The Badlands finally arrive in Keepsake County as part of a new heist, rife with hazards! Modeled after South Dakota's famous national park, with a sprinkling of West Kansas' Castle Rock, West Nebraska, a bit of Utah, and a bit of Texas' Palo Duro Canyon, we think we've made a very unique new biome for players to experience.
This latest heist tasks you with burglaring two houses at once, much like The Architect. You'll have to drive past one house along the mesa's edge to get to the other!
Keen-eyed players with a long memory may recall The Badlands being teased in old loading screens, and we're glad to finally bring them to life for this latest update. With that come unique gameplay mechanics and geography for you to sneak through!
- Sand: Large piles of sand will slow you and your car down as you move through it - so be careful if you need to get away in a hurry.
- Barbed Wire and Cacti: Barbed wire fences now cause damage when walked into, while much of the Badlands is covered in painful large Prickly Pear that can't be walked inside of like normal foliage.
- Cliffs: Much like the Ozarks, the Badlands takes place at high elevation, and falling off the side will result in an easy arrest for the Police.
- Crawlspaces: Unlike other maps, the Basement of The Badlands has a crawlspace that players can use as easy access to the surface from the Basement - but only when the basement spawns.
- Spires and Rocks: Large spires and rocks dot the top of the mesa, and make great visual obstructions to sneak through and beneath. They can also be climbed for a vertical advantage.
- Lack of Foliage: Dead Trees and Cacti are plenty here, while most other foliage will only appear near houses, so be careful not to spend too much time lingering.
Additionally, this update adds:
- 45 new lootable items have been added! This includes 5+ new food items for healing yourself with.
- A new loading screen has been added
- Attics should now spawn more frequently
- Being kicked back to the splash screen from the main menu now takes 2 minutes instead of 30 seconds, to accommodate long loading times when opening a level for the first time.
- Ladders can now be used inside
- The Big Ladder has been shrunk a little bit to accommodate this use
Additionally, the full beta is temporarily available to play on Steam for free as part of the Endless Replayability Fest! After the fest it'll revert back to the older Architect Demo, so play it now and let us know what you think!
