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DYSMANTLE News

DYSMANTLE Leaving Early Access on Nov 16th!

Ok, we now have an official launch date for the PC version. This has been a long journey but we're finally there! You probably guessed after the last update that we'd be leaving early access soon since there's now an ending and all.

So, the date is: Nov 16th 2021. The exact time depends on your timezone but here in Finland we'll be pushing the release button so that the game would be available 14:00 EET. This means we'll push the button around 13:50 to account for any delays. This event your're reading is set to trigger 14:00 EET Nov 16th 2021.

We'll also host some launch festivities like a developer launch stream. We'll post a streaming event with exact details on that later.

Update #17: The End is Nigh ✌️



We're getting closer to the 1.0 release and leaving Early Access. The game finally has an ending, so you should now be able to finish the story and 100% of other goals you can find in the Collection. We're almost ready to launch!

Note that this doesn't mean we'll stop developing the game at the 1.0 version! We've still got plenty of things we want to add to the game after the launch. But more about that later!

Update Highlights


[h2]The Ending[/h2]

You'll be able to complete the game and see the end credits scrolling. After that, for convenience, you can get back to the game and continue completing your side quests, points of interest, etc. So keep calm and march forward to the end!

The final story titbits are also revealed, but I'm guessing some of you have already pieced most of the clues together. Some of the things are still left unknown, but we're hoping to add some more details about the events and things like The Ivory Man in the upcoming updates.

[h2]Steam Trading Cards and Badges[/h2]

All that stuff is now available! If you've already played the game for several hours, you should get a few cards instantly after this update. Good luck badging!



[h2]Localizations[/h2]

This new update adds in German and Turkish, but, again, the full list of upcoming localizations is as follows:

  • English
  • Simplified Chinese
  • Russian
  • German
  • French
  • Spanish (Spain)
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Turkish
  • Portuguese (Brazil)


There are still some string shown in English, but the next update after this one should include all the remaining localizations for all languages. We'll probably keep tuning the localizations after the 1.0 release too, as going through everything takes time and we're not likely to catch all the problems right away. (We also haven't forgotten about the possibility of opening Steam Workshop for localizations.)

[h2]Leaper[/h2]

There's a new monster type in town! It'll jump at you! This should provide a bit more variation to the combat. We'll be making some more balancing and AI tweaking changes in the next patch as well.



[h2]Voiceovers[/h2]

The voiceovers (by real human actors) are now in. Note that the voice on the radio is supposed to be synthetic.

[h2]Obelisks[/h2]

Those mystical obelisks are now accessible and completable as Points of Interest. There's also a new quest related to them. It should start automatically when you go near one of the Obelisks.



CHANGE LOG


There are lots of smaller changes this time. Many limitations such as the XP Level Cap have been removed. We've also temporarily hidden some of the locked stuff (like those buildable ??? categories) that isn't yet ready for release. Most of that stuff will be added back in later when we've got time to properly polish them.

For full list of things see below.

[h3]ADDED[/h3]
- Access to the Ending at Crown Station.
- Access to the Obelisks.
- New enemy type Leaper.
- Level Cap is now practically removed (set at 300). Note that Skills will run out at some point (total 72 Skills in this version).
- Added one more Link Tower Ascension Level.
- Ark Level 2 accessible.
- Map shows POI levels (for example Link Tower ascension level).
- More sfx for certain interactions.
- New power attack gfx and sfx.
- New katana animation and sfx.
- New fish type - Zany Zander. Tied to fishing spot change below.
- New craftables (Sickle, Power Fist, Khopesh, Soldier Helmet, Soldier Uniform).
- Shadow detail levels.
- Turrets you've built are now shown on map.
- Obelisks, Tombs, Shelter, and Entryways show more info when clicked on the map.
- Myth Tablet voiceovers.
- Added Intro, Outro voiceovers.
- Added Crown Station audio log voiceovers.
- Saving user selected language setting.
- New quests to introduce the obelisks and the mana rifts.
- Loading save properly when clicking Play in MainMenu.
- Showing mini map arrow towards last player death position.
- Added German and Turkish localizations (work in progress like the others).
- Drawbridges are now Points of Interests too.
- Gamepad vibration support.

[h3]CHANGED[/h3]
- Updated Chinese and Russian localizations.
- Ex humans are able to spot the player through windows now.
- Rebalanced all fishing spots, including "normal" water. Gist of it is that player is able to get all fish types from normal water with very low percentages, while fishing spots themselves are more specialised and more rewarding.
- Weapon attack animation speeds and ranges changed.
- Weapon damage ranges and modifier types have been changed across the board.
- Weapon and secondary weapon modifiers will now be unlocked and enhanced via upgrades. This is in addition to damage.
- Raised proximity mine damage (48 -> 96 ) and halved the triggering time once enemy is within radius.
- Raised throwing knife and triple throwing knife base damage (20->33) and reworked modifiers. Should scale better.
- Some tombs were remade while others have been rebalanced.
- Optimized lighting shaders.
- Reworked invention tree flow and at which levels things unlock.
- Lowered initial backstab crit multiplier (2.0 -> 1.5) with the idea that it grows better over time instead of being too good right away.
- Lowered MG turret cost and buffed rocket turret turn speed, range and projectile splash.
- Progress percentages don't round to 100% unless you've got everything completed.
- Hid the missing buildable categories for now (will be added back later).
- Mana rifts now show up as "?" before completing associated quest.
- Material refining amounts and times changed and smelter & sawmill build costs reduced. This should encourage the player to build them wide to raise production.
- Farming yields , crop growth times and amounts of material needed to plant nerfed. Farming was still too good, where the player would gain absolutely huge amounts of food materials within few hours in the game.
- Last trinket and secondary slots are now able to be opened.

[h3]FIXED[/h3]
- Wishing Wells requests now limited by your max carry capacity. (Only for new requests.)
- Performance improvements.
- Some medals were uncompletable, while others were off by certain amount.
- Horde enemies do not twitch anymore while moving.
- Scroll speed with gamepad in maps is now consistent and does not depend on the map size.
- It is now easier to throw consecutive grenades especially when time has been slowed down.
- Fixes to actor 3D meshes and certain colliders.
- Tomb Guard damage was bugged and too high.
- Player can't dig through walls anymore.
- Fixed pyramid myth voiceovers.
- UI tweaks.


Up Next


We're almost ready to announce our Launch Date! The next update (#18) will be mostly about fixing and tweaking stuff. And trying not to break anything.

Even though the End is Nigh, there will be life after the end. We've got plans for both FREE update content and even some DLCs. There are features we still feel we need to expand a bit. We'll get to the specifics later, but for one the building aspect of the game definitely needs more stuff. We've also got (secret) plans for expanding the Undercrown. Aaand we want to deepen the game story, and ....

So I guess DYSMANTLE development isn't over any time soon :D

✌️

Update #16: Crown Station 👑



Well this one took a bit longer than we expected. I guess we were a bit optimistic about the amount of content planned for this update. But we're finally here! We did decide to leave a couple of things for the next update, so contrary to our original plan, this one doesn't contain all the planned content yet.

Without spoiling too much, this update includes three major areas (Crown Station, Vulcan Island, and the Pyramid Tomb), EIGHT shelters (each an unique underground level), building turrets and defenses for tower-defense-like mini game (enables entering those shelters), and lots of other tweaks and additions.

About Localizations (Part Two)


We're moving forward with the localizations. Almost all reference strings are in place, and we're getting ready to order localizations for selected languages. The current game build contains work-in-progress localizations for Simplified Chinese and Russian.

The full set of Official localizations available at release include: English, Simplified Chinese, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Turkish. The voiceovers will be in English only.

The bigger news is that we will also be opening up the Steam Workshop for localizations! We know we are not able to "officially" translate the game to all the languages you are requesting, but we can enable the community modding tools to add any language imaginable. This will happen some time before the release (hopefully). Looking forward to playing the game in Klingon and not understanding a word!


Update Highlights


[h2]Crown Station[/h2]

You can now enter the Crown Station area via the elevator in Undercrown. You'll be finding out about the K23 radio station, listening to audio logs, and... progressing your Main Quest. (The ending is not included in this build yet, so you'll just encounter those familiar blue barriers at some point.)



[h2]Vulcan Island[/h2]

The mysterious sea area beyond the west coast is now also accessible. Spoiler on how to gain access to it: Read all the Myth Tablets on the island and you'll see a short cutscene for a clue where to go next...



[h2]Pyramid Tomb[/h2]

You can now enter the Pyramid Tomb after you've completed all the Tombs on the island. You'll find tons of useful, a new weapon recipe, and the sarcophagus of the king.

All photography inside the Pyramid Tomb is strictly forbidden, so no screenshot for this, sorry.

[h2]Shelter Defense[/h2]

You may have wondered what's inside those shelters on the island. You'll be able to open those hatches in this update. Unfortunately you won't be making new human survivor friends.



Build defenses to stop the horde of monsters, and the shelter is ready for entering. You may be surprised what you find there occasionally.



[h2]New Skills[/h2]

A couple of new Skills added this time.

There's a new Turret Specialist Skill related to turret handling. Note that you'll also be able to make new inventions that will unlock other turret type and increase the ammo capacity.

The Animal Friend now has a third skill level. It makes the animals you've tamed fight by your side in combat. Unleash the Combat Bambi! We'll have to see how much tuning this feature still needs though.


CHANGE LOG


[h2]ADDED[/h2]
- Access to 'Crown Station'. (THE ENDING NOT INCLUDED YET)
- Access to 'Vulcan Island'.
- Access to 'The Pyramid Tomb'. Requires completing all the tombs. NOTE: Revisit them if the stones don't lit up properly.
- Shelters defence now accessible!
- Shelters accessible after fighting the horde.
- New enemy type (dweller/horde).
- Added buildable Turrets.
- New material: Central Processing Unit (only findable for now)
- Level Cap is now 50. Up by EIGHT levels!
- Ark Level 1 fully accessible. (Level 2 coming later.)
- New craftables (Hard Hat, Material Transporter, turret related inventions)
- Added Turret Specialist Skill.
- Added Animal Friend skill level III (animals fight by your side).
- Added Russian localization for testing.
- Added more sound effects for different situation and actions.
- Loud weapons (eg. grenades, rifle), now produce a sound which attracts enemies.
- Main menu bg animations.
- Showing new invention notifications when leveling up.
- Home shelter Point of Interest set completed when going near it. (You may or may nor be able to enter it later, but not for now.)
- Voiceovers for the archaeologist Abby.

[h2]CHANGED[/h2]
- Updated Chinese localization.
- Rebalanced Ark XP rewards.
- Tomb sarcophagi remain open after looted.
- Changed sfx falloff for certain sounds.
- Tweaks to complex collider generation.
- Performance improvements.
- "It" spins indefinitely now.
- Reworked some quests so it is more clear for the player "what to do" and "where to do it".
- All deer kills accumulate into one card now instead of one per type: male, female etc.

[h2]FIXED[/h2]
- Buildables are properly persistent in Undercrown.
- Wolf and deer move animation fixes.
- Usual open world visual glitch & terrain fixes.
- CTD fix.
- Fixed some faulty soundscapes where wrong ambience was playing.
- Audio level adjustments.
- Player making a dodge roll after a power attack in some instances.
- Fixed undiggable spots in Undercrown.
- Fixes to some achievements not triggering.
- Fixed some collision issues with cylindrical objects.
- Fixed Open the Floodgates intro where people were getting stuck.
- Fixed crosshair misalignment when using hoe.
- Receiving temperature based damage while fishing does not cause animation oddities any more.
- Monster lure doesn't break from fall damage.
- Performance improvements.
- Fixed monsters trying to walk through obstacles while wandering.
- Sound (XAudio2) related crash fix.
- Fixed a Coop issue where it was possible to install more fuel cells than players had.
- Dead actors now fall under the water.
- Added some missing animations to few existing actors.
- Fixed some cases where waterfalls and other particle effects would not render correctly.

Up Next


This update contains almost all the level content we're planning on including for the Launch Version. The Ark Level 2 and some small parts of Crown Station are coming in the next Update #17, which will hopefully not take as long as this one did. In addition to that we'll be also activating those Obelisks, adding one or two new monster types, and any missing or forgotten feature we've got time for. And of course balancing, polishing, fixing bugs, and optimizing.

The one after the next one (Update #18) will contain all the localizations and voiceovers (English only), but very little new stuff as we're trying to keep the build as stable as possible for the big launch. We'll also have our hands full with other launch related tasks.

But what happens after the launch?

The game is doing pretty well at the moment, and people are liking it, so if the launch goes well, we'll also be doing Post-Launch content updates for this game. I'm not 100% promising anything as it does depend on how well the game performs, but if all goes well, that's something you can expect.

And finally, I can't say this enough: thank you for all the bug reports, nice reviews, encouraging words, and everything! It's been a long ride (especially in the midst of COVID), so all positive feedback from you guys has definitely helped to get through this! We're finally seeing the light at the end of this tunnel!

👑

Skeletal Avenger Full Version Launched on Steam!



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1277500/Skeletal_Avenger/

Update #15: Frost Horn Undercrown 🥶⬇️



After a long(ish) and refreshing summer vacation, we're back with another major update! This one unlocks two new areas in the game: Frost Horn and Undercrown. There's also a new Animal Friend Skill, and lots of smaller fixes and tweaks.

About Localizations


Before we get to the update highlights, a few words about localizations. Full localizations will be coming before the full launch, which will take place later this year. (The estimated launch time frame is late October / November at this point, but we'll know better after the next update).

The current game version has Simplified Chinese localizations, which we're using to test that things work properly. However, you may see some English in the Chinese version after this patch as we're still waiting to get new strings translated. To speed up the launch of this update, we decided to launch this update as is. If you want to play the more complete translation, wait another week or switch back to the 'previous_default' branch. I know this is not optimal, but I think it's the best compromise we can make at this point.

Update Highlights


[h2]Frost Horn[/h2]

Frost Horn is now accessible. Trying to keep this more spoiler free this time.

You'll be visiting a dam and wondering what's at the bottom of that artificial lake. Maybe there's a way to get to the bottom of it?



[h2]Undercrown[/h2]

After progressing enough in your Main Quest, you'll be granted the access to the Undercrown - the last fortress and shelter of the good people of the island.

Note: the underground map is HUGE, but you won't be exploring all of it. We may expand it later, but currently we're mostly only focusing on the parts that lead you to the Crown Station.



[h2]Achievements![/h2]

We've finally added Steam Achievements! Each of those should be hopefully attainable with your current save states. Some of them, like the Gatekeeper, which is unlocked when you beat the first miniboss, can be unlocked by just walking near the position where you originally killed the monsters. Same for the bigger bosses. Anything that requires doing thing X certain number of times should unlock after you do it one more time, even if you already have the required amount for that. I hope that made sense. You will probably also notice bunch of them unlocking automatically when start the game after the update.



Obviously some of the achievements such as the one above are not yet attainable for you guys. There are still a few more campfires and link towers you can't reach with the latest version.

[h2]Animal Friend[/h2]

You can now befriend the animals running around in the wilderness with the new skill Animal Friend. Each skill level makes the animals less and less afraid of you, and also unlocks some new interaction features.

Skill level I allows you to craft Animal Treats item and feed the animals. Once fed, they'll start following you like bunch of creeps. Expand your selection of Animal Treats, and you'll be able to lead a whole flock of animals where ever you fancy. (Although, alas, the animals (not affected by Mana) are still being respawned when you rest at the campfire or die. There may be a solution coming for this later.)



So you remember that baby deer? With Animal Friend skill level II you can also pet it like a boss, and go awww all day long. There's even a heart symbol shown. If the animal is injured, petting also heals it.



But don't worry. You can also continue murdering the animals senselessly and feast on their flesh. Your call.

While we're planning on keeping this feature pretty simple, we're likely to expand this in the upcoming patches. So do let us know your thoughts on this!

[h2]Local Shared Screen Co-op Tweaks[/h2]

To be honest, we expected all sorts of problems with the co-op as the whole feature was added in a bit of a hurry, but there were surprisingly few issues with it. We've fixed most of the issues people have reported (thanks!), and we're almost ready to take off that additional Beta text from the feature. Almost.

So everything should a bit more fluent and foolproof now. For example, both players can now use mouse+wasd controls as long as the other player is using gamepad.

[h2]Linux Support Through Proton[/h2]

The game is not officially available on Linux, but we've heard it works pretty well using Proton. Or it did before the last patch broke it, but it should be fixed now. Can't make any guarantees about the performance, but let us know if there are any crashes and we'll hopefully check it out. We're also planning on doing a native Linux version at some point.

CHANGE LOG


[h2]ADDED[/h2]
- Access to 'Frost Horn'.
- Access to 'Undercrown'.
- Level Cap is now 42. Up by FOUR levels!
- You can now install the fourth fuel cell to the Escape Pod.
- Added Achievements.
- Added Animal Friend skill levels I (feeding) and II (petting).
- Added Animal Treats item for taming animals. (Placeholder art)
- Added Sleeping Bag upgrade levels for sleeping longer and better.
- Added medals for farming, building, and animals tamed.
- Added water sound effects for rivers, waterfalls and coasts.
- Second co-op player can now join using keyboard+mouse. (The first player uses a gamepad in this case.)
- Bug reporter text editor word wrap.
- All map filters can be toggled by pressing space or gamepad Y.
- New 2D art for all fish types.

[h2]CHANGED[/h2]
- Sleeping rested bonus effects depend on sleeping bag upgrade level and hours slept.
- You can level up with experience you get by storing materials
- Readable objects are now indestructible until after you have read them, so you don't miss anything by wildly swinging around.
- Memory usage optimizations.

[h2]FIXED[/h2]
- Chromatic aberration effect doesn't stay on when you die during it.
- CTD fixes.
- Memory Leak Fixes
- Usual open world visual glitch & terrain fixes.
- Tomb Guard positions are properly reset in Solaris Tomb.
- All stage ground is generated before showing the first frame.
- Grammar fixes.
- Fixes to numerous sound effects.
- Fixed Ark doors being shut if left the Ark or game before they got opened.
- Fixed D3D11 renderer Linux proton support.
- Some quest objectives are now more implicit and clear.
- Fixed losing inventory (including Fuel Cells) in co-op. If you got stuck because of this, just finish all the bosses and go to the Escape Pod and the main quest will continue.
- Cold and heat buildups now work correctly with coop.

Up Next


This is both scary and exciting, but we're actually seeing the end of the road here -- for version 1.0.0 that is. There's probably only one more huge content update, which will add the remaining areas (including the Crown Station, shelters, etc) and features (like building turrets). After that, a couple of smaller updates with balancing, minor content, proper voice overs, and the localizations. We're not yet sure what will happen post-launch, but in any case, we'll be doing some updates after the 1.0.0.



Against our hopes, we're still working semi-remotely as COVID-19 took a slightly bad turn here in Finland. But well over half of us have already gotten two shots, and the situation is getting better, so we're hoping to fully return to the office in September. This is the last stretch in any case, but then again the game is almost finished as well, so maybe this won't have that big a positive effect on the schedule at this point.

Anyway, exciting times ahead! The next update will be massive as it should contain all the content we're still missing from the game. You can expect it to be available in some time September.

🥶⬇️