being the largest of the ceratopsians, it doesn’t get to benefit from some of the features of its smaller cousins (burrows, speed) but it more than makes up for that by bringing the most formidable set of horns to the table.

Any creature that wants to target a trike will want to stay faaaar away from the face. Not only is it well protected, but at that point you are asking to get impaled. Likewise it’s not an animal you’re going to be able to toss around; that’s the trikes job. Yes those horns have many uses and like any frequently used tool, will need to be well maintained if you’re to hold onto those formidable weapons.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month my focus has been to get ceratosaurus audio complete, designing every outstanding vocal sound necessary for both its adult and juvenile stages as well as implementing any foley missing for all animations of this creature. Now that ceratosaurus can be considered complete from an audio perspective, bar some polish and final minor additions, it is undergoing regular testing and iteration from me so that it is sounding as mean and fierce as we are envisioning, as well as making sure everything sounds correct across its entire growth cycle, which is quite an intensive task so regular time away from this creature is required so ears do not get fatigued.

To break up my workflow, I’ve moved on to working on the gallimimus alongside cerato. Galli's calls have remained the same as most will recognise them, but have been processed to improve the overall mix and I’m now facing the challenge of expanding its palette of sounds based on its core vocal aesthetic. I have already got a full sound suite for its pain sounds i.e. regular, extreme and death, as well as some in progress sounds for its secondary attack, its various eating animations and some generic sounds that will be peppered in to fill gaps and give this animal some vocal character accompanying its more understated movements.


[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
With the upgrade to UE5, QA have had their hands full mostly with bug reporting, since a lot of issues arose during that transition. We had to go back to some of our older processes such as regression and adhoc testing in order to locate as many of these issues as possible and escalate them to the programmers. A lot of the issues were seemingly random, for example the corpse physics started to become very “floaty” simply from upgrading. Over the course of this upgrade and the past 3 months, our voluntary QA team has reported close to one thousand unique reports! Do be sure to show them some appreciation if you interact with them, they’ve more than earned it.

Troodon testing is really starting to come along now. As some of you already know, its venom pounce ability was causing the client to crash a few weeks ago, caused by the group vocals that Filipe mentioned in his post. I’m happy to say that the crash is and has been fixed for a couple of weeks now. That being said, we did run into some other particularly annoying issues with it… See below:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Unfortunately, at this time this issue is not yet fixed. Luckily, this is one of the few issues left for troodon before it’s ready to be stress-tested.

With most of the issues for troodon fixed now, playtesting and balancing is underway in QA and I am very excited to see how you guys perform with it. The troodon is very much a horde playstyle – it is too small to be able to comfortably take on the likes of an omniraptor alone, so it must group up in order to be its most effective (though it’s perfect for killing juveniles!)

The application of the venom pounce is similar to an omniraptor but it takes it a step further: you must work with your group and time your pounce correctly in order to envenomate your target - if you attack too soon after another troodon, it will reset the venom state and you will have to start from the process from the beginning. The design of having to better work with your group has led to some interesting encounters already and we have quickly discovered that it could be the deciding factor for if your group survives the attack or not. Better get practicing! 😉

Fortunately, the troodon being as small and fast as it is means that any encounter is easy to survive – simply run the other way and don’t look back.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
Needless to say based on the entries above and below, this month has been quite a stir for the team. The majority of this month for me has been meetings, formulating documentation and finalizing systems which have been mentioned in various ways within this devblog by other members of the team. I get to keep this one short and sweet due to the director's commentary but I’ve cooked up an animation or two for you to feast upon as penance.


[h2]Director’s Commentary –[/h2]

Hello islanders,

As many of you have already guessed, one of our first orders of business upon returning in 2023 was investigating the possibility of moving The Isle to UE5. Upon initial viewing it became clear very quickly that the ‘if’ we upgraded to UE5 was simply ‘when,’ so the process fully began earlier this month.

Though everyone in the editor has been working diligently to ensure a smooth transition to UE5, there have been some small technical hurdles we’ve had to overcome. I am acutely aware of this extra time it has taken and the restlessness is understandable. For your patience, 6.5 has been more than slightly altered from what was on the roadmap. The troodon will not be the only animal stepping forward in the update and more details will follow along shortly in Phase Three tomorrow.

(Note: Speaking of, we are attempting another route with Phase Three content. It will no longer be restricted to a weekly Wednesday, but all posts will contain context and detail attached, much like a single developer’s contribution to the devblog. This may finally put an end to the “pun and done” image drops.)

The assets seen on Gateway have been moved over to Nanite and the map itself has been converted from world composition to world partition. In the coming days it will be rolled out to stress testers to start benchmarking performance but I suspect the public will see the map in Update 7.

This leads me to the roadmap itself. Update 6.5 has been drastically swelled and Gateway doesn’t even exist on the roadmap whatsoever. It’s safe to say that it’s more than outdated and a checklist approach is not one we wish to continue with. A more traditional roadmap will roll out alongside 6.5 that will reflect the additional content that has been in the works.

Diabloceratops had its first round of prototype animations created for its unique mechanic, sparring (along with dusting off some of the more outdated animations). As it is in its infancy, I’m not able to say exactly how it will work, but we do have a very promising heading as a posture based mechanic. The objective here is to have some fun ways for ceratopsians to engage with one another in a non-lethal manner, but still have this feature capable of being a very lethal response when necessary whether to predators or an opponent. I am hoping this will answer the overwhelming desire most diabloceratops players have expressed to fight one another without having to kill one another… unless they really wanted to.



There’s a lot more I could go into purely because I rarely contribute to the blogs now, but I’ve jawed enough. You’ll see more of my contributions in Phase Three soon.

As always,

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Don