Developer Starry Studio has revealed details about what Once Human players can expect in the next major updates for the game. In a lengthy post on Steam, the studio has revealed that upcoming updates will take player feedback about various aspects of Once Human into account, including character progression, pacing, and replayability.
One of the biggest new features coming to Once Human is the addition of permanent servers. Coming to the game on March 13, the feature will allow players to have, as its name might suggest, permanent servers for their scenarios. Currently, Once Human‘s servers automatically shut down when a player completes a scenario, transferring their player back to Eternaland where they can sign up for the next scenario.
This leads to some players being unable to experience all the content typically available in a scenario. Players that get disconnected also can’t resume their progress since the servers close down automatically. Once the update is live, scenario servers will not shut down automatically. Instead, it will turn into a permanent server after around 2 hours.
It is worth noting that players who have not logged in for the scenario can not load into the new permanent server. This was done to reduce the overall load on Once Human‘s backend. Because of this, characters that haven’t been played for 30 days or more will not transfer to the permanent servers, but the studio plans to ease up on this over time.
Permanent servers for the same scenario type and Visional Wheel will also be merged into a single world. Players can freely switch between Worlds to interact with players on other servers, and worlds with smaller player counts can be merged with higher-population servers for a better player experience.
Another major feature coming to Once Human will be the new Endless Dream PvE scenario. While the studio hasn’t confirmed when this feature will arrive, the scenario will include a fully accessible map that players can explore. The new Endless Dream scenario revolves around the Sleeper’s influence over the surrounding wilderness, turning things into a dreamscape with unpredictable changes.
In gameplay terms, players will feel the effects of the Sleeper’s influence by getting new vulnerabilities, like weakness or becoming flammable. Deviants and resources will also be affected in strange ways by the Sleeper.
On March 27, Once Human will also be introducing a major quality of life feature in allowing players to share their resources between their characters. This means players won’t have to grind up alternate characters to experience Once Human‘s several scenarios. Check out all the resources that can be shared through the Cross-Character Asset Sharing feature below.
The studio has also detailed why some assets, like Stellar Stairway progression, Starchrom, and blueprint data, are shared in this manner rather than being an aggregate progression tracker that applies to the player’s entire account. According to the studio, these assets are tied more to character play time than any other aspect of the game.
“Aggregating these resources would create a significant and insurmountable gap between players who focus on one character and those who play multiple characters,” explains the studio. “Using the data of the character with the highest Blueprint Collection level ensures that all other characters on your account will enjoy an increase in Blueprint Collection level, allowing you to create and use new characters more freely. If you have invested in multiple characters, we will offer Starchrom compensation based on aggregate Blueprint Collection levels of your other characters.”
Along with these new features, Once Human will also get optimizations for its resource allocation, Deviations and construction systems. It includes giving players better control over water and production management and territory relocation.
Once Human is a free-to-play game available on PC. For more details, check out our recent interview with the studio. Also check out our review from back when it launched.
