Update 0.5.0 — Toxicity
Update 0.5 opens Toxicity and expands the ways your cell can evolve. It also brings progression adjustments, clearer feedback and performance improvements.
Steam progress: a fresh start
- Lineages are now separate for each Steam account, and between the Playtest and the main game. Your Steam slots will be empty when you first launch 0.5: previous progress is not imported. Your old files remain on disk.
Toxicity, the third biome
- Toxicity becomes available after winning a cycle in the Coral Barrier.
- New fauna and flora inhabit all three scales, bringing fresh food sources and poison-related dangers.
- Three new bosses await, each with its own identity and surprises.
New ways to evolve
- The Cilia and Instinct branches open up in Genetic Memory.
- New organelles and variants expand poison-related adaptations.
- New upgrades expand defences, secretions, perception and symbiotes.
- New mutations await discovery. Some enemies can also develop adaptations of their own.
Combat and progression
- DNA progression has been adjusted to better reflect threat, and victories are more rewarding.
- Environmental poison pressure gradually increases with threat in Toxicity.
- Adjustments cover ability use, enemy behaviour and several cycle interactions.
Interface and readability
- New indicators convey threat, DNA gain rate and critical health.
- Combat feedback and health bars are clearer and more accurately reflect applied effects.
- Genetic Memory and Awakening Objectives gain clearer presentation and more consistent wording.
- Lineage statistics are now available in the Archives.
- The News menu brings together playtest information and patch-note history.
Visuals and performance
- Visual rework of symbiotes and their animations.
- Several protections and Spine families have been visually reworked for better readability across cell sizes.
- The presentation of some bosses and combat effects has been refined.
- Optimisations to reef rendering, plant regrowth, objective menus and the death transition.
Your feedback will help guide further playtest balancing.