POLYARIS · published
TLDR: difficulty selection, updated UI, OST, survival balancing, smarter wolfs and much more in Open Demo update. Hi everyone, we're releasing the largest Open Demo update with some major improvements to gameplay, visuals and performance. This will also be the last major update for Open Demo until the release of the game, though we might still push bug fixes along the way.
In November, expect big news from us - we'll announce the release date together with a proper gameplay trailer, as well as share additional news about the game.
We've been busy reading through all of your feedback and tried to address many of them in this Open Demo update. There's still a lot of work to do, so please let us know how you find the latest update so we can improve it even further. Have a nice day and see you in Novemner.
Patch notes for this POLYARIS Open Demo update:
[ IMPORTANT ]
Saves and settings from the previous demo are reset the first time you launch this update, because they are not compatible with the new version.
Some controls have changed: 1 and 2 draw your two hand items, H puts them away, and the radio is now on 3 (on gamepad, tap Y to switch and hold Y to put away). All keys can be rebound in Settings.
[ NEW FEATURES ]
Added four difficulty levels, from Easy (Polar Day) to Very Hard (Polar Night). Each one starts in a different season and changes daylight, cold, needs, loot and recovery.
Added a new save system with up to 5 save slots that you can delete. The game now saves when you exit to the main menu, excluding the hardest difficulty.
Redesigned the portable radio into a handheld field device: a topographic map that fills in as you explore, a waypoint, a task log, a radio tuner, temperature, radiation and GPS readouts, and a Notes tab to re-read every note you have found, with translation.
Reworked survival: needs now change per in-game hour and scale with difficulty, new conditions such as Hypothermia, Wet, Freezing Risk, Sweat and Underdressed, a "Feels Like" temperature breakdown, and a carry weight system that slows you down when overloaded.
Revamped crafting and campfires: cook food in fire slots and see your chance to start a fire and what affects it in the new fire screen.
Added Pass Time at campfires and beds (1–12 hours). It stops automatically if the fire goes out, you start freezing, your health is critical or a predator comes close.
Reworked wolf AI: wolves notice you by sight, sound and scent carried on the wind. They stalk, bluff-charge and retreat, avoid buildings and can be lured with raw meat. Wounded wolves flee.
Overhauled the M1895 rifle: aim sway affected by breathing, cold, fatigue and injuries, hold Shift to hold your breath, and cold-weather jams (clear with R).
Reworked skiing: real momentum on slopes, mouse steering with free look, crouch to tuck, double-poling, herringbone climbing, plough braking, and stumbles instead of random falls.
Overhauled snow: full snow cover, icicles, snow falling from trees and bushes as you brush past, longer-lasting trails, and snow that builds up on your clothes, rifle and items and melts by the fire.
Added a big atmosphere pass: interior reverb and muffled wind indoors, distant wolf howls, crows and gulls, smoke from the helicopter wreck, floating sea ice, sea smoke on calm frozen days, and rare aurora storms that fill the radio with static.
Added a dynamic soundtrack that stays quiet most of the time and plays for key moments, with tense music when wolves stalk or attack. The character's voice lines are now less frequent and react to more situations.
Added a new Help & Tutorials menu with 20 topics. Key icons follow your bindings and controller, and you can press J on any hint to open its page.
Added new settings: UI Scale, Celsius/Fahrenheit, Realism Mode (hides the HUD), HUD Motion, Music Frequency, Character Voice and Non-Verbal Sounds, plus a warning when a key is already bound.
[ IMPROVEMENTS ]
Redesigned the whole in-game UI: inventory, looting, item cards (now showing warmth, wind protection, food values and food temperature), health, crafting, sleep and the HUD.
Added full gamepad support to the inventory and all menus, and removed the virtual mouse cursor. Steam Deck is detected automatically and uses gamepad controls and a larger UI.
Improved the inventory: swapping clothes keeps your pocket contents, the rifle no longer takes up grid space, plus stack merging and splitting, drop amount, Take All (T), Sort (Z), condition and fuel % on icons, and clothing repair with a spare garment.
Reworked notifications: they now show one at a time, tutorial hints appear only once per save, and key icons switch between keyboard and gamepad.
The loading screen now waits with "Press any key to continue" once the world is fully loaded, and the game pauses when a controller disconnects or the Steam Overlay opens.
Added more environmental storytelling to the village, the harbour and the houses, and reworked the island's lighting with darker nights.
[ OPTIMIZATION ]
Upgraded the game to Unreal Engine 5.8.
Optimized rendering across the island: in our tests the High preset runs 30–45% faster (the research station went from 72 to 130 FPS).
Removed most stutters when moving across the island (the worst frame went from 230 ms to 14 ms) and added precompiled shaders to reduce shader stutter.
Added Lumen Lite, a much cheaper global illumination option, and improved the Ultra Low preset. FPS on integrated graphics doubled in our tests.
Steam Deck now gets its own preset automatically: Low with Lumen Lite, a 60 FPS cap and dynamic resolution.
Anti-aliasing now follows the Post Process quality setting, DLSS is available on RTX cards, and GTX cards use upscaling instead of full resolution with FXAA.
View Distance now also extends the detailed world range on High and above, so rocks, trees and distant landmarks no longer pop in.
[ BUGS ]
Fixed soft-locks where the interact key, doors or the inventory stopped responding, or Tab had to be pressed twice.
Fixed a death loop when dying while sleeping or passing time. The game no longer saves a dead character.
Fixed items getting stuck in your hand when eating, drinking or using an item was interrupted.
Fixed the character walking on its own after looting a wolf or closing a menu.
Fixed controls breaking when switching between gamepad and keyboard/mouse.
Fixed dropped items falling through floors and placed items floating in the air.
Fixed leaving the boat putting you under it, not being able to board from the water, and the empty sonar screen.
Fixed not being able to climb out of the water onto ice floes and piers.
Fixed campfires deleting food, fuel and the lighter when dismantled or burnt out, and giving almost no warmth unless you crouched. Campfire and stove contents are now saved.
Fixed sleep always counting as about 2 hours whatever length you chose, and stamina not refilling while hypothermic.
Fixed cooking issues: the snow-in-mug recipe was unavailable, the mug could disappear, wolf meat didn't cook, and food next to a fire never cooked on Hard.
Fixed the lighthouse rifle not being pickable without a backpack, and the camera staying tilted after a ski fall.
Fixed the radio tower blizzard arriving minutes late and the weather getting stuck after story events.
Fixed volume sliders not affecting wind, blizzard, ambience and wolf sounds, and hats and headlamps clipping into the first-person view.
[ BALANCING ]
Rebalanced loot and scaled it by difficulty: fewer but more meaningful spawns, scarcer food and drinks on Hard and Very Hard, and warmer clothing found as you progress.
Fire-starting chance now depends on difficulty, cold, wind, snow and shelter. Accelerants help, and each failed attempt improves your next try.
Easy and Normal are slightly colder indoors, while on Hard and Very Hard fires warm you more and help you recover from hypothermia faster.
Food warms and cooks twice as fast in cooking slots or right next to a fire.
Warmer clothes now have bigger pockets.
Added energy drinks (a fatigue boost followed by a small crash), found in place of some sodas. Firewood now stacks to 5.