It has been a hot minute since the last big update and things are heating up still! The update #26, version 1.2.0 is now out! There are some nice additions packed in this bad boy and I will now give you some highlights on what to expect.
Update Highlights
Doomsday - The Hidden Archipelago
Of course the star attraction here is the new DLC: Doomsday. As with the last DLC, upon purchase and activation you will get a popup denoting a new questline (provided you have gotten out of Capernaum). This quest will take you across a new open world map that has been loaded with new obstacles, deadly enemies, shiny new materials and a whole lot of things to smash to bits and pieces in pursuit of new items and abilities. The Steam store page will tell you a bit more of what to expect if you choose to embark on this new adventure. As with the last offering, don’t want to spoil too much in advance, so you will just have to see for yourself.
Check the DLC here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2147250/DYSMANTLE_Doomsday/
ps. We have already started the porting process for other platforms as well, so sit tight.
Now for all of the stuff you will receive for free!
New Endgame Area
Some of you who worked really hard to push through the Ark might have felt that when you got the Power Fist, there wasn’t anything to really use it for. Thus we tasked the poor level designer to make up a really hard and nasty endgame area with an accompanying quest to offer a tough gauntlet with a really sweet food recipe at the end of it. Now you know what you have been stashing those Namazu for! The new area is activated upon reaching the escape pod at Crown and going a bit back to the “helipad”. Upon arrival all should be clear.
Surreal Door & Deathless Runs
If you have managed the arduous task of obtaining the key, you can now open the door and see what lies beyond. Remember to think like a proper magpie and snatch anything that seems valuable to take with you.
We also added a death counter into the Collections screen under Total Progress so you will know for sure how many times you have expired. Also fixed are some pertinent issues, so using Amber Mana Pills will not count against gaining the key.
New Game +
You might have found a map of the Island at the Ark level 2. There are some red lights which seem to denote certain locations or objects. If you manage to turn all those lights green, you will get to go deeper and reach a way to start over. You will be able to retain some things (such as the prizes from the new area and beyond the surreal door) in addition to your level, skills and all materials put into the Ark.
Once you start the next cycle, everything will otherwise be as when starting the game from scratch with a fresh save (including the possibility to reach the surreal key). Well, that was a lie. Enemies will be a bit tougher and there might be some new dialogue in certain places. NG+ cycles are not limited, so head deeper and deeper if you wish, but it will only get more challenging.
New craftables
Paint brush will allow you to paint those disturbingly white walls and some of the objects and furniture you are able to build. You can finally have as good looking (or as unsightly) adobe as you wish.
Rubber duck is a trinket that stops you from drowning. We know it is quite aggravating to be in a tough spot and backpedal into a lake when defending yourself against undead threats. Rubber duck will teleport you safely back to land without any loss of life.
Portable monster scanner should be a godsend to those people who want to do ascensions, as you will now be able to check monster positions out in the field instead of heading back to link tower each and every time. As alluded earlier, there are now additional incentives to doing ascensions besides only gaining some more of those smooth and shiny mana beads. Ascension level is also now shown per area in the Collections screen.
Quality Of Life
You can now set your preferred gamepad icon sets in the controls options. This should make it much more comfortable to play with your chosen controller and not worry about popups and interactions having some weird non decipherable symbols that don’t correspond to your chosen hardware. You are able to choose from Xbox, PS (colored/grayscale) and Switch icons. Do note that this is only available for some platforms, such as PC.
The upgrade list is now ordered in the way that fully upgraded items are moved to the bottom, to ease on the visual clutter and making it more clear what you are able to upgrade. The invention tree has also gotten a slight revamp. The leftmost branches have been reworked from three to two sub branches which should have better progression.
We also did some rebalancing around certain items and craftables that people felt were either too strong or lackluster. You should now find more reasons to change your loadout from time to time and perhaps try new approaches and builds. I’ll leave the details to the changelist.
On the technical side we have managed to optimize memory usage and texture sizes which should speed up the game on hardware on the lower end of the spectrum. Save backup system has also been revamped so that the game creates a backup file every time the game is saved, instead of at certain intervals. This should lessen the impact any unforeseen happenings might cause.
Whew, now onto the actual changelog:
VERSION 1.2.0 - Doomsday
ADDED
- Doomsday DLC
- New end game area and a related quest at Crown. After reaching escape pod at Crown, return to the area with "helipad".
- New game+ for those who reach the Ark level 3.
- Surreal door can be opened.
- Paint Brush tool can be used to color walls and built objects.
- Portable Monster scanner.
- Rubber Duck trinket that stops you from drowning by teleporting you back to shore.
- Fast travel map highlights current player location.
- New Save Game backup system. Save is backed up each time you're saving so you shouldn't lose any progress in case something awful happens.
- Using compressed textures with 2x resolution (but less memory consumed) on Windows.
- New sound for the monster lure.
- Map marker is now shown on the ground and disabled when the protagonist walks over it.
- Area ascension level is shown in the map and in the Collections Screen.
- Death count is now shown in the Collections Screen under "Total Progress".
- Gamepad icon set art can now be selected (xbox, ps, switch) in controls options.
CHANGED
- Long range teleporter doesn't work in tombs anymore.
- Fishing spots are now discovered from farther away.
- Enemy position & pathing changes in multiple base game areas.
- Upgradable gear list is now sorted, fully completed items are on the bottom and the ones you can upgrade are on the top.
- Reworked the left branches of the invention tree and repositioned everything to else to fit better.
- Buffed Power Fist range slightly.
- Buffed Sledgehammer modifiers, by adding multiple object hit modifier.
- Buffed Monster Lure effect radius from 600 to 750.
- Home Portal unlock from lvl 15 to 25.
- Home Portal Long Range from lvl 17 to 30.
- Material Transporter from lvl 36 to lvl 20.
- Explosive stun duration from 6 seconds to 5 seconds.
- Raised tamed adult deer damage done to enemies from 10 to 25
- Buffed Hunting Rifle damage & modifiers. One less max ammo in turn.
- Lowered costs for: Bandolier, Katana
- Need to kill only one vulture for Collections text, buffed drops.
- Axe upg. levels 3 & 5 now add multiple object hit modifier.
- Cost to sow ground with hoe from 20 -> 12.
- Dice effect buffed to 2.5%/5%/7.5%/10%
- Changed damage thresholds and drops for stone, streetlights, fabric dropping objects.
- Leapers are much more agile now. Nerfed damage done by them in turn.
- (DLC1) Sawed Off Shotgun: Reduced spread 16 -> 1.2, ammo max 7-> 6. projectile amount 15 -> 12, projectile damage multiplier 0.75 -> 1
- (DLC1) Thimble damage reduction from 2% -> 5% and now has synergies with DLC2 content.
FIXED
- Optimized memory usage in pause menu and in general GPU usage.
- Optimized texture sizes.
- Minor bugs here and there.
- Fixed two digspots at Vulcan which were undiggable.
- Fixed an issue where some doors would not open correctly in COOP mode.
- Minimap now stays centered on the player no matter what.
- (Base game & DLC1) Fixed pathing issues, floating objects, graphical glitches.
- Fixed fast traveling from campfire to same area link tower.
- Fixed Collections showing wrong text in Audio Logs.
- Crown link tower area changed as it covered few wrong areas.
- Some wall pieces of the type "Log" were missing death sounds.
- Fixed the Amber Mana Pills so usage doesn't contribute against attaining surreal key.
- Slight terrain optimisations to areas in the base game that are adjacent to water.
- Fixed level 1 and 2 recipes getting marked as new at last levels with no new skill options.
- Small fix to main quest progression at the point where you have to find a key for a door on the road to launchpad.
- Sawed Off Shotgun was missing long press prompt.
- Some cooking recipes had white text on white background.
- (DLC1) Fixed "Call of Mana" quest phase where players could destroy actors required for quest progression prematurely.
- (DLC1) Fixed Mana Crossbow now showing up in "Collections".
Up Next
Of course there will be a post release patch to fix any issues people might be having. At the same time we will be porting the new update to other platforms. Then again, that much is clear. I know what you are really here for.
We mentioned the last time we did a news post that we weren’t sure whether Dysmantle would head into maintenance mode or whether we will make another DLC. I have both good news and bad news. The good news is there will be a continuation, while the bad news is that is the extent of the information I am able to share with you at this date. We hope you will find enough enjoyment from this update that the wait for the next communique won’t feel too long. See you later!