Abiotic Factor News

[h3]Greetings esteemed colleagues,[/h3]

Here at the GATE Cascade Research Facility, it’s essential that incoming scientists understand how to solve the unique and unusual challenges you’ll encounter.

[h2]One step at a time[/h2]

You’re about to become part of an elite institution, but don’t expect to tackle ambitious projects straight away on your first day…



[h2]A different way of doing things[/h2]

At GATE, we value innovation. When confronting a vexing practical problem, try approaching the question from a fresh angle: the solution may reveal itself unexpectedly…



[h2]Break the problem down[/h2]

Science is about the unknown. Breaking down a new problem into its parts can yield results faster than tackling a new topic head on.



[h2]Let the answer come to you[/h2]

Sometimes, if the way forward is unclear, and you may just have to step back, and let the answer come to you…



[h2]Now you’re cooking[/h2]

Every day will bring new challenges, but be certain - you’ll have all the tools you need to tackle the thorniest problems.



[h2]See you in the Facility[/h2]

From all of us here at the GATE Cascade Research Facility - we can’t wait for you to dive in and join us in discovery!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/427410/Abiotic_Factor/

[h3]You can also join us on Discord![/h3]

[h3]Greetings esteemed colleagues,[/h3]

We're one month from our Early Access release, and we've got A LOT to show off - so this Status Report's coming at you rapid fire!

Grab your GATE coffee mug, brace yourselves and let's dive in.

[h2]Pets[/h2]
From enemies to friends to an exploitable power source, it's one of the features that the mystery dev writing this post is the most excited about: getting to adopt your own little space potato!



And if you don’t care about petting them, perhaps you'll be excited to utilize them in your base to power your benches throughout the night!

“It seems Dr. Manbanko's work with IS-0173 is bearing fruit. After restraining it in a box and feeding it for a time, the creature's aggression dropped remarkably. I'm intrigued to know whether this was due to its rapid learning or the coercive power of nachos.” - Dr. Derek Manse

[h2]Compendium[/h2]
Every good scientist needs their journal! Your Compendium is just that, updating as you encounter locations and enemies to help you keep track of all those names and places that could turn out to be important to your research.

“TO ALL STAFF: Ensure you have consulted the GATE Compendium before interacting with or conducting research on any immured subject. Familiarity with protocols is essential for all those investigating or otherwise handling all contained specimens. Failure to do so risks injury, death or even dismissal.” - T. R. Enderson, GATE Immurement Manager

[h2]Cable Management[/h2]

Highly requested during every playtest and demo, it's finally here: All you tidy scientists can rest a little bit easier knowing that your cables will be somewhat more manageable from now on.

from: [email protected]

For the thousandth time, we NEED to get Manufacturing tidied up to a basic safety standard. The place is a mess of cables and worse. Am I supposed to believe that in this facility, full of supposed geniuses, no-one has devised a way to organize power wiring?

[h2]New Art and Customizations[/h2]

More hair options!



More face options!



Offices feel even more office-y with added details like blinds!



Trinkets! What are these for? Perhaps you’ll find out for yourself soon enough…



Scoot.



Scoot scoot.



GATE’s security has been tightened to keep its researchers safe from their research.



Different reloads for different levels of reload skill will help scientists understand their own abilities better. Our Art Director, Connor, has been hard at work making them apparent!

Low level reloading vs. high level reloading:



More plants, ingredients and overall recipes, which is good news for our Somatic Gastrologists. Have fun, soup hunters!


Paintable deployables will let you further personalize your bases.



[h2]In Case You Missed It[/h2]

[h3]Early Access Info and Roadmap[/h3]

Please check out our full Early Access Announcement for all the details!

[h3]EA Q&A[/h3]

With Early Access on our minds we made a Q&A Dev Vlog to answer some related questions from community members.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]The Steam Engine[/h3]

All aboard IS-0138!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Stay Tuned[/h2]

When you descend into the GATE Cascade Research Facility you’re going to be facing a lot of unexpected challenges. Follow these Status Reports for tips, insights and strategies to keep you safe, as well as fun looks-behind-the-scenes at development!

You can subscribe to our Newsletter to keep up-to-date on news about Abiotic Factor.



You can also join us on Discord!


Onward to science!

[h3]Wishlist Today![/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/427410/Abiotic_Factor/

[h3]Greetings fellow scientists![/h3]
Over the past few months, we’ve given nearly 100,000 GATE scientists a chance to experience the Office Sector - a relatively small slice of the Facility - through two separate playtests and a public demo, where we collected your feedback and helped refine our research.

As a small team, we were blown away by the response to our demo. We saw huge enjoyment of the portion you played, and we want to give every sector of the game the time it needs to make sure we don’t compromise on that quality. Most importantly, we want to do things right and we want to do them with YOU. We want you to play the best possible Abiotic Factor, not rush ourselves to meet deadlines and we want to incorporate the community as we continue to build the game.

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing the pros and cons, as well as how to shape delivery of content. We feel the best path forward - rather than delay the game to accommodate our shift towards higher quality and more features - is to release Abiotic Factor on May 2nd, 2024 in Early Access. As you know, we love transparency of development through our monthly Status Reports and Criss’s crazy vlogs, so let’s continue that - there’s lots more to come!

We bet you have a lot of questions, so let’s dive into answering them.

[h3]Why Early Access?[/h3]
Evolving Abiotic Factor through direct collaboration with the community is core to our development plans. We intend to continue to crowdsource feedback on players’ most requested features, identify opportunities for improvement, and ultimately build a feature-rich and highly polished experience.

[h3]Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?[/h3]
We expect Abiotic Factor to be in Early Access for 8 to 12 months while we complete the remaining sectors and portal worlds. This may change as we adapt to player feedback and development, but we plan to release new sectors every 2 to 3 months with a load of new features to accompany each of these sectors.

[h3]How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?[/h3]
Every milestone towards 1.0 will see new feature-complete sectors and worlds added, including new enemies, items, equipment, story and challenges that evolve the adventure. With the launch of 1.0, the main Abiotic Factor storyline and content will be complete and serve as a strong baseline for further expansion and post-release content. We’re in this for the long haul.

[h3]What is the current state of the Early Access version?[/h3]
The Early Access release delivers a massive, multi-sector adventure through the GATE Cascade Facility and a huge range of portal worlds. Our main priority is for the experience to be stable, well polished, and playable solo or co-op with up to 6 players throughout the entirety of the playable content. We’re also prepping some dedicated server tools to allow you to customize the experience further.

We’ve created a very handy roadmap of our development plans.



[h3]Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?[/h3]
The game will be 24.99 USD (or region equivalent) for the duration of Early Access. We may increase the price at full release based on the new content added, but all updates during Early Access will be provided free of charge.

[h3]How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?[/h3]
We will be collecting feedback and data from the community in a variety of ways. As in the previous pre-release playables, we’re taking direct suggestions from players on Steam, Discord, social media, and through feedback surveys. Additionally, we will be analyzing gameplay data to identify areas of the game that are opportunities to improve the player experience.


We’re incredibly excited to see what sort of scientific breakthroughs you'll make in Abiotic Factor!

See you very soon in the GATE Cascade Research Facility.

[h3]Greetings esteemed colleagues,[/h3]

Welcome to another Status Report! This time we’re looking at some highly useful inventions you’ll discover during your time in the GATE Cascade Research Facility, as well as a peek into a few sectors we’ve been polishing.

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

[h2]Transmogrifier[/h2]


You know when you have a piece of armor that looks so dang cool but the stats are not so great for your current environment? Well, you’ve come to the right secret underground research facility, because the clever minds at GATE are here to help!

Behold! The Transmogrifier! With this fashionable piece of tech, you can customize your scientist’s appearance and armor to look and feel your best as a GATE employee – all from the comfort of your base. It’s a great tool for changing into a new look you just unlocked, or transmogrifying your armor.



What's that, we hear you say? Transmogrification, or Transmog for short, is the ability to change the appearance of your equipped armor to look like another piece of armor, but without the stats changing. There are some intentional limits to this system and we may allow servers to disable it, but we'll cover those details later perhaps, maybe in a dev vlog. The main takeaway here is: you can look the way you want, even if you unlock new and better armor… once you invent the Transmogrifier, anyway.

Nerd fashion is peak fashion in ABF.

[h2]Distribution Pad[/h2]

Have you ever thought “By Einstein’s ghost, I sure wish I could drop my loot and get back to exploring, but then my base would be a mess!”

Well, the great minds of science strike again! Again. Always. It never ends. They are relentless. … Ahem, the Distribution Pad.

"I would never discourage genuine curiosity, but when Dr. Tengku suggested using perforation technology to teleport small objects across the room, I suspect she was simply looking for an easier way to file documents. Keep dreaming, Suan. You'll have to file R-3 reports on Level 12 just like the rest of us." - Dr. I. Manbanko

[h2]Space Lettuce[/h2]

"I don't know who dubbed IS-0333 'Space Lettuce', but I can see why. Like many newly-returned specimens from Anteverse XXI, we're still investigating its properties. The most astonishing fact, so far, is simply that such a thing is... edible." - Dr. P. Peters

[h2]Deep in the Labs[/h2]

“The Tachyonic Telemetry Targeting Unit, also known as the 'Dark Lens', is the core of GATE's perforation experiments, guiding and focusing perforation events by providing stable, trans-luminal co-ordinate pairs for portal entry/exit nodes.” - the GATE Compendium

[h2]In Case You Missed It[/h2]

[h3]Know Your Strengths[/h3]

Our latest Dev Vlog is here to teach you how to land critical hits and the damage types that make it happen!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Janet’s Study Buddy[/h3]

Abe and Janet discuss IS-0111.


[h3]Next Fest Numbers[/h3]

Once again, thanks for checking out ABF during Next Fest. We’ve compiled some of the more fascinating numbers to be perused at your convenience.



If there are any stats you would like to see in the future which weren’t listed this round, let us know in the comments!

[h2]Stay Tuned[/h2]

When you descend into the GATE Cascade Research Facility you’re going to be facing a lot of unexpected challenges. Follow these Status Reports for tips, insights and strategies to keep you safe, as well as fun looks-behind-the-scenes at development!

And keep your eyes on the sky, or in this case, the Office Sector ceiling, because there will be some big announcements on their way.

You can subscribe to our Newsletter to keep up-to-date on news about Abiotic Factor.

You can also join us on Discord!


See you next time, Scientists!

[h3]Wishlist Today![/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/427410/Abiotic_Factor/

[h2]Greetings, esteemed colleagues![/h2]



We want to thank everyone who helped to make Next Fest a huge success!

Over 52,000 scientists gave it their all! Thank you for playing the demo for Abiotic Factor. We saw a lot of awesome bases and followed tons of streamers on their adventures through the GATE Cascade Research Facility. We've seen some incredible creations from the community.


Thank you for all your support! Your passion and energy gives us energy.

[h2]We Want Your Feedback![/h2]

If you have not yet left playtest feedback you can do so by filling out this form: Feedback Form The form will be open until February 26 at 11:59 PM PST.

[h2]See you in May![/h2]

Abiotic Factor will be releasing on May 2nd, 2024. We'll be making an announcement about the release method and planned price very soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

[h2]Stay Up To Date With Our Newsletter![/h2]

Subscribe to our Newsletter to be the first to hear about new developments and important announcements.

[h2]Join the Discord![/h2]