Welcome back Prospectors!

Our next Beta Weekend begins on Friday 24th September at 5pm PDT where you’ll finally get a taste of the Arctic!

The arctic has been the most anticipated biome from our community. It’s home to a Mammoth, Polar Bears, Wolves, its own weather events like blizzards, and ice caves. Yes, that’s right! Ice caves!

As portrayed in our community Twitch streams with Dean and Lorii - simply getting to the arctic and surviving there is no easy feat. So, that’s why we’re going to give you a little guidance on how to get a head start on your prospects this weekend. We’ll also cover exciting quality of life updates, and of course some patch notes to keep you up to speed with the current state of the game.

Image by Discord member: Cav3dust

Don’t just run there, prepare!

You’ve landed in your drop ship and the door opens into the forest biome. You step outside and look for the closest point of entry to the arctic. You’re so excited and start running there…wait wait wait, hold on prospector – there are a few things you should do first!

[*]Collect resources and get crafting.
Just like previous Beta Weekends, you will be presented with the same challenges as soon as you set foot on Icarus. Do what you’ve done best and chop down trees, hunt, build a cabin and craft necessities such as weapons and fur armour to prepare for your expedition into the cold. [*]Determine your prospector’s life-threatening needs.
While the forest biome is sufficient with freshwater lakes and oxite, the arctic is not. Craft and fill a water skin and oxygen bladder so you can top up when needed. While you’re in the arctic you can find ice (scattered across the snowy ground) and melt them down into water by using a campfire, which will subsequently fill your water skin. Having an ample amount of food to satiate your hunger until your first arctic hunt would also be smart. [*]Bring supplemental resources with you.
Once you’re in the thick of the arctic, having the ability to build a cabin for shelter midway to your final destination could save your life. Carry extra wood, ore, refined metals and any other crafting benches or tables that can fit into your inventory without sacrificing your weight or other important items. If you’re playing in a group, try dispersing these items among your team. In the case that you fall short of resources, caves make great safe havens and host an array of ore.

Map - Expanded Playable Area

Each Beta Weekend we open up the Icarus map more than the previous! Since we are unlocking a completely new biome, there is a far wider area to explore and play. Yellow signifies the Arctic biome, and blue being the Forest where you have been before.

Patch Notes

• All prospects have been cleared
• Characters who were on drops have been returned to the station ready to head to a new prospect with their current talent and skill unlocks intact
• Character level cap remains the same at Level 25
• Buildings constructed on cliff-faces will no longer destroy themselves when players reload into the prospect
• Animals will no longer try to path through dropships
• When placing a full Oxygen Tank into a hotbar slot, it will now fill the player’s oxygen to 100%
• Left clicking the Oxygen Tank in the hotbar now consumes oxygen
• Lightning can no longer destroy items inside caves
• Arrows will no longer duplicate when they are recovered from skinned corpses
• Players can no longer be struck by lightning while inside a house
• Logged out players no longer show as a dead prospector
• Logged out players no longer show as a dead marker on the map
• Players no longer fall through the world when reloading their prospect into a cave
• Animals can no longer attempt to path through cave voxel coverings
• Animal corpses now despawn after 10 minutes
• Animal corpses no longer respawn when the player reloads into the prospect
• Repaired building pieces (floor, wall, beam etc) can now also stack with newly crafted building pieces inside the player’s inventory
• Rifle rounds now break on hit

Quality of Life Updates

• Modular Kitchens
• Functional Curtains

We also deployed quality of life adjustments among our developers! We enforced a relative stand-down to those who worked longer hours over Beta Weekend Two. If it wasn’t for their hard work, the mass of hotfixes and updates we pushed through would not have been possible! As a side, this means that the amount of bug fixing between Beta Weekends was limited. But we are more than happy with the results we have achieved, and with a well rested team.

Image by Discord member: kininja

Reporting Bugs and Suggestions

We’re consistently amazed at how well our community is utilizing the platform we’ve chosen to receive feedback. We’re improving processes on our end so we can clearly communicate with you the status of each ticket, and how we prioritize them to our team. This is just a big ol’ THANK YOU for helping make Icarus the best it can be.

Please continue to report bugs and any other issues or suggestions during Beta Weekend #3 here: https://icarus.featureupvote.com/

See you in the Arctic!

We're looking forward to your Icarus gameplay, screenshots and your tales of journeying through the Arctic! Be sure to tag us @surviveicarus on all socials, and join our Discord server to hang out with us and our community this Beta Weekend! Click here

- Lorii

Helpful links:
Reporting Bugs
Discord
Twitter

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