Rimworld: Anomaly will kick things off when colonists provoke a super-intelligence, which then leads into monstrous creatures, sanity-destroying phenomena, and parasites make their way into the world. The expansion has been described by the studio as being inspired by horror works like Cabin in the Woods, The Thing, Hellraiser, and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

The Anomaly expansion will feature a number of horror-themed scenarios that players might face, like an invisible hunter that feeds on human souls, a massive flesh creature growing across the landscape, or even colonists becoming obsessed with a mysterious golden cube.

There will also be new things to fight in the expansion, including hordes of undead, new death machines, fleshbeasts, water-beasts, and imitations of human beings. Colonists can build new tools to help fight off these enemies, including items like flamethrowers and IEDs that can resurrect the dead.

“It was important to me that this not just be a collection of monsters to shoot at, because the base game already generates those feelings of combat tension and I wanted something new,” said Ludeon Studio founder Tynan.

“So we made sure to design the new threats to follow the arc of classic horror stories: The protagonists encounter a mystery, then realize it’s a threat, and try to survive while they learn more about it, slowly building advantage before they try to turn the tables. It’s a very RimWorld kind of chaos when several of these things are happening at once with different threats.”

The planned update for the base game, update 1.5, will bring with a host of new features as well, such as the ability for wounded colonists to crawl, trait-related possessions, organ decay, and the ability to build wall lamps, flood lights and hidden conduits.

Rimworld is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

The biggest feature in Biotech is the addition of families to RimWorld. With the expansion, players can now see their colonists have children and raise their own families. A number of options are available, including surrogate birth, and even the ability to gestate embryos in machines.

Along with the addition of families comes the addition of children to RimWorld. Players will be given plenty of tools to help raise children, keep them happy, and educate them by allowing them the ability to spend time in class, explore nature, or even chat on the radio, among other things.

Other features in Biotech include the addition of new xenohuman factions, the addition of the vampire-like Sanguophages, and the ability to turn colonists into a mechanitor—a person with brain implants that lets the psychically command semi-living machinnes called mechanoids. There are also new super-mechanoid bosses, as well as new pollution mechanics.

Ludeon Studios recently released update 1.1 for RimWorld along with its first paid DLC, Royalty. The studio is working on hotfixes for other issues over the coming weeks but has plans for a content add-on to Royalty. Creator Tynan Sylvester noted some of the things he’s considering adding, and also reminded players that “none of this is decided 100% so please don’t take any of these are promises.”

Some concepts include a way to renounce a royal title that the player may not want; additional bulk production recipes; more combat psycasts; and additional content for quests since it would be “nice to have a few more variations.” A way for players to avoid fighting mech clusters and what could result from just having them on the map is also under consideration. Players can expect tests in the “unstable” branch of Steam in the future.

Sylvester also confirmed that RimWorld will have a version 1.2 “some day”. Unlike the current version, this one will cause quite a few things – like mods – to break. “We’re going to try hard to avoid unnecessary code breakages and keep documents about changes for all future updates, and without such a big Unity update, I hope mods in general will be easier or trivially easy to update than the 1.0 -> 1.1 shift. However, things will still inevitably need updating.”

Long story short, things are happening and the developer will update fans over the coming months. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Ludeon Studios’ colony management/story-telling engine RimWorld has received its first major post-launch update. However, in an unexpected twist, it’s also received the first paid DLC pack with Royalty. The latter sees a faction, the Empire, joining the world and bringing their own brand of advanced technology to the Rim.

The entire purpose of the DLC is to complete some quests until eventually, you can hose the Imperial High Stellarch and his guards (before subsequently protecting them from any enemies). Eventually you can earn a royal title which also provides an Imperial psychic amplifier. It confers psychic abilities like mind control, paralysis and even inducing vomiting.

If you’re not interested in dropping $20 for the Royalty DLC, then the new 1.1 update should have enough to keep you busy. It offers a new quests tab, improved mod management, better UI scaling, new weapons, new animals and much more. Check out some of the patch notes below for more details.

New features

• UI now looks sharp at UI scales over 1.0. Great for 4K monitors.
• New Quests tab provides information about available, active, and historical quests.
• Added a new data-driven quests generation and management system.
• This should make it straightforward for modders and us to add or change quests without programming.
• UI now uses colored text to highlight important words like character names, places, and rewards.
• Improved the mod management interface and code.
• Mods now have a global package ID which lets them refer to each other.
• Mods can now define other mods they must be loaded after or before.
• Added a tool to automatically sort the mod list.
• Mods can now define other mods that they depend on. Shortcuts allow the player to easily download required mods.
• Mods can now define other mods that they are incompatible with. The interface will warn players about incompatibilities.
• Added loading screen tips. These are short bits of text helping the player understand an obscure aspect of the game. They’re displayed during loading.
• Loading screen now displays present and active expansions and mods.
• Added room stats gizmo, which displays the stats of the room containing a selected building, at a glance.
• Added recon armor, a lighter variant of marine armor.
• Added EMP launcher weapon. It fires EMP grenades a long distance.
• Added smoke launcher weapon. It fires smoke grenades a long distance.
• Added smoke grenadier enemy.
• Added a planet population slider to the planet generation parameters.
• Added animals: Bison, donkey, duck, goat, goose, guinea pig, horse, sheep, yak.
• Added ‘tortured artist’ trait. The character has a permanent mood debuff, but gets art inspirations from low mood.

Ludeon Studios’ RimWorld, a sci-fi survival/base management title inspired by the likes of Dwarf Fortress, has left Steam Early Access and is available now for PC. Having begun as a Kickstarter project in 2013, RimWorld has gone on to sell over one million copies. Check out the launch trailer below for a better idea of what the game is about.

As three survivors of a shipwreck, you’re tasked with survival. That means building a base, hunting, farming, mining, and so on for resources (depending on your surroundings). Sooner or later, other colonists will join you, and each has their own character to manage. On top of repelling attacks from enemy factions, players will witness relationships formed and broken, and ultimately plot their escape from the world.

One of RimWorld’s biggest hooks is the AI Storyteller, a personality that affects the random events that occur. Three Storytellers – Randy Random, Cassandra Classic, and Phoebe Chillax – are available, and they bring random chaos, balanced difficulty, and a relaxing experience, respectively. If you already own RimWorld, then the 1.0 version is the same as Beta 19, but with tons of bug fixes and the ability to control the food that colonists eat.

Ludeon Studios’ RimWorld, a survival/colony management/base building title that was inspired by Dwarf Fortress, will finally hit its 1.0 release on October 17th. Though the developer hasn’t really discussed what’s coming after launch, there are, according to them, “a variety of interesting directions to go with the game.”

Considering RimWorld has been in development for more than five years, we wouldn’t put it past the studio to gather their bearings before laying out a roadmap. However, players who have been involved since Early Access began will get one big new feature: Food restriction. “1.0 is mostly the same as Beta 19, with a lot of bug fixes. The only significant new feature is a new food restriction system that allows you to determine what your colonists and prisoners are allowed to eat,” the announcement states

Though RimWorld has many of the same rudimentary principles as Dwarf Fortress, it has its own little quirks and interesting additions. Players can have different AI storytellers who can guide the direction of a single playthrough’s narrative. You can choose between something completely random, a more relaxing time, or a steadily building challenge curve.

New features added to RimWorld since Beta 19 include new automated turrets, water mills, and even a gauntlet of sorts before finally escaping. What are your thoughts on RimWorld finally releasing? Let us know in the comments. For more information on what to do with a modded playthrough, head here.

If you’ve heard of Dwarf Fortress, which is a cornucopia of complexity even for hardcore fans of the game, then Ludeon Studios’ RimWorld might have popped up on occasion. Despite being in Steam Early Access, the title has crossed 1 million units in sales releasing in 2013 and heading to the digital storefront in 2016.

Designer and programmer Tynan Sylvester acknowledged the milestone and noted that the original Kickstarter only needed 1,000 sales. “That seemed like a lot. This is…crazy. Many thanks to all the players for buying the game, to Piotr Walczak, Ben Rog-Wilhelm and all others who worked on it, to modders for making a huge variety of mods that are intricate, scary, useful, and amusing. Also to everyone who ever made a video about RimWorld, or streamed it, or just told a friend about it.

“And to those making comics and art interpretations, to those moderating forums and chat channels, and everyone else bringing life into the community. I can’t thank you enough. Here’s hoping RimWorld and its community keep going strong for a long time to come.”

The base-building/survival title starts you off with three survivors and effectively generates stories depending on what you do. You can establish a colony and manage your denizens, constructing defensive structures, training pets, trading with ships and caravans, surviving against hostile weather conditions, capture refugees and prisoners to bolster your forces…and then watch it all fall apart thanks to the game’s AI Storyteller. Each storyteller has their own little quirk so you’re never sure what’s going to happen next.

Head on over to Steam to check out RimWorld and see if it’s up your alley. Be careful though – it’s likely to siphon all your time away.