The fifth test build. A forest giant that fights with a tree, a sea serpent and the Tallfin at sea, whales, icebergs, creatures on the firefells, wolves and cave bats, furniture, water pets, loops on a glider, world options, creature levels and PvP.
New
- A forest giant sits in the Wealds. Give it room when it bellows, or it pulls a tree out of the ground, roots and all, and fights you with it. Bare-handed, it brings both fists down where you stand.
- Fire and frost giants, the forest giant's kin, walk the firefells and the snows of the Whitelands and the Highs. They hurl boulders torn out of the ground and pour fire or frost from both hands.
- A sea serpent hunts the open sea. It feels a swimmer or a moving hull, circles, then lunges, rams your boat or rears up out of the water beside it. Its scales can plate a boat's hull.
- The Tallfin, a summoned fight far out in the open sea. Tip a Bait Cask into the water off Seal Rock and a great killer whale comes in. It washes you off the rock, rams your boat and breaches. Carry its tooth and sharks keep away from you.
- Whales come up and blow out at sea. Be over one when it does and the spout throws you, your boat or anything afloat straight up, much higher with a glider on. Dolphins come up for air too.
- Icebergs float on the cold seas round the Whitelands. They tip under your weight, a pickaxe mines them for ice and now and then a fossil the Prospector pays well for, powder blows them apart, and a boat run onto a big one stops dead.
- Creatures on the firefells. The emberback basks on the warm rock and spits molten rock when you won't leave, and when a firefell erupts, cinderlings crawl out of the lava flows. Fire does nothing to them, but water and frost do.
- Powder wakes a firefell. Set a keg off down in its crater and the lake flares, the ground shudders and it erupts. Smaller charges stir it, and enough of them add up.
- Wolf packs hunt the Wealds from dusk. They ring you and send one in at a time, but company and fire keep them off, and the pack breaks when its alpha falls. Three pelts make a warm Wolf Cloak.
- Bats roost on cave roofs. They fly at dusk, or when a torch comes close. Catch one with the bug net, and scrape the guano under a roost for saltpetre and fertilizer.
- The yeti throws rocks. Run from one or keep out of its reach and it tears a rock out of the ground and hurls it after you.
- Furniture to make a home. Chairs, benches and armchairs to sit in, tables, a weapon rack, shelves and vases that show what you put on them, candles and a chandelier, rugs and banners you can dye, an armour stand and a stone fireplace.
- Your dog defends you from anything that hunts you, and grows in level as you keep it company and look after it. Teach it to sit, speak, spin, play dead and more.
- Water keeping. Build a sea pen out on the water or a fish pond at home. Win a dolphin, manta, shark or even a young whale over with food at sea, and carry trout, salmon and reef fish home alive in a full bucket. Hold a dolphin's fin and it tows you along.
- Fish leap. Now and then a dolphin, a salmon or a tuna jumps clear of the water and splashes back in.
- Loops and rolls on a glider. Nothing stops you pulling over the top or rolling right round, and every glider loops from its top speed.
- Land vehicles. Kick off downhill on a hand sledge, drive your own dogs on a dog sledge, put your horse to a gig or a wagon, sail a sand skiff or an ice runner on the wind, and run ore tubs along a wagonway you lay.
- Combat tracks in the Technology tree. Pick a weapon family, from blades and spears to bows, shields and your own fists, and research drills that make you better with it. Every family has a starter weapon to try first, and 13 new weapons join them.
- World options. When you make a world, pick its terrain, from islands and open seas to continents, highlands or lowlands, or set land, island size, straits, mountains and hills yourself. Every world still has every land and everything to find. You can also set how fast skills gain XP.
- Creature levels. Every fighting creature has a level set by where it lives, higher further from where your world began and at night, and now and then a Scarred one that is tougher still. Summoned fights grow stronger with every player fighting them.
- PvP. Turn it on in the pause menu to fight other players who have it on too. A player with it off can't hurt or be hurt by anyone.
- Rarer items roll bonuses that suit them, like a quicker chop on an axe, more ore from a pickaxe, a stronger line on a rod or faster feet in boots.
- Bronze, iron and steel fishing rods, each casting further, getting more bites and holding a stronger fish than the last.
- A wand and a staff for every school of calling, and five school robes.
- Kit that does something. Bandages and salves close bleeding wounds, a bedroll sleeps the night anywhere, the loom weaves cloth, the tanning rack cures hides, a map and a compass help you find your way, the spyglass sees far, a backpack opens another row of cells, and the enchanting table binds a callingstone into a weapon.
- Sea creatures leave their own parts, and there are new dishes to cook from them: boiled crab, grilled octopus, buttered lobster, sea stew and smoked eel.
- Grow mushrooms. A mushroom you pick sometimes leaves spawn to sow into a bed of ceps that comes back after every picking.
Improved
- The cat is rebuilt with its own body, moves and voice. It prowls, grooms, purrs beside you when you sit still and hisses when it's cornered.
- Animals at rest look about instead of bobbing their heads, and dogs pant with their tongues out.
- Where two walls meet square a corner post closes the gap, and there is one floor piece, as thick as a wall.
- Doors and windows snap onto floors and walls.
- Nothing of a fire inside a closed house shows through its roof or walls.
- Torches and campfires flicker far more gently, and Steady firelight under Accessibility stops the flicker altogether.
- Sneaking is quicker, and the Sneaking skill speeds your creep and hides you better.
- Hover over the land on the map to see its biome, height and climate.
- Your dogs and sea pets show on the map.
- The Technology and Magic trees run from top to bottom, and you can drag and zoom them.
- Every setting has a card that says what it does, grass density changes at once, the graphics sliders wait for Apply, and the FPS counter is on the Graphics tab.
- The pickaxe, shovel and hoe tire you like the axe does, and harder wood and ore pay more XP.
- Nearly every storm brings a whirlwind now.
- 37 items that wore another item's model have their own now, with icons to match.
- Joining a world shows a picture of the Reach while it connects, and the ping sits beside the minimap instead of over it.
- Your feet no longer slide when you walk crouched.
- Every skill's levels make you better at what it does, from harder axe bites to rarer crafted gear, and no level ever stops you making something you've researched and have the materials for.
- Caves are lit by the rock above them, so a big cavern stays dark under a narrow opening and the weather's fog stays outside. Deep in a cave the game runs faster too.
- A special catch can be cooked on purpose into a dish of its own, which keeps its rarity and, for a Legendary fish, its boon.
- Seagrass, pebbles and loose stones cover the shallow sea floor.
- A clock under the minimap shows the time and how long until nightfall or dawn.
- A new world option lets one player in a bed pass the night for everyone.
- Icebergs dip and rock when you land on them, and a boat shoves a small one aside.
- Sea creatures, wading animals and leaping fish stir the water's ripples.
- Sea pens have four ladders up from the water.
- Auto snapping stacks a wall on a wall.
- The build cost panel and the crafting card are easier to read over grass.
- Skin is one even colour all over the body, and the body keeps its shape at any Body Fat or Belly.
- A new world loads faster: the terrain no longer waits on the GPU before it starts.
- The first time you start the game it picks the graphics preset your machine can run, and Settings, Graphics has Use recommended settings. Low is lighter too.
- XP you earn by doing things shows as a small +N beside the crosshair, and the skill rings under the minimap stay quiet. Travel skills sum up once you stop.
- The Fieldbook says how to win over and keep every animal, and has a page for every working build piece.
Fixed
- A new character no longer starts at another character's levels. Each character now keeps its own skills, research, discoveries and Wingbook, and your first character keeps everything you had earned.
- 52 item descriptions that said the wrong thing are corrected, in every language.
- Dropped items no longer sink into or fall through the ground.
- Strips of sea no longer go missing under the opening flight.
- A rare glitch that left a player invisible and stuck now fixes itself, and a player whose game crashed can join the world again.
- A multiplayer host no longer slows to a crawl inside an Underhall.
- Bee swarms come down with the tree they hang from.
- Tools can no longer be swung while climbing or gliding, and wading no longer stops you jumping or climbing.
- Walking out of the sea no longer flips you back into swimming, and storm surf no longer stands a swimmer up in mid-air.
- The Tallfin's loot no longer rolls off Seal Rock into the sea.
- Beds under a low ceiling or a roof of wedges count as sheltered.
- Houses no longer fall down the next time you load your world. A building now remembers that it stands on the ground, and one from an older save waits for the ground under it to load before it is checked. A house that already fell does not come back.
- The clothes, armour and gear you were wearing are on you again when you come back to a world, not in your pack. Saves from before this come back dressed too.
Known issues
- A world from before 0.5.0 loses the ground you dug, raised or flattened the first time it loads, as the castles and villages move onto land. Your buildings stay where they are.
- Worlds started before 0.4.0 can get a firefell where nothing was dug or built. Start a new world for the best experience.
- The download is large, about 11 GB. Trimming the assets the game doesn't use is planned.
- Starting a new world can take about a minute.
- Busy places like big fights, storms and thick forest can drop the frame rate on the High preset. Medium or Low helps on older machines.
- Some of the newest text, like the furniture and the sea's new creatures, is still in English when the game is set to another language.
- Achievements and Steam Cloud saves only work when you start the game through Steam.
- If the host's game crashes, everyone in the world goes back to the title screen. A world can only be handed over when the host leaves through the menu.
- If something goes wrong, the log is in %APPDATA%\Windreach\logs. Please send it along with what you were doing at the time.