I’ve been mostly working on the latest update for this month, after the big Update #3. I noticed a big performance hit on the servers caused by the new Spectator Mode system, way higher than expected, so I reworked it a little bit in order to alleviate the issues, which was the main cause of the irritating rubber banding that many of you had been experiencing the last few weeks. I used the opportunity to also add more features to it, such as showing AIs.

Worked also on the Juvenile Pounce for the Utahraptor, which was very straightforward since the basics of the system had already been completed, we just had to do some balance changes, add some additional animations and do some value testing.

As some of you may recall, I mentioned a few months ago that we were working in a new water system, so this month I unified the fluid simulation system to all water sources and with Jace’s help in the material side of things, the water looks good, similar to how it was before, but with the fluid simulation, which brings more immersion and new gameplay situations to the game.

Besides the usual bugs that consume a good portion of our time, I was also working on a Mesh Painting system, in order to dynamically add scars, damage marks, blood, bites or claws in the body of the damaged dinos, for example, but can be used for far cooler things, it still needs some extra work so it will be implemented sometime down the road.


I started the month with preparing support for the hatchling, subadult and elder growth stages. So far we’ve only had support for dinosaurs growing from juvenile to adult. We set up our systems with the extension in mind, but other features took priority. Now we are getting closer to the nesting system’s introduction and the Pachycephalosaurus will also have a subadult stage, so the time came to add support. It’s currently limited to only allow growth between juvenile and adult, but now we will only have to flick a switch when we get to nesting and later elders.

Last month’s water system rework also opened up an opportunity to add a feature we’ve been missing. Previously our dinos started swimming when they walked into the water down to their midpoint. It had varied results, but usually resulted in dinos swimming slightly above the water when near the edge. Now this height can be customized on a per-dino basis, meaning you can walk into the water much deeper before you start swimming. Overall it provides a much more realistic behaviour.

Afterwards I moved on to the diet and migration systems. I’m not going into specifics for now, but the initial version is functional and ready for QA testing after we’ve pushed 3.5 to the public.


This month I’ve been making more progress on designing the ambiences; with both jungle and plains biomes now complete alongside swamp, two biomes remain. I have now started on the fourth biome to tackle coasts. This will not only include addressing the usual ambient sounds, but also improvements to both the underwater ocean ambience and the ocean surf audio, improving on the quality as well as cohesion with the new changes already made. Currently I have collected together all bird one shots for each time of day, as well as a handful of loops. The ocean surf and underwater improvements are in progress. The ocean surf has been given more definition and a broader frequency spectrum range for improved fidelity. When combined with a more energetic selection of sounds for the underwater ambience it gives a better impression of the waves crashing over you as you are just below the surface. Going deeper will drive a crossfade which fades out the livelier sounds to a subtler and deafeningly empty ambience. To accompany the deep ocean ambience I have designed a selection of aquatic creature calls, previewed in the most recent phase two post, giving more life and atmosphere to the depths. To be explicit it must be stated that these examples are the raw one-shots before they have been put through real-time distance processing so may differ slightly due to this.

I have also re-evaluated the categorisation of the spatialised one shots that spawn around the player. These calls are now categorised (bar the underwater ambiences) by birds, insects (as before), as well as Fauna and a new category - a bespoke sound set indicative of the relevant biome. Each sound-set by and large is different depending on the time of day. This change should achieve a more tailored ambience for each biome whilst increasing the perceived bio-diversity and detail.

Although these changes to ambiences won’t be heard until they are all complete, sounds have been added to the new buck animations and some tenonto sounds have been altered, all of which will be included in the upcoming patch/hotfix.


Hello folks yet again, as I missed the previous month I won’t miss this one!

As always I’m mostly working on human stuff, but now you get to see them in game. I’ve been focusing heavily on adding the interior and exterior proper bases to the map, and voila, here we go and here we have two new set piece locations, alongside a bunch of new props to fill up the way. The whole system works flawlessly now so you will soon be seeing stuff like the radio tower and some other structures already in the map getting massive overhauls, as they get their interior. New modular systems are being built like the modular Locker System, and future props like these to ensure a lot of varirarity to the whole human aspect.

While it is taken care of, a lot of props are still on the way, so stay tuned for those, as the humans slowly creep up upon us.

As well I’ve done a lot of the shading process to make the whole locations far more interesting, with added Dirt and Moss, and the props can now benefit from said blends and additions, alongside a bunch of small fixes to the existing system to make sure it really feels at home.










After the trailer for Update 3 was finalized, I started with the next tasks, including the upcoming second trailer for Update 3. This will have a different format, a little less cinematic but more informative.
The planning and the filming went well and quickly, in the last two weeks I also completed the editing and polishing part.

With such small teasers and trailers we would like to keep you up to date at all times, so it is possible that you will see more of those informative sneak peeks in the future.

I also received your feedback on the Update 3 trailer and I really appreciate it. I am very happy about your kind words, Thank you!







This is our dropbear of the Isle, or rather our mix of anole, jaguar and attack dog in dinosaur form.
When it came to features for Herrerasaurus, climbing was too fun an idea to pass up.

The first hurdle I had to tackle was finding a reference for climbing. There aren’t too many climbers sporting a long set of hind-legs and a short pair of arms like the Herrera has. Outside of some lizards I found the Tarsier, which proved to be a lot of help for reference, sporting similar proportions to what I was looking for whilst still being a climber, jumper and hunter.

Now while a climbing mechanic was a nice idea for mobility, it still felt like Herrera was missing a little something in the hunting department. Which is where the far right concept comes in, a bite with a grapple. You could just bite and deal some damage, but if you bite and hang on, withstanding some running and bucking you can get a bite of food from something you weren’t otherwise able to kill.
I liked this idea for a couple reasons outside of its mechanical usefulness.

On one hand, there’s something humorous about the animal being thrown around like an over ambitious cowboy, while on the other, I find it a rather unnerving idea that something could dart out of the woods and suddenly latch onto you.


This month I started work on the first in a series of edible plant assets. I was given quite a hefty list of these so I'm bound to be doing this sort of work for quite a while. For efficiency's sake sometimes it is important to lump assets into the same texture and material groups, so I worked on the first three in tandem.



Quality vegetation work is entirely rooted in good foundational texture work. Oftentimes you won't know if the asset will turn out well until the very end of the process, so it is important to have a solid plan for what you want. Here I've laid out some of the components I'll need for this series of assets.





And finally here are some shots of the assembled pieces, I'm quite happy with how they've come together.


After the launch of Update 3 we shifted gears and are now moving full steam ahead with Update 4. In addition, the hotfix we've been working on has been packed with so much additional content that it has partly evolved into its own mini-update which we've coined as 3.5.

Production moves briskly forward on diets. We're nailing down each species, what they provide, who they provide it to and where they're located amongst other things. Which is all necessary to ensure that we get a fully functional ecosystem up and running, as well as providing everyone with an intricate and interesting gameplay loop for you all to sink your claws into. Besides that we've been working on the Pachycephalosaurus which is slated to crash headfirst into Update 4.5. Be sure to keep a watchful eye on our phase-two and social media channels as we can't wait to share all of the neat clips that will be making their way through the development pipeline soon.

Humans and their assets are also progressing nicely, as well as the long awaited community creature that is almost ready to emerge from it's concept phase...


That's a wrap for May folks! What started as a hotfix swiftly evolved into so much more... As you're reading this, Update #3.5 should be in your hands, with it a plethora of bug fixes & quality of life improvements.

See you next time Islanders! - Punchpacket

Hey Islanders,

Update #3.5 is here, and with it a plethora of bug fixes & quality of life improvements. Be sure to sink your claws into the trailer below for a proper showcase of the new additions!

• Added Pounce to the Utahraptor juvenile.
  
• Added front limb damage area.
  
• Added Buck ability and animations for Pteranodon, Utahraptor, Dryosaurus and Hypsilophodon when being pounced by a Utahraptor juvenile.
  
• Added a Ranger and Utility station to Spiro with open interiors.
  
• Added "Official" filter for unofficial servers. Any server with "Official" in its name will not be displayed in the server list, excluding our official servers.
  
• Added Green color for Official Server names to better distinguish them from unofficial servers.
  
• Added new Utahraptor trot animation.
  
• Extended Spectator Mode system to show AI.
  
• Added toggles to spectator mode using Page Up and Page Down for:
  Show All, Show players only, Show Alive AI only, Show Corpses.
  
• Added PageUp and PageDown to action bindings.

• Replaced the water for rivers, swamps and the ocean with our new Interactive Water system.
  
• Set Hypsilophodon tail feathers as tail tip damage area.
  
• Made Stegosaurus plates and Hypsilophodon eyebrows ignore damage when hit.
  
• Updated all footprints normals atlas.
  
• Made Eat hints appear based on corpse, instead of capsule.
  
• Made pounce leave crouch state.
  
• Updated Pounce to avoid interrupting fall animation in water.
  
• Made pounce to play miss animation when landing in shallow water.
  
• Reduced attenuation of all creature idle vocal sounds and breath sounds.
  
• Reduced night time.
  
• Increased strength of creature foley ducking ambience.
  
• Made buck apply stamina cost scaled by pouncer's growth.
  
• Set Utahraptor growth time to 75 mins.
  
• Set Tenontosaurus growth time to 105 mins.
  
• Set Carnotaurus growth time to 135 mins.
  
• Decreased Pteranodon buoyancy to fix juvenile swimming.
  
• Raised the camera if the character is too small to prevent the spring arm from going inside the ground.
  
• Audio fixes and improvements to Tenontosaurus jump and vomit, and Dryosaurus jump and evade.

• Reworked part of Spectator Mode for better performance server side. This should hopefully fix the rubberbanding issues that were present in the previous patch.
  
• Fixed new footprint/blood scent clouds sometimes not fading in.
  
• Fixed blood splat scent clouds sometimes persisting indefinitely.
  
• Fixed being unable to perform ALT attacks with too low stamina.
  
• Fixed damage areas around the neck.
  
• Fixed Hypsilophodon not being able to move forward from jumping in place.
  
• Fixed rest and ragadoll issue when dying after swallowing.
  
• Fixed an issue with Pteranodon vomit animation.
  
• Fixed BloodSplat rotation.
  
• Fixed some rock collision causing corpses to fall through them.
  
• Fixed being able to zoom in and out while sleeping.
  
• Fixed sometimes being unable to take off as a Pteranodon after crashing.
  
• Fixed Stegosaurus secondary draining double stamina.
  
• Fixed adult Deinosuchus aggressive call audio pitch.
  
• Fixed EQS not working correctly sometimes.
  
• Fixed need to enter water to be able to drink.
  
• Fixed chat not auto hiding when using "/".
  
• Fixed culling on all buildings.
  
• Fixed pickup animation not working sometimes for juvenile Deinosuchus.
  
• Fixed juvenile Deinosuchus lunge shake animation not playing.
  
• Fixed Fence Collision issues.
  
• Fixed drink hint showing up while being lunged.
  
• Fixed swallowing issues when interrupted underwater if already initiated.
  
• Fixed characters jumping out of the water when ascending quickly.
  
• Fixed not sinking occasionally when out of stamina.
  
• Fixed issue with rotation during pounce, most notably during bucking animations.
  
• Fixed Deinosuchus fall not applying damage in water
  
• Fixed lunge causing corpses to not float sometimes.
  
• Fixed age modulation for Tenontosaurus rest sounds.
  
• Fixed inaccurate vomit duration if the server restarts during it.

Hey Islanders,

It's time for the release of our updated EVRIMA Roadmap, which is predominantly based upon what we have learned through both EVRIMA's development process, and Legacy's mistakes. The initial launch of The Isle focused on rapid introduction of playable dinosaurs with little to no diversity of playstyle or uniqueness. Though the EVRIMA roster is much smaller, the terrestrial, aquatic, and aerial creatures all have base implementation complete and shared features. With our observations of the active state of the game, as well as what has shown to be the most positive receptions, we firmly believe primary development focus should be on mechanics, and not arbitrary roster expansion.

Below the link, I've outlined the various changes to the Roadmap, be sure to let us know what you think!

Roadmap Link: https://trello.com/b/G5tsb4XI/public-roadmap


'Not Started' has been renamed to 'Pre-Production'.
'Complete' has been renamed to 'Implemented'.

These two changes have been made to more accurately reflect the different phases of development and status of the content.

Released updates will now be merged into a single column, preventing the board from becoming cluttered whilst still leaving an archive of our journey.

As part of our drive to optimize our production process, we've split the updates into smaller chunks. These shifts should allow us to update faster while still focusing on delivering meaningful content that adds to the gameplay experience. Sub-updates will also share the same column as their parent update, ensuring that the majority of the roadmap is viewable without unnecessary side-scrolling.

Diets will now accompany the debut of our Fracture system. One of the main issues with current gameplay is the lack of an intricate game loop, resulting in players opting to spend the majority of their time in one area of the map. The Diet system will encourage and reward players for striking out into the world to fulfill their various needs, as well as providing herbivores in particular, a far more meaningful gameplay experience.

While Fractures can be inflicted in a variety of different ways, it simply wouldn't be the same without a certain hard-headed and irritable herbivore administering them the old fashioned way.

We've heard your feedback and rest assured, we are well aware of the popularity surrounding the beloved Nesting and Skin systems. So we're happy to announce that they've both been moved up to Update #5. Expanding upon each system and introducing a brand new one.

The implementation of Night Vision will have a profound effect on the way players behave at night. During this time it is imperative for us to actively monitor the balance between the various species, hence why we have decided not to include a new playable creature as part of this update.

Gore will be a significant undertaking. Therefore we firmly believe that it is appropriate to debut as it's own focused update. We'd also like to remind everyone that The Isle is intended to be a survival horror game, first and foremost. The implementation of Gore will usher in a much darker tone for the game that is far more violent and visceral than what you have come to know. Our aim is to replicate the beauty and unapologetic savagery of nature.

While you may find poisonous plants out in the world, it'd be a tad strange if venom were to debut without something designed to inflict that nasty bite.

Both the Perk System and the UI Overhaul have been moved into the Ongoing Content column. The Perk System is designed to have interactions with various systems such as Diets, Nesting and more, therefore we feel that it's more appropriate for it's implementation to be more of a process, akin to the Elder System. Given that the UI Overhaul will affect all current and future menus/mechanics it also makes more sense to be part of our Ongoing Content column. AI has been merged into a singular card, to prevent the roadmap from being spammed with too many cards.

The Inhabitants column allows you to stay up-to-date with our various playables as they make their way through the development pipeline, including updates/adjustments to inhabitants that have already been implemented. Keep in mind, this list does not currently encompass the full roster of animals that we have planned for EVRIMA. It will be updated as time goes on.

Hey Islanders,

We're deploying an additional hotfix aimed at resolving some issues that were introduced in our previous patch. If you aren't able to see the update, simply restart your Steam client and your game should update to the latest available version.

• Fixed Spectator mode causing a memory leak on an Admin's client.
  
• Fixed a number of server calls that negatively impacted performance.
  
• Adjusted a few numerical server logs.

Hey Islanders,

We hope that you've all been enjoying Update #3. Here's a small hotfix aimed at resolving a variety of reported issues, as well as improving admin functionality.

• Added server logs for some abilities.
  
• Added name toggle for admins (default key: "End").
  
• Added extra info panel to the spectator mode. (default key: "M").
  
• Added the ability to teleport to players in spectator mode for admins.
  
• Added groups to server chat logs.
  
• Added server logs for admins entering spectator mode and toggling names.
  
• Added keybinds for toggle names and extra info panel.

• Vocals and footstep sound improvements.
  
• Disabled pack scent appearing for players that are underwater.
  
• Filtered out some steam verbose logs.
  
• Made attacks that hit multiple locations apply the highest damage multiplier.
  
• Made characters only start swimming when deeper into the water, prevents swimming above water when going to land or sliding backward.
  
• Made disconnect server log async.
  
• Made spectator mode toggle with default key: "Del".
  
• Toggle names can now be used in both spectator mode or gameplay mode.

• Fixed chat not autoshowing.
  
• Fixed fall damage sometimes being applied multiple times in water.
  
• Fixed sliding after login.
  
• Fixed jitter while jumping.
  
• Fixed rest ability being affect by vocals when the stand up animation is playing.
  
• Fixed and improved several server logs.
  
• Fixed spectator mode causing admins to remain invisible sometimes.
  
• Fixed spectator name tag inconsistencies and bugs when players log in or out.
  
• Fixed lunge causing scaling issues on its target.
  
• Fixed other Pteranodon's going into falling animation after biting/skimming.
  
• Fixed "jelly legs" occuring rarely after being lunged by a Deinosuchus.
  
• Fixed issue with bleeding not properly applying clog decrease %.
  
• Fixed corpses going into the idle pose in some cases.

Below is a list of high priority issues that we will be aiming to resolve in another hotfix before we press on towards Update #4.

• Rare issue where players can fall underneath the map.
  
• Occasionally players may not be able to spawn as a Deinosuchus. Relog to fix it.
  
• Spinning corpses.

It’s been another month of extensive work on Update 3. Much of it spent hammering out issues discovered throughout the stress test, which gave us an absolutely enormous amount of helpful information about the server and some hacks that were trying to mess with it.

There have also been a lot of minor changes to the codebase, primarily aimed at improving server side performance, there are however some client side optimizations as well, but some of those optimizations may not be implemented in the first release of the update, they’ll most likely be delivered in further patches or hotfixes.

As always, a lot of bug fixes and improvements to old and new mechanics, but also small additions, such as the swallowing animation that you may have seen during the stress test, the gore masks for Ptera, Deino, Carno and more. Some of which have been purposefully left for you to discover. Expect to see even more coming down the pipeline soon and with the addition of new members to the team we expect productivity to increase that much more. Not much more to say at this time, but rest assured we’re all hard at work and pushing forward. See you next time!


I started the month with some animation system changes to the deino. When turning in place while swimming it now plays a dedicated animation instead of just using the standard swimming animations. Swimming movement is pretty difficult to get done right, due to it having to be very smooth without any sudden snaps that we might get away with on land. Fortunately though it worked out without a hitch.

Issues kept popping up with our swimming system throughout development. We’ve been making changes to have it working right, but we just kept running into more difficult problems. So I ended up reworking it quite significantly and now we have a system that’s less error-prone and easier to work with. This ended up being quite challenging due to having to dig deep into engine code, but it ended up working well and got rid of our previous issues, so it was worth it. Even if we ended up releasing a build that allowed players to swim in the air. At least you got some insight into what we put QA through.


Well it’s been a crazy month for me, some of you have seen I've finally moved into my new place and settled in… Before an incident where I accidentally flooded half of it, oddly fitting during the development of an aquatic update.

There has been an absolutely enormous amount of bug fixing going on as we got things ready for Update 3’s release. Besides that however, performance improvements to AI and productionising code so we can speed up development times and make sure we have a robust foundation to move forward with. I’ve had some fun with the Utahraptor AI and I'm pushing to get that out as soon as possible as I'm sure you’re all sick of the Dryosaurus AI by now. That pretty much wraps it up from me. I hope everyone has been having fun with the stress test and look forward to seeing more jump scares!



This was one of the more straightforward creatures to work with. We liked the base design of the original Shant, so we started with that and tweaked body proportions to something that looked heavier yet balanced. With the redesign we also took the opportunity to add a couple features; the Shant’s notably square chin and the Edmontosaurini’s famous hoof-like forelegs.

Lastly was the spine. Fred had come up with a whole set of really nice options, but one of his in particular caught my eye for two reasons:

#1 was the slightly macabre look the spikes could have if you weren’t all that familiar with the Shant’s skeletal.

#2 was the 2nd silhouette it gave the animal - giving it a nice singular curve to it’s back that felt reminiscent of the original design while still letting the duo hump shape of the animal's actual back shine through.


With the majority of audio work needed for update 3 rounded out (aside from the occasional fix, improvement or tweak) my attention has been fully focused on re-making the ambient audio, in this month’s case, the swamp and jungle environments.

A huge amount of the process has involved trial and error approaches to create a more dynamic ambient environment, the final result of experimentation has led me to use a larger array of audio loops, which are less dense than the ones previously used. The volumes of these loops are carefully and methodically modulated over time to create peaks and troughs in the density of the ambient track. I divided these audio loops into categories - birds, insects and a distant bedding – the latter being used to create a sense of fullness without occupying too much of the dynamic headroom. This allows more dynamic range to play with, which can be filled with the audio produced from the actions of players, punctuating the ambience opposed to fighting with it. Although the end result gives a much more immersive and diverse audio experience, using a larger variety of audio loops, which do not have a definite audio volume point of reference, has made the mix process slightly more cumbersome. However, the swamp Biome is now complete and Jungle not far behind, after which I will be moving on to creating ambiences for Biomes that have not yet had their own audio in Evrima.

I have also designed a selection of one-shot audio files of fauna and generic dinosaur calls to be used in the night ambience. Combining these sounds with a restrained and evolving approach to ambient loops will give a much more suspenseful effect to the night ambience, laying the groundwork to build on when we tackle upcoming content such as Night Vision.

An important aspect that was stressed when implementing these calls, particularly the generic dinosaur calls, was ensuring they do not confuse people into thinking we have snuck in some new playables. Although the audio files created have the weight and power to be used as calls for large creatures, they are routed through real-time processing to put these sounds spatially into the distance so they blend with the ambience, providing atmosphere and immersion and not distractions.

Alongside these changes to the ambiences, I have also been looking at further improving the vocal attenuations, both for realism and so they work harmoniously with the ambience from larger distances, some of which can be heard in Update 3, the remaining majority of changes will be added alongside the new ambiences when all are complete.


We’re back, back, back again and happy to finally release Update 3! It really beat us down trying to get the feeling just right. We spent the vast majority of April really trying to fine tune the Ptera and Deino gameplay into something that felt satisfying. While we are happy with where things ended up and it would appear many of you are as well, there are still one or two outstanding features we want to deliver on for those two animals. Like most of what we do these days, it’s going to require some new tech. So those things will be developed in the background alongside standard production.

Now that Update 3 is released we’re moving straight into Update 4. But before we dig deeper into that, there are going to be some shifts made to the roadmap that we hope you will like. The decisions we’ve made really focus on the systems that add replayability to the game, are foundational, fun and also, hotly requested. With some of the coming shifts we should be able to update faster while still focusing on delivering meaningful content that adds to the gameplay experience and isn’t just cosmetic. Be on the lookout for those changes soon. An announcement will accompany it’s release. Let us know what you think.

Lastly, stay tuned for further development of the Pachy. A hard-headed and irritable herbivore with trouble on the brain. Show it an immovable object and the Pachy will put it to the test. Don’t let it’s stature fool you, tangling with the wrong Pachy can have crippling consequences. Leaving you dazed, damaged or a wet pile of battered flesh. Approach with caution!

The animation team is hammering away at the Pachy’s animations and personality. With a fair amount completed and more to be checked off soon, in addition to some reactionary animations for it’s targets. WHAM! We’ve also got some more things blooming on the horizon by way of map changes, flora, fauna, human structures and humans themselves. We’re growing our team slowly but surely to add more quality and expedience to production. A few more key components and we’ll be right where we want to be. Be good, be kind.


That's a wrap for Update #3 & April folks. It's been an incredibly busy month as we hammered out issue after issue during the stress test, which we are incredibly thankful to our community for participating in. Through your gameplay we received an absolutely staggering amount of useful data that helps us push forward towards our ultimate goal of creating the game that we've all been dreaming of since our childhoods.

Before we go however, I'll leave a link to our trailer for Update #3. Prepare to soar through the skies as the nimble Pteranodon and delve the darkest depths as the terrifying Deinosuchus. Enjoy!

Hey Islanders!

We'd like to start with a heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated in our Update #3 Stress Test. Throughout the test we gathered an absolutely staggering amount of useful data that we swiftly put to good use, a major boost towards achieving the utmost quality we always strive for.

It's been truly awesome seeing all the overwhelmingly positive reactions to the new additions and we look forward to sharing our updated plans for the roadmap in the near future, which significantly optimizes and streamlines our production process, so keep an eye out for that!

For now however... It's time to soar the skies and delve the darkest depths.



Right click The Isle in your Steam Library > Left click Properties > Betas > in the available dropdown menu select "evrima - EVRIMA Public Branch" and your game will now update to the latest available version. You can also follow the gif below for visual instructions! NOTE: Your game needs to be closed in-order to switch branch.

• Added Deinosuchus as a playable class.
  
  Spacebar in water - Swim upwards.
  
  Ctrl in water - Swim downwards.
  
  Hold RMB when waterwalking (walking on the bed of water sources) - Big lunge. Used to grab targets to drown them. Only effective on targets half your weight or less, otherwise causes you to be staggered.
  
  Hold RMB on land - Small lunge. As above, but doesn't launch as far and costs more stamina.
  
  Tap RMB when swimming - Water boost. Used to rapidly launch yourself to your fastest swimming speed. Can also be used to grab swimming targets in the water.
  
  Passive - Water Sense. Used for detecting nearby movement in water.
  
  Hold Q while underwater - Enhanced Water Sense. Used to detect movement in water at a further range. The longer the key is held, the further you can sense. In order to use regular scent you must be above the surface of water.
  
  The Deinosuchus cannot eat food while underwater. The Deinosuchus must rise to the surface of water or be on land in order to do so.
  
  
• Added Pteranodon as a playable class.
  
  Hold Spacebar while stationary - Stationary take off. Used to launch yourself into the air to fly. Stamina cost is subject to change.
  
  Hold Spacebar while sprinting - Running take off. As above but can be performed while sprinting. Stamina cost is subject to change.
  
  Hold Spacebar while flying - Fly upwards.
  
  Hold Ctrl while flying - Fly downwards.
  
  Hold Shift while flying - Fly faster at an increased stamina cost.
  
  Hold Z while flying - Air break. Used to slow yourself down in order to land safely. Be careful though! If you lose too much momentum you will fall from the sky.
  
  Hold RMB while flying close to a water source - Skim the water. Perform this action above ripples in water sources to catch fish. Release RMB when prompted to catch a schooling fish.
  
  The Pteranodon cannot swallow food while flying.
  
  
• Reworked the entirety of Spiro.
  
• Added Oxygen System. Character's that go underwater will lose oxygen at various speeds per species. Stamina is required to swim on the surface of water - if you run out you will begin to sink underwater. When near death from drowning, heartbeat sounds will begin to play and the screen will fade to black.
  
• Added Schooling Fish. These smaller fish swim in groups and can only be caught by the fishers on the island (currently only Deinosuchus and Pteranodon).
  
• Added Elite Fish. These fish are much larger and can be caught by both fishers and non-fishers. They also yield more food. Fishers will have an easier time catching these than non-fishers.
  
• Added whoosh and hit sounds to the Tenontosaurus tail slam attack.
  
• Added new cave assets.
  
• Added several new particle effects and sounds.
  
• Added an option to game session for realistic AI.
  
• Added carcass gore material to corpses, as featured in legacy.
  
• Added "Hold "E" to Wallow" hint.
  
• Added Bleed Resistance attribute. Currently only applied to Deinosuchus - it receives less bleed from attacks due to the healing properties of crocodilians. It does not wallow.
  
• Added the ability for administrators to copy player names/SteamIDs to their clipboard by clicking on them on the admin panel.
  
• Added an option in settings to invert camera control.
  
• Added an effect for when characters bleed in water.
  
• Added name colours to admin panel to reflect server permissions. (Yellow for admin, Red for developer)
  
• Added SteamID filter to admin panel.
  
• Added omnidirectional Carnotaurus bite attack (default ALT+LMB)
  
• Added save file encryption.
  
• Added gore mask to Deinosuchus, Pteranodon, Carnotaurus mouths, Stegosaurus spikes and Tenontosaurus claws.

• Reworked almost all areas of Spiro. Jungle have been made less dense. Entirely new scenes added to incentivize exploration.
  
• Bleed is now affected by movement. The faster you're moving, the more quickly you will lose blood.
  
• Wallowing no longer blocks bleed fully. In order to have 100% protection against the effects of bleed, the player must rest as well.
  
• Regional spawning now takes character type into consideration when choosing a location. ie. Deinosuchus will spawn in/near water sources and only has the option to spawn in regions with water.
  
• Removed global chat.
  
• Set default chat to local species.
  
• More ragdoll improvements.
  
• Better default keybinds for gamepad.
  
• Adjusted pickup to automatically carry fish in water.
  
• Adjusted pickup rotation when carrying.
  
• Setup all default gamepad keybinds.
  
• Small code and BP changes to replication efficiency.
  
• Updated road textures.
  
• Improved tail hitboxes.
  
• “Neck” hitbox has been added to all animals. This is future proofing for Ceratopsians and Sauropods, etc.
  
• Re-added the Utahraptor missed pounce landing animation. The animation plays much faster than previous iterations.
  
• Meat chunks now emit scent.
  
• Adjusted admin announcements panel size to not take up as much of the player's screen.
  
• Updated spawn selection map to reflect map changes.
  
• Carnotaurus' idle vocals now scale with its growth.
  
• Several improvements to sound effects attenuations and volumes.
  
• Swallowing improvements.
  
• Network performance improvements.
  
• Collision adjustments for perimiter fences.
  
• Allowed Stegosaurus to move while bucking.
  
• Adjusted Carnotaurus drinking animation
  
• Made lunge also work when using lunge speed boost
  
• Adjusted Carnotaurus pickup socket.
  
• Adjusted Stegosaurus buck animation.
  
• Improved ragdoll physics and physical animations.
  
• Adjusted pack scent values to group sizes.
  
• Adjusted adaptive river sounds volume an distance attenuation.
  
• Adjusted Carnotaurus pounce points.
  
• Improved Server Logs.
  
• Adjusted grouping so that it removes the player if they are killed or logout of the server.

Mass Rework

• Weights for all creatures reworked to be more accurate to scale throughout their growth cycles.

Bleed

• Global bleed damage increased.

Fall damage

• Reduced across the board as future proofing for the fracture system.

Grazing

• Paused hunger depletion when actively grazing, if the player is above 20% hunger.

Bucking

• Global bucking stamina damage increased. You now buck pouncers off much faster.
  
• Bucking costs more depending on the number of pouncers.

Locked Health

• Increased amount of locked health a player can have. Players will feel the aftermath of a battle a lot more as more of their health is locked away for a longer duration.
  
• Locked health now heals faster when resting, encouraging you to rest after a fight.

Locational Damage

• Leg hitbox damage multiplier decreased.
  
• Tail hitbox damage multiplier decreased.
  
• Disabled bleed being dealt with attacks that hit the tip of someone's tail.

Growth Time

• Growth time reduced to 135 minutes.

Scale

• Reduced the Carnotaurus in size.

HP Regen Rates

• Reduced standing rate.
  
• Reduced resting rate.

Stamina Decay Rates

• Increased sprinting stamina decay rate.
  
• Increased charge decay rate.
  
• Increased slow swim decay rate.
  
• Increased fast swim decay rate.

Bite speed

• Decreased bite speed play rate.

Turn radius

• Sprinting turn radius decreased

Group limit

• Group limit increased from 3 to 5.

Jump Velocity

• Increased jump height.

Stamina Decay Rates

• Decreased sprinting stamina decay.
  
• Increased slow swim decay rate.
  
• Increased fast swim decay rate.

Stamina Regen Rates

• Increased trotting stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased walking stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased standing stamina regen rate.
  
• Decreased resting stamina regen rate.

Hunger

• Increased hunger.

Corpse Value

• Decreased corpse value.

Growth Time

• Decreased time from 45 minutes to 30 minutes.

Thirst

• Increased thirst.

Sprint Speed

• Sprint Speed increased.

Stamina Decay Rates

• Decreased sprint decay rate.
  
• Increased slow swim decay rate.
  
• Increased fast swim decay rate.

Stamina Regen Rates

• Increased trotting stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased walking stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased standing stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased resting stamina regen rate.

Hunger

• Increased hunger.

Spit Cost

• Spit hunger cost decreased.

Tail Jab Stamina Cost

• Increased stamina cost.

Stamina Decay Rates

• Increased sprint decay rate.
  
• Increased slow swim decay rate.
  
• Increased fast swim decay rate.

Stamina Regen Rates

• Increased trotting stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased walking stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased standing stamina regen rate.
  
• Decreased resting stamina regen rate.

Starting HP

• Decreased starting HP.

Starting Blood

• Decreased starting blood.

Hunger

• Decreased hunger.

Thirst

• Decreased thirst.

Hitbox adjustment

• Removed damage for attacks that hit the Stegosaurus thagomizers (tail spikes).

Group limit

• Group limit increased to from 4 to 5.

Growth Time

• Growth time reduced to 105 minutes.

Scale

• Reduced the Tenontosaurus in size.

Rear Kick Stamina Cost

• Decreased rear kick stamina cost.

Jump Velocity

• Increased jump velocity.

Stamina Decay Rates

• Increased slow swim decay rate.
  
• Increased fast swim decay rate.

Stamina Regen Rates

• Increased trotting stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased walking stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased standing stamina regen rate.
  
• Decreased resting stamina regen rate.

Juvenile Sprint Speed

• Increased juvenile sprint play rate.

Hunger

• Decreased hunger.

Basic attack

• Removed bleed damage from the bite attack. (Claw should still deal bleed.)

Thirst

• Decreased thirst.

CC Thresholds

• Stagger threshold increased.
  
• Knockdown threshold increased.

Group limit

• Group limit increased from 6 to 8.

Growth Time

• Growth time reduced to 75 minutes.

ALT Bite

• Increased damage.
  
• Decreased stamina cost.

Stamina Decay Rates

• Increased sprint decay.
  
• Increased slow swim decay.
  
• Increased fast swim decay.

Stamina Regen Rates

• Increased trotting stamina regen rate.
  
• Increased standing stamina regen rate.
  
• Decreased resting stamina regen rate.

Group limit

• Group limit increased from 6 to 8.

Bleed

• Increased pounce bleed.

Latching

• Decreased initial damage.
  
• Decreased damage per tick.
  
• Decreased stamina per tick.

Pinning

• Decreased initial damage.
  
• Decreased damage per tick.
  
• Decreased stamina per tick.

Stamina Cost

• Initial Stamina cost increased.

• Fixed Utahraptor not accelerating at the correct speed.
  
• Fixed Dryosaurus AI aggression.
  
• Fixed eating locking up if body disappears when eating, if dragged previously.
  
• Fixed issue of ragdoll clipping to the floor and shaking widely.
  
• Fixed piece of meat not ragdolling on first grab.
  
• Fixed issues with Carnotaurus attenuations and eat vocal volume.
  
• Fixed Hypsilophodon not spawning water effects.
  
• Fixed not being able to wallow sometimes after swallowing meat.
  
• Fixed underwater ambient sound not playing in swamp.
  
• Fixed eating animation continuing for 1 more tick after releasing it.
  
• Fixed gore rotation when eating.
  
• Fixed pounce being canceled when losing contact with target.
  
• Fixed meat chunks giving more food when eating from ground.
  
• Fixed issue with Carnotaurus charge stomp audio on jungle terrain.
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus self stagger not playing.
  
• Fixed underwater sound not working in rivers.
  
• Fixed animation not playing if pounced while resting.
  
• Fixed vocals being interrupted every pounce tick of damage.
  
• Fixed bite hitboxes when using the alt attack while jumping/swimming.
  
• Fixed a crash if physics asset get returns null when spawning.
  
• Fixed vocals breaking during anim transitions.
  
• Fixed animation transitions causing pinned anim not to work.
  
• Fixed a crash when trying to eat a corpse being carried.
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus and Utahraptor playing the swallow animation while swimming.
  
• Fixed fast getup working even without stamina.
  
• Fixed river underwater ambience playing above water level.
  
• Fixed not being able to rest sometimes after scenting and swimming.
  
• Fixed Hypsilophodon spit not being visible when looking forward.
  
• Fixed edible bushes being depleted but still showing the eat prompt.
  
• Fixed Stegosaurus eat animation playing out animation twice.
  
• Fixed meat chunks becoming stuck in a player's mouth if spamming E.
  
• Fixed input lock and animation becoming stuck after swallowing while sprinting.
  
• Fixed Dryosaurus rotation when in water after hiding.
  
• Fixed swallowing ending pickup prematurely.
  
• Fixed eating loop animation canceling eat ability.
  
• Fixed being able to deal damage after being staggered.
  
• Fixed Hypsilophodon tail replication.
  
• Fixed bleeding VFX not spawning consistently.
  
• Fixed post processing not working underwater for swamps and rivers.
  
• Fixed jungle ambience audio loop dropping out when voice limit met
  
• Fixed pounce points to avoid utah rotate in place while pouncing big creatures
  
• Fixed not being able to swallow meat chunks when first grabbing them
  
• Fixed Pickup causing walk to be toggled
  
• Fixed various issues with the collision of trees.
  
• Fixed Dryosaurus eating animation not looping.
  
• Fixed Tenontosaurus rotating pouncing Utahraptors.
  
• Fixed underwater audio in various parts of Spiro where water isn't present.
  
• Fixed navigation invokers being registered multiple times.
  
• Fixed swamp and rivers PP being reset by other pawns (including fish).
  
• Fixed spawning wet footprints on hard surfaces if wallowed.
  
• Fixed pounce applying bleed with an incorrect value.
  
• Fixed eating math tick from normal eating allowing "ghost" amount of food
  
• Fixed weight issue with meats
  
• Fixed being able to set growth higher than 1, affecting Attribute values
  
• Fixed eating giving extra food.
  
• Fixed montage not stopping after depleting corpse.
  
• Fixed player names changing while in spectator.
  
• Fixed an issue with drinking and eating animations looping, not receiving the order to stop on other clients.
  
• Fixed Pounce causing input lock if server and client didn't agree on if the player started to swim.
  
• Fixed herbivore eating animations loop stopping ability early.
  
• Fixed forcefield collision on Spiro.
  
• Fixed red currant bush glowing in sunlight.
  
• Fixed regional spawn cooldown sometimes showing as -1.
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus corpse drag animations not playing.
  
• Fixed Stegosaurus resting audio being too loud.
  
• Fixed grabbing corpses speeding up their decay rate.
  
• Fixed entering "/" into chat preventing chat from being opened again.
  
• Fixed Carnotaurus jittering when skidding.
  
• Fixed growth pausing if the player did not shutdown the game using the ingame quit button.
  
• Fixed pouncing on players stood on top of assets immediately throwing the Utahraptor off.
  
• Fixed cloud setting not saving when exiting settings.
  
• Fixed texture setting not saving when exiting settings.
  
• Fixed players occasionally respawning as a Utahraptor juvenile outside of the map.
  
• Fixed admin grow command making players stand automatically.
  
• Fixed camera stuttering slightly when crouching.

And we fixed 200+ unique bugs related to the new mechanics. There are some fixes in here that were not present in public QA, so keep an eye out for those too!


Below is a list of high priority issues that we will be aiming to resolve in an upcoming hotfix, amongst some additional enhancements before pressing on towards Update #4.

• Rare issue where players can fall underneath the map.
  
• Rare issue where players that have been lunged by a Deinosuchus can have physics enabled on their limbs, even after being released from the lunge. Safelog to fix.
  
• Chat may not auto show sometimes, despite the toggle being enabled in settings. Re-enable to fix it.
  
• Occasionally players may not be able to spawn as a Deinosuchus. Relog to fix it.

Hey Islanders,

Our stress test for Update #3 is now live. We'd like to start off by taking the opportunity to thank everyone for their continued patience and support as we toil away on the final stretch of Update #3.

While we understand that many of you are eager to dive headfirst into the stress test, we'd like to properly temper expectations by making it extremely clear from the get-go that the stress test is an important event to help us identify and eliminate any issues that may only arise within servers that are filled to their maximum capacity. Please be aware that during the test you are likely to encounter bugs, missing or not yet fully functional features, performance issues and limited server availability. We expect the stress test to last for one - two weeks. If you're looking for an optimal play-experience we recommend waiting for the full release of the upcoming update.

In order to participate in the stress test you'll need to swap your Steam beta branch:

Right click The Isle in your Steam library > left click Properties > Betas > in the dropdown menu select "Quality Assurance Branch" and your game will now automatically update to the latest available version.

If the Quality Assurance branch is not visible in your dropdown menu, simply restart Steam.

You can identify Official Stress Test servers by the names listed below:

Official Evrima Stress Test - EU
Official Evrima Stress Test - NA


Known issues:

• Grouping temporarily disabled
  
• Spawning atop new map scenes
  
• Schooling Fish can be overly difficult to catch
  
• Some caves have been blocked off until they have been completed

Below you'll find a short description of the abilities that accompany the two new playables. The full changelog will not be available until the release of Update #3.

The Deinosuchus.

• Spacebar in water - Swim upwards.
  
• Ctrl in water - Swim downwards.
  
• Hold RMB when waterwalking (walking on the bed of water sources) - Big lunge. Used to grab targets to drown them. Only effective on targets half your weight or less, otherwise causes you to be staggered.
  
• Hold RMB on land - Small lunge. As above, but doesn't launch as far and costs more stamina.
  
• Tap RMB when swimming - Water boost. Used to rapidly launch yourself to your fastest swimming speed.
  
• Passive - Water Sense. Used for detecting nearby movement in water.
  
• Hold Q while underwater - Enhanced Water Sense. Used to detect movement in water at a further range. The longer the key is held, the further you can sense. In order to use regular scent you must be above the surface of water.
  
• The Deinosuchus cannot eat food while underwater. The Deinosuchus must rise to the surface of water or be on land in order to do so.

The Pteranodon.

• Hold Spacebar while stationary - Stationary take off. Used to launch yourself into the air to fly.
  
• Hold Spacebar while sprinting - Running take off. Costs less stamina than the stationary take off but takes longer to get into the air.
  
• Hold Spacebar while flying - Fly upwards.
  
• Hold Ctrl while flying - Fly downwards.
  
• Hold Shift while flying - Fly faster at an increased stamina cost.
  
• Hold Z while flying - Air break. Used to slow yourself down in order to land safely.
  
• Hold RMB while flying close to a water source - Skim the water. Perform this action above ripples in water sources to catch fish. Release RMB when prompted to catch a schooling fish.
  
• The Pteranodon cannot swallow food while flying.

Who stole January and February?

It’s been a very busy month of developing creative solutions for all-manner of things. Much of the month has been intense bug fixing, improvements, balance changes and performance work. On that topic, I’ve partially reworked the swallowing ability so that it functions properly with the new fish and all sorts of upcoming/future content (yeah, diets). It was primarily conflicting with our code so it had to be rewritten and expanded, which brought with it a few additional bugs that were easily tracked down by our awesome Quality Assurance team in no time at all.

With the help of our QA team we reworked a lot of the math behind the eating ability in general, in regards to how much food you need from a corpse or bush, as an example. We also encountered some major issues relating to animations and seamless growth, I’m afraid I can’t go into details about that, but it consumed a significant chunk of time and creative thinking to get the solution that works in any and all situations. I won’t mention everything we worked on this month, because that would enormously inflate the DevBlog and bore you all to tears.

Besides bug-fixing, the Deinosuchus and it’s widely anticipated lunge ability found itself at the forefront of my tasklist this month. And I can say without a doubt that the Deinosuchus is one of the most unique and mechanically intricate animals we’ve ever designed. It’s been a truly arduous process of tweaking and reiterating based on early and frequent feedback, which is of the utmost importance as we save ourselves from falling victim to the curse of wasted time.

To round off my post I’ll list a few of the less eye-catching things that I’ve worked on this month. Such as changes to replication, water post processing, bleeding (which has bleeding resistance now), carcass material parameters, ambient zones and vocals.

See you next time!


One of my more significant changes was reworking the fall damage. The original system was made based on just 2 - 3 playables and didn’t scale well with the much smaller (Hypsilophodon/Pteranodon) or larger (Stegosaurus/Deinosuchus) animals. I went back to the drawing board and came up with a solution that is more easily configurable and straightforward. In short, we have a curve that associates weight values with a lethal fall height. The damage for anything below that is calculated proportionally.

Another addition is the Pteranodon now crashing into the ground when not landing carefully. This prevents movement for some time, so you are more inclined to use the air brake. It’s also really funny seeing a Pteranodon dive headfirst into the ground and turning into a pancake. With the new playables getting more and more complete we are able to have more playtests, more feedback and in turn more balance changes. This includes speeds, stats or minor changes to mechanics. Fortunately we are able to go through these quickly.

A more recent change I worked on is overhauling the oxygen system. Oxygen is now drained every time when the character is underwater and at an accelerated rate too. Running out of stamina while swimming makes your character sink, causing oxygen loss, so the old behaviour still exists in a different way. Be careful when swimming, because if your oxygen hits 0 it means you are dead in the water.


This month has been a continuation of last month’s Fence bonanza, it’s been extensive work to patch them and add a lot of new variants, like drainage, bent, etc., and test them out to the fullest extent. Alongside a lot of broken variants, which were semi simulated so we can get an extent on how it is broken, to be as real as it can.



This alongside a very neat and detailed prop-making, like the new but damaged Power Generator, which has been a really detailed galore making, especially the texturing part.









As well I’ve been fixing a bunch of bugs, and doing some new zones for the Humans, the Ranger Fencing and doing small additions to the prop work so we can populate it a lot lot smoother and better.












The last few months I've been staying busy doing all these dinosaur revamps. For example I just wrapped up this Albertosaurus sculpt and began work on the Baryonyx. This month though I'm taking a temporary break from this type of work and moving onto some environment assets.



Dondi requested some meshes to help embellish the edges of slopes and cliffs. For this asset we wanted something that looked a little more like exposed dirt rather than a rocky cliff. A lot of the finishing touches on this will be done in-engine with the detail textures that will help blend it into the terrain and add the high frequency noise that you need to sell the material type.



My first few weeks went well, I got to know the team and familiarized myself with the workflow and the tasks ahead. Most of all, I spent a lot of time planning my first big project, the trailer for Update 3. In this case, planning means writing a storyboard. I had a lot of ideas and had to try to adapt them to the project. I tested what's possible and what not and that involves a lot of improvisation. My goal is to present Update 3 cinematically, the majestic side of the game, but also the horror side. Ultimately, I managed to write a storyboard that depicts both parts of the game and mostly relates to Update 3.

After the planning was done, I started on the practical part of my work. I have two options for that: I can film together in-game with the help of the QA team as dino-actors or create my own scenes directly in the UE4 sequencer.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages, a mix of both variants will bring the best result.
I can't wait to show you the final version when it's done. Here is a little sneak peek from a couple of the scenes I’ve already filmed:





At this point, a big thank you to everyone for the nice feedback on the "blood" Trailer, that gave me a lot of courage to take this step.


This month has consisted of a lot of improving audio and systems introduced in the previous months, as well as creating any outstanding audio missing from the Deinosuchus and accompanying mechanics. Heartbeat sounds were created to accompany the rework to the oxygen system, through the use of two sound cues which coordinate with the separate in and out beats, rate at which the heartbeat plays can be dynamically controlled according to the oxygen levels, ramping up the pressure when clinging on for dear life. A water vibrate sound was created, emulating the same effect that is created by crocodilians bellowing in water accompanying the newly implemented water broadcast.

I also designed Juvenile variations of all supplementary vocal sounds for the Deinosuchus (alongside an improvement to the quality of the calls at younger growth) and more underwater sounds including bite and struggling sounds. The underwater struggle sounds were created to be heard from all creatures becoming prey to Deino's lunge ability, complimenting last month’s rework of underwater audio. These reactions have also slightly been improved by trying to add more variation to the vocalisations when lunged, however this brought my attention to an issue where the vocals could still be heard when the underwater sound mix was not in effect, which was resolved by creating new occlusion settings for all attenuations so that when underwater (or generally obstructed) the audio is filtered. For now this serves as a suitable fix however this will likely need to be readdressed when tackling interior environments where a more comprehensive solution for partial audio occlusion will need to be considered.

My focus has now been turned towards the audio used in the ambient zones around the map, the current sounds lack a sense of dynamism and are often a bit of an auditory assault of unrelenting wildlife sounds. The current sounds that randomly spawn around the player will stay largely the same, with the addition of some more sounds. However I am replacing the bulk of the bedding underlying these random sounds, with a much larger variety of ambient loops that will ebb and flow in intensity, creating a more varied and dynamic experience. Currently I am reworking the Swamp biome after which Jungle, Plains and Beach environments will all follow suit.





I’d say this Bary was a bit of a chimera of designs. After exploring some wildly different ideas that didn’t fit the bill, we looked back to what we liked about the old model. It had interesting textures we liked all in all, but we wanted to try a more pulled back version of those ideas.

We salvaged the tail and merged the animals’ overall build with another bulkier concept of ours inspired by the ‘Jaguar Bary’ idea that’s been floating around and a rendition of Baryonyx that Dondi was quite fond of

The last two design features were elongated claws for fishing/general weaponry and lips. Something purely for variety in aesthetics I wanted to try, having seen the idea around in spinosaurus depictions.

We did have a lipless version around as backup just in case the idea didn’t work, but so far it’s looking pretty damn good on the model.


QA has been busy working in numerous areas over the course of this month. The bulk of our work this time around has been focused mostly on performance testing and playtesting, ensuring that our server can maintain our recommended player cap. The results of the performance changes from our programmers has been very promising, running 40 QA testers with ease. I fully expect our servers to be capable of running even more players, which will be one of the many reasons for the upcoming beta.

Playtesting continues to prove most useful to us. Not only can we record performance, but we can also see which parts of the game are enjoyable and which parts are not. Once again, we’ve gathered valuable data from these tests and have balanced our characters accordingly, fine tuning our statistics to account for the latest additions to the roster. Expect the following:

Locational hitboxes have been improved across the board. Stegosaurus will not take damage if bitten on its tail spikes (thagomizers). Players can also now, generally speaking, target a character’s neck to deal more damage than they would towards the torso. This is also future proofing us for playables later on, such as Ceratopsians that would have much thicker skulls (and therefore take less damage to their heads), while they may have an increased modifier towards their neck.

Terrestrials are not as efficient in the water as they once were. Heavier animals will swim slower now and attempting to swim faster will cause your stamina to deplete very quickly. Depleting your stamina will cause you to drown or worse, leave you struggling to escape the jaws of a very large crocodilian.

While actively grazing, hunger drain is paused. This encourages the use of the graze mechanic when herbivores migrate across the map. This will be subject to change, pertaining to the later Diet System.

Carnotaurus charge doesn’t knock people down when hitting the tail anymore… Because that wasn’t fun. The carnotaurus will also turn a bit slower when sprinting to encourage the use of the charge ability more - no more carelessly running up to other players and spam biting.

The Deinosuchus and Pteranodon have also been carefully balanced, as to not feel too over/underpowered compared with the rest of our roster. The Pteranodon underwent a few iterations of flight duration/costs throughout its growth in order to feel like the player is “learning” to fly as you play it. The Deinosuchus will not immediately be able to easily kill other players - it starts off by having to exclusively catch and eat fish before it can eventually grow to its apex-killing capabilities.

And much more!

With just a few more high priority bugs being fixed (of which some you may have noticed in Filipe’s recent stream) we’ll be opening the floodgates for the beta in no time! Thank you all for your patience.


So much to do stacked upon our precious plans. However, everyone has been no less productive. Quite the contrary. Everyone has been making magic happen behind the scenes. Pulling rabbits out of hats even. The animation team has been mostly polishing some of the final animations for the ptera and Deinosuchus. Making sure as much of the flow we want is established. We always keep a list of things to go back to and improve in the future, so quality will always go up. I can’t say it hasn’t had its high points but the animation team is definitely ready to get the Ptera and deino off our plates so we can start working on new stuff. Be on the lookout for the public test soon. The animation team has also been prototyping some new ways to raise our bar a little higher behind the scenes. A lot of the other creatures on the roadmap have already been rigged and are ready to be animated, if we haven’t started them already. So we are very anxious to move forward.

The team has spent a fair amount of March trying to reestablish the look we want for everything. From the top to the bottom. So expect some shifts here and there with the overall tone of the game’s visuals. We’ve also been trucking along with production of our humans. Our Gen 2s are in peak condition and currently going through bootcamp to prepare for the war ahead. More to share on that soon. Until next time...



As you can see it’s been an incredibly busy March. We’ve added a couple of new and extremely talented individuals to our development team and continue to plow through the final stretch of Update #3. Before I end this blog however, I’ll share a few additional images below...















As you can see, Dondi has been quite busy working on the new environments that you’ll all get to explore in the coming update. We’re all so incredibly excited and can’t wait to see you all delve into the depths and soar through the skies.

We'll see you next time Islanders! - Punchpacket.

Filipe - Lead Programmer

Another month of intense work focused on bug fixes, server and client performance and replication reliability.

This month I reworked part of the pickup ability to avoid having the need to respawn pieces of meat, which not only grants us additional performance, but also looks significantly better. It was a necessary improvement, as now both the elite and schooling fish use that same system. We’ve also resolved a hefty number of hilarious bugs relating to the fish, sometimes failing to float at all or deciding to fly away to the stars… It took a little time, but with the assistance of our marvellous QA team we managed to stabilize those issues.

The infamous Deinosuchus lunge, making mechanics like this function as necessary without the feeling of latency (having to wait for the server to execute code and send it back) is quite challenging. Similar to pounce in some aspects, lunge doesn't “wait” for the server, but applies what is needed, predicting that the server will agree, if the server says no for any reason, well, you know, everything breaks.

Most people know by now that we will be opening the QA branch again, for stress tests and disconnect issues before the full release of Update #3. We hope to find any missing issues from that test and of course, we count on all of you to help us, since numbers make a big difference. See you!

dmIV - Programmer

I’ve continued work on the flight movement, giving more control over speed. For one, it is now possible to brake and slow down, letting players have more precise control when they want to land accurately. On the other hand a faster flight is now possible when sprinting. It lets you move significantly faster, but you might want to watch your stamina.

I’ve also made some improvements to diving to make it smoother. There is now an acceleration and deceleration, you also change your up-down direction more gradually. Overall there are less and less sudden movements while diving, making it feel like you really are in water.

I’ve set up the 360 attacks for the Deinosuchus and Pteranodon. They use the same logic as all the others, so this one was a quick addition. I also added a version that is used while swimming as a Deino. The tests showed that the Deino’s turn rate is too slow to catch up with attackers from behind, so this tackled that issue. I also gave the Tenontosaurus some love and made it use controls more like the other species. The left mouse button is used for biting, while pressing it in combination with alt will perform the claw attack. I also separated the kick and the tail slam, so that the latter is only used when alt is held while pressing the right mouse button.

Amar0k - AI Programmer

This month has been a little crazy for me. I've had to take some time off due to personal reasons. However I have been mostly working on fish movement and trying to improve server performance regarding AI overall. There is also a big change being implemented to how AI will behave as a new server config option has been added which will allow switching AI behaviour between realism and player simulation. The difference should be self explanatory but i will go ahead and define it now.

Player simulation: Acts and behaves as close as possible to actual players, sometimes can be hard to tell the difference, such as spam crouching or bunny hopping around. This also includes the Realism traits.

Realism: Acts and behaves as a creature of that size/nature would generally behave in the real world, such as immediately fleeing as far away as possible from a larger predator.

This is obviously a LOT more effort to do but in the teams opinion is the right way forward to get to where we all want the game to be. I have pretty much finished the backbone of this system and have started working on the AI personalities/traits as some of you may have seen in my recent streams.

Also we are moving to more species based spawning, still randomized within a region but more biased towards what type your character is. I.E Amphibious will spawn near or in water.

Wedge - Sound Designer

This month has been a continuation of work on the areas that need addressing for the audio of water and flight gameplay. The underwater ambient audio has had an overhaul with bespoke sound cues for each water body type – swamps sound stiller than previously, oceans churn and bubble from the surf and waves, the flow of rivers can be heard and being near waterfalls underwater produces a spatialised heavy rumbling. To compliment this the groundwork has been laid for creating a more immersive audio experience diving deeper in water – as the player goes deeper the filtered yet still audible sounds of the ambience above will slowly fade as a more intense underwater ambience is introduced, including distant groans and cries of creatures that could be lurking in the deepest depths.

Heartbeat sounds have been created which will be introduced and increase in rate as the players oxygen levels decrease – this in combination with the changes to underwater ambiences will help to give a completely different feel to the underwater environment and gameplay – complimentary to the Deinosuchus’ ability to drag creatures underwater. All the Deino’s prey will hear is the deep tones and wash of the underwater ambience and the sounds of their struggle to escape; their heart starting to race and vortexes of water as they attempt to escape the Deino’s clutches.

Likewise with the Pteranodon the ambient audio will change as it flies higher, accomplished with new attenuations added to ambient loops which are applied solely on the Z-axis distance from the ambient zone.

Missing foley sounds are starting to be addressed; more detailed water foley sounds have been created and are ready to be implemented for the Deino – including sounds for submerging and emerging which differ based on if the listener is above or underwater, as well as entering/exiting/falling in water. The sound of bones crunching have also been added to Deino’s eat animations to give it a more intimidating audio aesthetic. On top of all these enhancements the general foley and vocal audio of both new playables are constantly being added to, tweaked and improved to progress towards Update #3.

hypno - QA Lead

QA has been dedicating a good chunk of time towards balance testing for Update 3. We have recognised and addressed many obvious improvements pertaining to the current public build and have been actively listening to community feedback - we’re really excited to see how these play out when the update is live and look forward to reading what you think about the changes!

There’s too many to list here but I’ll cover some of the more important additions. The full list will be released with the patch notes for the update.

As some of you may already know, we’ve addressed weights being wildly inaccurate for the upcoming patch. Expect the weight of your dinosaur to reflect the size of your creature much better now. Dryosaurus has been on a very strict grazing only diet and lost a total of 430kg using this one weird trick. Doctors hate him!

With the weight changes, some of you may have already caught onto the size changes we made to Carnotaurus and Tenontosaurus. The two creatures were scaled down for two reasons, the more important being that in the long run these sizes will make much more sense for gameplay balance.

The Carnotaurus is the fastest dinosaur on the island and as such we’re tailoring it to a “small game hunter” playstyle; it will focus on running down anything smaller than a Tenontosaurus. The Tenontosaurus has been set up so that it can go head-to-head with the Carnotaurus, so long as it uses its crowd control stunning attacks efficiently. The second reason for the scale down is due to it being a heavily requested change because “muh realism”, for lack of better terms. Feedback is very important to the QA team to determine game balance, so keep it coming!

Bleed potency has been increased across the board. Expect it to play a much larger role in combat now as attacks deal more bleed damage, causing your blood pool to drop significantly faster, thus causing your character’s regen rates to slow down equivalent to your remaining blood pool. I would highly recommend not moving too quickly when suffering from such injuries, as movement states will now affect how much blood you lose as well. Why don’t you have a lie down? You’ll feel much better. On top of this, we’ve decided to make wallowing less important in negating these effects (though it does still help.)

The cursed pounce stat rework. This was always going to be coming, it was just a matter of time! The statistics for pounce have been readjusted to promote its use as an attritional tool, rather than crazy amounts of damage. Pounce will deal deadly amounts of bleed damage, which focuses on wearing your targets out, instead of just outright killing them. Does this mean it will be impossible to hunt large targets? No. It just means they’ll require much more coordination and strategic thinking to do so.

Bucking has been significantly buffed to be worth performing now.

Other than that, it’s the same as usual for the team - check my previous dev blog posts for what that entails. We’re still hard at work testing the Deinosuchus lunge and it’s definitely one of the more complex mechanics, so it’s taking us a bit longer than usual compared to some of the more basic additions. Fingers crossed we catch all the bugs with it before you guys can!

As Filipe already mentioned, we’ll also be opening the QA branch to you guys when we believe all of our high priority issues are fixed and the new mechanics are functioning to a good standard. The reason for this is so that we can have the new mechanics tested under more stressful conditions (additional players) and so that we can confirm the random disconnect issue is fixed once and for all.


This month I’ve been patching a lot of small issues with some of the models, but mostly the whole month went into finalizing the fences to correctly fit the spline, to be able to walk in them, and making a bunch of variants and optimizing them. It's been quite a formidable task, especially making LODs for each and single variant, but we got the ball running and within a few days, I should be able to test them out on my end and finish the additional broken variants. Does that mean you can pass through them…. Hmmm. We shall see :P

To see the amount of fences - the lods check out this image here:



Alongside that, the fences got an overhaul with a lot of decals, and a lot of attention to detail to be sure that it all fits and can be translated onto real world terrain. This includes the new concrete texture that is made far sharper and with a lot more details. The rest of the details will be handled by shaders when the time is fit.

In these images you can see one broken variant, others are still in progress.









This one was a bit of a balancing act. On one hand, it’s a giant Komodo dragon, but on the other, we still want to find a way to make ours unique to the isle.

Body proportions mostly stayed the same, most of our exploration revolved around the face: Longer teeth, hidden teeth, square features, sharp features, heat pits and larger scale features. Ultimately we decided on a facial design that was predominantly Komodo dragon, but beefed up the body and accentuated facial features to be more menacing.

The rest of my month revolved around concept edits, Bary concepts and another set of nature sketches.


Indeed I’ll say, this month has been a bit of a blur. There’s so much going on all at once around here the time soars by. The team has been hard at work on Update #3 and all the bells and whistles to accompany it. This month has been full of testing and tweaking, testing and tweaking. One thing about doing something new is that you have to be the first to brave all the difficulties associated with the innovation. So that leads into highly iterative designs. Where we fine tune a feature over multi variations. The Deino’s movement is a great example of that. Based on the types of movements we wanted it to achieve, we had to fine tune what type of animation was needed and what implementation method was best. Sometimes these creatures have twice the number of animations than what you’ve seen. You only see the final version but sometimes there’s been 2-4. Not for every animation though, it's primarily mechanic related. Maybe in the future we’ll dig some of those up. But in the meantime we’ve got a few outstanding animations that we need to tweak for these two but we’re making good time. We are so excited to get this update to you because we’ve been working hard trying to provide a new experience in The Isle. We believe we’ve done that. The Deinosuchus and the Pteranodon are the heralds of the hard work that’s going into this project. We look forward to sharing the experience with you. Be kind to each other and yourself.


That’s February. As always, we hope that you enjoyed this insight into both our development process and the hardships we’ve had to overcome as we tread through these uncharted waters. We’ll see you in the next DevBlog!