As is tradition for Empires of the Undergrowth, it has now exceeded six months since the last roadmap update, and so it is time for a new one. This newsletter will go over what the team has been working on recently, by taking a detailed look at the steps of the new roadmap.

A Myrmecia ereptor worker and her soldier guards from Dino Dude on our Discord

Outwardly, at least, the last few months of development seem to have focused on what might be considered fairly mundane things like texture optimisations and controller support - but these are important steps in themselves. Inwardly, though, we have been working solidly on our next DLC, as was spoken about in last month’s vlog (even though we can’t reveal the exact details of it just yet).

So, let’s start by posting up the lovely new roadmap for August of 2025 - based on Firebreak, one of the extra levels that came along with the Exploding Ant update in March, for a very distinct look to it - and then taking a look at each stop along its path.

For those of you who have joined us in the last few months and haven’t seen a roadmap update up until this point - welcome. The roadmap is a broad-strokes way of letting the community know what our goals are in the relatively near future, and those change quite often - hence the roadmap not being a static thing that stays the same forever. Here is the updated one for August 2025:

Let’s go over each step and discuss what it implies for the project, going forward. We’ll skip over the first step (the Exploding Ant update) since that is now in the past.

Two of our team members (Kartik & Ethan) have been, for quite some time now, dedicated to making Empires of the Undergrowth a truly great experience on controllers. Alongside this is a more general overhaul of the UI elements - almost every piece of UI-related artwork will be updated alongside the improved controller support. Radial menus will be introduced (but only when you are using a controller). I have asked the devs if I could show you a little preview of the revamped UI, but they’d rather get on with it than open it up to premature criticism just yet.

Early in the year, two new artists joined the team - Jack and Aron. They’ve already left their mark on the project with artwork changes to creatures, and they’re far from done. Aron has since specialised to be our technical artist (more on that in the next point) and Jack has been working through a list of artwork updates. Creatures that will be getting the upgrade treatment include the juvenile eastern newt, emperor scorpion, red velvet ant.

Unreal Engine 4, which EotU utilises, has many useful features such as texture streaming which are designed to make experiences better on older or lower-end hardware. If we’re being strictly honest, EotU has not been particularly well optimised to make the best use of such features - until now. The update that went out a few weeks ago included some of the earlier work on this, but more is to come - our technical artist Aron has been going through the game and making optimisation changes to much of the artwork.

The overall effect of this should be improved loading times and frame rates for people using older hardware, as well as more stable frame rates on the whole and more efficient VRAM usage. The days where I have to advise people experiencing problems to disable texture streaming entirely should soon be a thing of the past!

The ever-present wildcard which may or may not get used - extra levels can sometimes happen when one of our designers gets struck with sudden inspiration. Imagine, if you will, a designer waking up in the dead of night with a level-based EotU itch they just can’t scratch. That’s when you might get an extra level!

Custom games are so varied and changeable that I don’t think we’ll ever be done tweaking them, but there are some more tangible changes that will be coming to them. Our environment artist DanC has been working on updating the older art styles that persist in some of the maps to reflect the newer ones, and there are changes coming to balance, AI priorities and suchlike.

Oh, to be by the shoreline as the sun sets!

Uber creatures from the 5th tier of the campaign are also due to make an appearance, finally - and I’ll spoil a couple of those now. Two of the ubers you’ll have the pleasure of meeting are the uber centipede, and the uber huntsman spider (apologies in advance). 

Until official announcements are made there isn’t a whole lot I can say about this that I didn’t say in the vlog a few weeks back - it’s a DLC that has been in development for a couple of months now, it will be very different from the Exploding Ants DLC, and that’s about all I can say. Obviously we will be aiming for the earlier end of the prediction period, but with everything else that has to come to fruition at the same time it might be later than that. Keep your peepers peeled for news on this.

This is something that has been requested for a long time by a lot of people - including myself! Many a time have I been washing dishes and thought to myself, ‘oh golly gosh, I do sure wish I could stream the official soundtrack of Empires of the Undergrowth directly to this here device without jumping through silly hoops”. Well, my wishes, and the wishes of many other people, are soon to be answered.

Speaking of silly hoops, there are some technical and legal issues to work through here so this update doesn’t have a specific decided date just yet - but as soon as you can stream the 4.1 action theme from Spotify, we’ll let everyone know straight away.

Over 200k views - someone must like this track!

This future update is in its early stages and therefore doesn’t have an estimated date, but beyond the currently in production stuff is a large update in the far future. Well, relatively far future as far as software development goes. There won’t be any more news on this until the current DLC has been released.

Forever my favourite part of writing newsletters - if you would like to submit a screenshot for consideration for Screenshot Saturday, the easiest way to do so is to join our Discord and post in the relevant channel there. Tip: if you’d like to take amazing cinematic screenies, hold down shift while pressing the screenshot button (F9 by default) to uncouple the camera from the floor. 

A bullfrog enjoying a light snack from Punkleton - also used in the roadmap!

A whip spider popping a whole lot of termites from Orion (Dilphy) - also used in the roadmap!

Velvet conversations from tibikee

In a shakeup of the vlog format, community manager Mike (creatively freed by being allowed to dedicated this vlog solely to EotU) again touches lots of grass and goes over upcoming changes to Empires of the Undergrowth, while also doing his hobby of macro photography and videography. IRL ants included.

The video includes some IRL ant and other insect hobby stuff - if you're uninterested in those, head on over to YouTube and use the chapter markers to get to the EotU goodies.

Empires of the Undergrowth is part of the Steam Summer Sale at 50% off, with the DLC also discounted. Check it and other games out in the Hooded Horse Summer Sale. Down below is a recap of recent development updates, including remastered creatures, UI work, and controller support improvements.

Hooded Horse Summer Publisher Sale 2025

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The team is working hard on new content for Empires of the Undergrowth. Plans are nearly finalized, and development has already begun, although details are not being shared just yet.

They’re also continuing their big creature remastering push. The American bullfrog is getting a complete overhaul (models, textures, animations), and the emperor scorpion has been rebuilt from scratch. The whip spider keeps her model but gets new materials and animations. Other creatures, such as the juvenile eastern newt, spiny devil, and checkered beetle, are also receiving animation updates.

On the UI side, two developers are elbows-deep in controller support work. The game already runs on Steam Deck and gamepads, but they’re making changes to help things feel better and more comfortable to use.

Read more about what's coming here!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/463530/view/547860543111694317

https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/3402420/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth__Exploding_Ants/

This patch is the full release of what we’ve been testing in the optional beta - thank you very much to everyone who has provided feedback over the last few weeks on that. It makes several changes and fixes to various things that cropped up since the release of 1.1.

After this patch it will be a while until the next one, to allow some of the dev team to work on UI and controller changes. During this downtime we’ll also be working on ways to optimise, automate and speed up our packaging processes for the future.

• Exploding creatures will now always hit their initial target as well as performing an area-of-effect blast (will ensure they hit very large creatures)
  
• Significant optimisations made to VRAM usage across the game, with the intent of decreasing load time and artifacting (more to come)
  
• Significant optimisations to textures (more to come)
  
• Removed falloff from exploding creature damage so it now does the same damage at the edge of the explosion as it does in the centre
  
• Exploding termite AI colonies will now start with some food storage already in place
  
• Myrmecia ereptor now appears in the level selection screen
  
• Myrmecia ereptor now shows in the end-game victory cinematic animation
  
• DPS values for new colony creatures now show when selecting them to build. Please note that these values do not account for the explosion as the DPS on that would skew the results in a way that is not representative of the actual creature’s regular attack
  
• Disabled Bomb Mode in the tutorial and Beetles Rise Up! and both Enemy of my Enemy extra levels
  
• Bombs should now spawn from all non-colony creatures in all levels if Bomb Mode is active
  
• Disabled leafcutters in Remix versions of new extra levels for the time being - some deeper changes are needed to get these working
  
• Swapped position of rufa and atta in custom colony setup
  
• Army ant’s food items have been better hidden in Front Line and No Ant’s Land
  
• Nudged queen to a more pleasing position on Excavators extra level

• Fixed an unharvestable leaf on 3.2 Front Line which was blocking an achievement
  
• Fixed exploding ant ability Persistent Secretions - damage is now 50% of base explosion damage over 4 seconds as intended
  
• Exploding ants and termites are no longer revivable by Matabele medics if they have exploded
  
• Fixed custom game autosave happening even when that option is disabled
  
• Fixed an issue that would relocate singular ants without neighbours to the nest group on loading a custom game
  
• Fixed an issue with food types dropped from a killed colony not changing to something useful for the killer in custom games
  
• Fixed Matabele ants never leaving the nest in custom games if no termite colonies are present
  
• Repositioned some problematic landmark spawn points on Drive Them Back (custom game version)
  
• Queen danger termite voice line now plays for both termite types
  
• Fixed assassin bug victims t-posing
  
• Fixed bomb toggle not appearing when it should
  
• Fixed tunnel exit texture on Babysitting extra level
  
• Fixed hat position for the two ereptor queens
  
• Added missing audio tracks to the Supporter Pack MP3 & WAV folders
  
• Fixed a Steam overlay issue

Special thanks to tibikee on our Discord for the screenshot used in this post.

V1.1010742 fixes a pesky unreachable leaf that was an achievement block, as well as making exploding creatures more effective against very large enemies and addressing various small issues.

• Exploding creatures will now always hit their initial target as well as perform an AoE (should ensure they hit titans),
  
• Fixed an unharvestable leaf on 3.2 Front Line
  
• Fixed assassin bug victims t-posing
  
• Disabled bomb mode in Beetles Rise Up! extra level
  
• Disabled bomb mode in both Enemy of my Enemy extra levels
  
• Fixed tunnel exits on Babysitting extra level
  
• Nudged queen to a more pleasing position on Excavators extra level
  
• Repositioned some problematic landmark spawn points on Drive Them Back (custom game version)
  
• Fixed custom game autosave happening even when disabled
  
• Fixed Matabele ants never leaving the nestr in custom games if no termite colonies are present
  
• Attempted fix for bomb toggle not appearing when it should
  
• Fixed various missing material issues (on some plants and water ripples, for example)
  
• Fixed a Steam overlay issue

Empires of the Undergrowth is now 50% off as part of the Hooded Horse May Publisher Sale.

Command an ant colony and wage strategic battles in the insect kingdom. This ant-based RTS challenges you to build, defend, and expand your colony, using unique pheromone-based strategies and powerful warrior ants to overcome formidable foes.




https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3402420/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth__Exploding_Ants/

It’s time to do one of our bi-monthly newsletters. For those who have recently joined us, welcome! We do newsletters and vlogs on alternate months, and since April had a vlog (where I actually went outside) May gets a newsletter. Everything is covered in both formats for the convenience of people who have a preference of watching or reading.

This month, we’ll be going over our continued effort to remaster older artwork (thanks to our excellent artists) and also to optimise the game, as well as work that has been done recently on improved UI specifically regarding controller support. Let’s get stuck in.


A defeated hybrid abomination from EutU_fan666 on our Discord


Firstly, I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has downloaded and played the Exploding Ant Update, our first DLC. I think I’d be significantly better off if I had a dollar for every time someone hasn’t believed me when I say, the exploding ants and exploding termites are real species! We didn’t make them up.



Again, thank you for all the feedback and we’re really glad people are enjoying sending their enemies flying with Colobopsis explodens. If you’ve played and have an opinion, it would be really useful if you’d leave a review of the DLC on Steam. This gives us a solid indication of people’s thoughts, and informs where we take the game next.

We’re close to finalising our plans for another DLC now - and we’ve begun the development process in several ways. I can’t talk about what it is just yet, but as soon as the team lets me, I’ll yap on about it until I’m blue in the face.


At the start of the year we expanded our art team, and we’re now in full swing with updating older game assets and bringing the game’s visual identity up to date. The recent environmental reworks - such as the rainforest - are one thing, of course, but our character artists have also been hard at work. Leafcutters have recently had a complete overhaul and some of the enemies have had some aspects of them enhanced, such as animations and textures. Soon, even a few of the titans (creatures that get their own health bars in the UI) will be updated along with a bunch of others. Let’s go over those that are in the works at the time of writing.


The incumbent ruler of the swamp is getting an entire overhaul - models, textures and animations. The slightly more youthful appearance is complimented by weightier and more deliberate animations (watch this part of last month’s vlog to see them), and new materials to better simulate the dampness its amphibian skin. As the imposing area boss of Cold Blood, we’re glad that we have the opportunity to give it the visual fidelity it deserves.


I think it's looking forward to breakfast


We rather like Big Whippy’s look as is, so her model is staying the same. However, she is getting updated materials and animations (watch this part of last month’s vlog to see). Our animators have had a blast working with the unusually-proportioned pedipalps and legs of Heterophrynus batesii. Soon she’ll be matching her updated lair, which was changed from a piece of bark to a knotted cage of plant roots with update 1.1 a few weeks back.


Big Whippy in her rage cage


The emperor scorpion is one of the more recent additions to the game, arriving with version 1.0 last June. However, in updating its animations our artists decided to take the opportunity to remake it completely from scratch.


A moody render of the new emperor scorpion

It’s a touch sleeker than it used to be and its attacks are more snappy, but it has the same huge claws and fearsome temperament. The new feel to the attack animations gives a distinctly twitchy, skittish feel that is very befitting of the king of scorpions.




The juvenile eastern newt is one of the tougher non-titan enemies from the 4th tier of the game, and its bright orange colouration always makes it stand out against the greens and blues of the swamp. It’ll be getting a complete rework - here’s a still of the work-in-progress model in its natural setting of the green swamp bathed in moonlight.


Newt pog (makes a decent wallpaper if you save the full-size picture)

There’s also some talk of reworking the snaking system to allow this creature to have more natural movements as it trails the back part of its body behind it - that system also applies to salamanders and velvet worms. We’ll be showing off those animations once the updated system is online - remember to follow us on our social media (Bluesky, X / Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) for Screenshot Saturdays when we like to show work in progress stuff like this.


Other creatures getting updates include the spiny devil and checkered beetle - here’s one of their animations each (an attack and a death respectively). These two aren’t getting updates to their model or textures for now, but I think you can see Jack’s (our animator) style coming out with the animation changes.



That clear lunge forward when attacking reads more easily when there’s a lot of units on screen, as is typical for an RTS like Empires of the Undergrowth, and adds a deliberacy that conveys intent.




For anyone who’s waiting for remasters of other ant species (slave makers, wood ants, etc) - they’re coming, don’t worry! Our art department’s ordering has some logic to it but it’s also a healthy mix of what we feel most motivated to work on first.


We’ve had an optional beta running for some time now - it fixes things that are currently bugged in the live build. It’s available to PC and Mac Steam users, and if you’d like to join in please have a read through of this post that details the password process to access the beta branch, as well as listing all of the changes made in it.

There are likely to be some updates to this optional beta before we set it to become the live build, and if you have a little time to give it a whirl we’d be much obliged. Apart from various fixes and balances for the base game and DLC, one of the main intentions of this current beta is to test a slew of optimisations that have been made to textures and texture streaming.

Texture streaming is a system that loads in artwork over time rather than all in one go, in theory cutting down load time and more efficiently using VRAM. As things stand, the process is not very well optimised for Empires of the Undergrowth - Aron, one of our more recent hires, has spent a lot of time recently working on this system to allow it to properly do its job. This should be a very good thing for people on lower end hardware in particular.


Two of our developers are currently elbows-deep in reworking the UI. This is long overdue, but it has a particular focus on making things work better with controllers - while the game is certainly playable on a Steam Deck or with an XBox / PlayStation gamepad as things stand, we feel there's quite a lot that can be done to make this way of playing significantly better, so we're doing that.


Yes, you can play EotU on a Steam Deck, but soon it'll be better

We've been consulting with people who are knowledgeable about such things and taking advice - so, controller players rejoice - your time is nigh.


For the entirety of the project (and particularly after we started supporting multiple platforms and storefronts) when we decide we’ve made enough changes to warrant a full-on update, it takes one of our developers the better part of a week to do all of the processes needed. Since we’re a small dev team, that can have a very tangible effect on development time; it’s one of the reasons that we make larger updates less frequently rather than smaller ones more often.

After the next large update to the game, we’ll be taking time to automate as much of this process as we can. There hasn’t been a breathing space to do this until now, just after our first DLC has been released, when we can dedicate dev hours to what will be a huge future time saver.


Subscribers to our YouTube channel may have noticed that some weeks back, we renamed it to be a solely Empires of the Undergrowth one. It was mainly that anyway, but as Slug Disco takes on more publishing projects, we felt everything was getting a bit muddied and diluted.


Just EotU from now on (but older videos will stay)

That’s why we’ve opened up the Slug Disco Games channel, where we’ll be posting everything Slug Disco that isn’t Empires of the Undergrowth-related. If you’ve been a fan of Ecosystem, Beetle Uprising, or Horticular, liked the Adapt demo, or are intrigued by the look of Strange Seed, Green Again or Primordial Empire, I’d highly recommend subscribing.

This also has implications for the vlogs that we post up here. Until this point, they’ve regularly shared news about our publishing projects, but now they’ll be almost entirely EotU-focused, with some rare exceptions if there’s something particularly spicy to share from elsewhere in the Slug Disco universe.


We’ve been to the previous two shows - Slug Disco will once again have a presence at ANTCON in Carmarthen, Wales. Set in the lovely venue of the Ant Antics store, ANTCON is the world’s premiere ant keeping event. It’s a great way to meet fellow ant keepers, listen to some talks from scientists and enthusiasts, pick up a colony, and see the latest ant keeping kit.

Check out this video we put together from the 2023 event!



This time, marketing content creator Hei Man and character artist Jack will be there, and we’ll have a small booth with a game of Empires of the Undergrowth set up for you to play!

ANTCON 2025 is on the 24th and 25th May.


The only reason I write these newsletters at all is to get to this part of it - Screenshot Central! I occasionally trawl through the Steam community tab and the screenshot channel on our Discord, and whenever I write a newsletter I pick three of my favourites for this section. If you’d like to join in, just keep uploading that good stuff to the Steam community tab, or better yet, jump onto our Discord and get involved. Friendly, ant-loving gamers guaranteed!

To get a better angle on your shots, hold down the shift key when you enter screenshot mode (F9 by default). This will uncouple the camera from the ground and allow you to get extra creative with your screenies.


Myrmecia ereptor from tibikee on our Discord


An alligatorback scorpion surveys stink ants from Bananta

Lovecraftian bullfrog amalgam in the Battle Arena from TotemSP2

An optional beta is currently available for all Mac & Windows Steam users of Empires of the Undergrowth. This one sees some significant optimisations designed to aid texture streaming and other processes, fixes issues with Bomb Mode and the exploding ant update.

We are very appreciative of any feedback! Just post on the Steam forums or join our Discord to join in the chat there. Friendly, ant-loving gamers guaranteed!


If you would like to join the beta, the code is fixtheundergrowth. If you don’t know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below:

1. Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"
   
2. Choose the "Betas" tab
   
3. In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter fixtheundergrowth
   
4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
   
5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.

• Significant optimisations made to VRAM usage across the game, with the intent of decreasing load time and artifacting
  
• Significant optimisations to textures
  
• Fixed exploding ant ability Persistent Secretions - damage is now 50% of base explosion damage over 4 seconds as intended
  
• DPS values for new colony creatures now show when selecting them to build. Please note that these values do not account for the explosion as the DPS on that would skew the results in a way that is not representative of the actual creature’s regular attack
  
• Myrmecia ereptor now shows in the end-game victory cinematic animation if it is selected as the colony appearance
  
• Swapped position of rufa and atta in custom colony setup
  
• Queen danger termite voice line now plays for both termite types
  
• Removed falloff from exploding ant damage so it now does the same damage at the edge of the explosion as it does in the centre
  
• Exploding ants and termites are no longer revivable by Matabele medics if they have exploded
  
• Fixed hat position for the two ereptor queens
  
• Myrmecia ereptor now appears in the level selection screen
  
• Army ant’s food items have been better hidden in Front Line and No Ant’s Land
  
• Bombs should now spawn from all non-colony creatures in all levels if Bomb Mode is active
  
• Fixed an issue that would relocate singular ants without neighbours to the nest group on loading
  
• Fixed an issue with food types dropped from a killed colony not changing to something useful for the killer in custom games
  
• Disabled Bomb Mode in the tutorial and Beetles Rise Up!
  
• Exploding termite AI colonies will now start with some food storage
  
• Disabled leafcutters in Remix versions of new extra levels for the time being

At least one of us decided to touch grass - an update on how things are going and where we think we're going next!



Since this is also a general Slug Disco update as well as an Empires of the Undergrowth one, there is a section at the beginning that doesn't deal with EotU - if you'd prefer to skip that, the timecode is 01:36.

This small patch deals with some issues from the 1.1 update that arrived yesterday. There are more fixes on the way soon but these deal with the most pressing ones, so we're getting these out first.

• Fixed an issue with charge abilities (ie, driver ants and big-headed ants) not working in Battle Arena
  
• Fixed ants with garbled textures on Beetles Rise Up! extra level and Hungry Spider seasonal level
  
• Fixed glow position on the leafcutter supermajor (Adventure extra level)
  
• Altered several assets to optimise texture streaming

• Fixed a hang / crash that occurred when expIoding termite colonies were added to custom games
  
• Rapid Maturity & Accelerated Gland Filling now correctly update exploding termite worker visuals when they become explosive & fully powered
  
• Fixed termite mound not appearing on No Ant's Land extra level
  
• Fixed exploding ant worker and queen descriptions
  
• No Ant's Land extra level now uses termite voice lines
  
• Exploding termite workers now have access to the lignocellulose digestion toggle if in a Macrotermes colony
  
• Mulch on No Ant's Land extra level can now be harvested up to 45 at a time (depending on the harvester)
  
• Fixed an issue where new creatures were not changing the mouse cursor to the build tool
  
• Changed exploding termite soldier to melee class to match other UI elements