Development Update 09.10.2026

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

Level: 
During this week, we continued working on the Grassland hills and Apoc Canyon, adding more detail to these regions through foliage updates, landscape polishing, and more. Level Design focused on everything surrounding the cannibal tribe located in the Umbar Forest and near Warrior Village. Meanwhile, our 3D Artists updated the grappling hook assets to improve their look and visibility, making sure they don't get lost in the visual noise of the environment.

Code:
This week, we implemented outfit skin masks. This works like the existing outfit fur masks and allows us to "hide" skin under clothing to prevent it from clipping through the clothing.

On the sandbox side, the custom materials for Props, Decals, and Voxels have received an additional "Channel" parameter for the Roughness and Metallic slots. This can be useful if your external material textures have data stored in multiple channels (for example, ORM/ARM, or other custom packed textures). In those cases, you can put the same texture in both slots and select the corresponding R/G/B/A channel.

Character:
In the character department we have been continuing work on the Sandshark Scale armor for Maya. The model is currently in its high-poly state and we are adjusting the different plate parts for better proportional sizes. We also finished a new mask outfit intended for our cannibal enemies in the game.

Animations: 
On the animation side, we mopped up a few more small tasks this week such as a new special attack for the Feral Lion boss and Lazra, and interaction animations for the player like pushing a button on a wall. We also made a few variations for taunting animations, so NPCs look more lively during group fights.
Additionally, we spent some time evaluating various animations for use in the Umbar Temple VIP area. There will be various smaller minigames for Maya and for Max using existing animations and some new ones.

Design:
On the quest side, we have been working on the main story chapter 4, getting everything to work.
We have also started locking the first characters down for voice recording, which will start soon. This involves going through every character meticulously, starting with the important romance ones, and double checking that they have all lines they need - as once recording starts, they will be set in stone. We also did a test recording this week to help optimize our workflow.
Further, we implemented a little bonus scene for Sahid at the end of the "On Thin Ice" quest: After freeing Sahid from Gulhragg, he can now be found back in the Warrior Village. Maya can talk to him there and offer to help him with his libido - before it gets him into trouble again!
We additionally completed a couple of small tasks like adding the last melee weapons and updating the dialogues with the latest native speaker revisions. 
Lastly, we implemented 5 arena champions scattered in the world. Max and Maya can challenge them to a friendly duel. Winning grants the player a unique perk based on the arena champion's weapon proficiency.

Thank you for all your continued support,

-Wild Life Team