Development Update 02.10.2026

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's progress report.

Level: 
This week, the Level Artists moved on to the next regions, starting a first set dressing pass in the Apoc Canyon and Grassland regions. The focus is on increasing the level of detail in these areas, with improvements to cliff-to-ground transitions, riverbeds, increasingly detailed landscape painting, and more. Level Design is currently working on additional content in the Apoc Canyon, and our 3D Artists started work on quest-relevant assets and polishing foliage assets, adding details like moss to tree bases.

Code:
This week, we worked on resolving some issues, e.g. we implemented a solution to prevent loading screens during cutscenes, and resolved a few issues with the save game. We also improved Shey's melee tutorial sequence. 
In the sandbox, some small additions have been made. The character customization screen has received some more options: Skin Normal Strength, Skin Specular, Hair Roughness, Hair Metallic, Teeth Color, Tongue Color, and Eyebrow Highlight.
For custom materials, the 'Texture Randomness' option that is currently available for Voxel materials can now also be used for normal materials, too.

Character:
In the character department, we have been working on a set of low-resolution NPC models based on existing outfits and characters. These are rigged using a much lighter skeleton with way less bones and model details. They are going to be the enemies and non-interactable NPCs that we populate the world with, designed to have a minimized performance footprint. We also finished the concept for a special armor set for Maya built out of Sandshark scales. Model production for that will begin shortly.

Animations: 
On the animation side, we added a few more routine animations, such as Kim making her "medicine" in the tutorial and a new special attack for the legendary sword Maya can find.

Design:
On the Design/Quest side, we gave all lizard enemies custom combat AIs and did some slight number-balancing on them. We have filled the area around Apoc with bandits and camps and added routine behaviors to them to make them feel more alive.
We are also focusing deeper on chapter 4 to polish player flow and introduce improvements to the overall content.
In the Alpha Camp, we have implemented the Max x Shey rooftop date minigame. We also addressed various player feedback, such as making Shiva's Blackwing search area a bit easier, and resolved some issues with the new quests from Otto, Ivanov, and Milanna. In Umbar, we have added a few quest-related paintings by Zumon and Sheema. Maya can now get a painting from Sheema that will appear in her house in the Warrior Village, should you decide to appreciate his "avant-garde” art. Likewise, Max can get a painting from Zumon that will go up in his quarters in Alpha Camp. In the Warrior Village, we have also gone and made an overall improvement pass around all Max related quests and dialogues.
We also made some initial preparations for a thorough lighting pass for all the minigame scenes. It will get tackled as soon as the general lighting setup is done.
Another quest we worked on is the Garden Hill questline in the Great Plains where Max can prove himself as an honorary member of a pig gang: “The Rosy Cheeks”.
We also started implementing the Arena Champions, where players can unlock weapon perks.

Thank you for all your continued support,

-Wild Life Team