Hi everyone,

it's here! This update includes all the localization improvements which are also available for other platform versions of the game, and we took this opportunity to improve the encoding quality of all English and Japanese voice files on PC.

• Update English text, images and all other assets with various localization fixes and improvements.
  
• Re-balance English voice lines.
  
• Improve encoding quality of all Japanese and English voice lines.
  
• Improve support for Steam Dynamic Cloud Sync.
  
• Various other minor fixes.

Note that, primarily due to the increase in audio quality, this update increases the storage requirements of the game by roughly 2 GB.

While we expect this patch to improve the situations for all users, with the great variety of hardware and software configurations available on PC this is not always guaranteed in all circumstances. As such, you can return to previous versions of the game by selecting the any of the public "version_*" branches on Steam.

Cheers,
Peter "Durante" Thoman

Happy Respawning Day, Super Animals! This week, the island’s celebrating the miracle of cloning with the Respawning Finale. We’ve got a festive final round of challenges and rewards for you (alongside the first week's challenges which are still available until the end of the event), so let’s hop right into it!

• Choir Robes | Collect Super Eggs (1337)
  
• 2000 XP | Smash Fabergé Giant Emu Eggs (15)
  
• Vegetation Sparrow Launcher | Get Sparrow Launcher Kills (3)
  
• 750 Carl Coins | Dance at the Beakeasy Stage
  
• Daisy Crown | Heal Teammates or Giant Emus with Darts (250)

• Super Dandelion

As a reminder, now that all three weeks’ worth of event challenges have been unlocked, you can complete them at any time until the event ends on Friday, April 5th. As always, all three new Super Animal breeds are permanent additions to the Research Lab.




Plushies have started arriving at their homes! In November of last year, we partnered for the second time with our friends at Makeship to bring you a campaign for the Super Skullcat Plush and a re-run of the Super Fox Plush. Even Chicken and Waffle (seen above) are hyped about them arriving, as you can clearly tell.

If you haven’t received your code for your in-game emote, make sure to check all your email folders (including spam) for an email from Makeship sent to the same email address you provided at checkout. If you still don’t see anything there, you can reach out to Makeship support. Make sure to provide them with your email and order number!

Thanks again for helping us reach the campaign goal as quickly as you did! We’re thrilled to be able to partner with companies like Makeship to bring you awesome stuff like this. If you’d like to be notified when new SAR merchandise drops, you can sign up for our email list on our merch site: https://merch.animalroyale.com/


Super talented artists from the community have been creating amazing fanart featuring the new Super Sakura Cat this past week, and we’re tickled pink to share their artwork with you! Make sure to toss them a follow if you love their work as much as we do.



A Super Sakura Cat enjoying a bit of sunshine and dango, by yixuanZhao13




SquirrelRaw’s rendition of the Super Sakura Cat, looking good in the Lucky Collar




A gorgeously-colored piece showing off Cheonsunny_’s amazing sense of style




crvmblo’s pastel and watercolor style compliments the Super Sakura Cat super well




A precious Super Sakura Cat drawn by Khawaiifoxy, looking super happy to be here


There’s always so much more beautiful artwork than we can share, but thank you so much to these awesome artists for letting us share their artwork with the community. :)


For the all the details on the Respawning Day event including all the Week 1 and 2 challenges (which are still available to complete until the end of the event), check out our original post right here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/843380/view/4107917367734110746

And our Week 2 post right here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/843380/view/5794516150122869820

Grab your egg-hunting squad on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Bluesky and Discord! We’ll see you on the island, Super Animals.

Greetings fellow ants,

The bustling halls of GDC 2024 have quieted down, but our colony's achievements still resonate!


At the prestigious Epic Games booth, we had the honor of presenting not one, but two enlightening talks, delving into the intricate artistry and technical craft behind Empire of the Ants.
Renaud Charpentier, our Creative Director at Tower Five, unveiled the secrets of harnessing Unreal Engine 5's power to weave a mesmerizing tapestry of microscopic wonder.


Additionally, our team hosted an exclusive preview hands-on session with esteemed members of the media, offering them a firsthand experience of our game's immersive world and dynamic gameplay.

🐜 Wishlist Empire of the Ants now

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287330/Empire_of_the_Ants/

📬 Stay connected!

Official Empire of the Ants Twitter - Tower Five Studio - Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - TikTok - Discord

Hello, everyone! The time has finally come! The Kickstarter campaign of Eden’s Guardian is LIVE! We are so excited for you to finally see all the stuff we’ve prepared!

First of all, we have an awesome animated trailer for the campaign produced by none other than Sunshine Animation Studio! We couldn’t be happier with the result, and we hope you’ll like it too! We’ve worked hard to showcase everything Eden’s Guardian has to offer.



On the Kickstarter you’ll also find all kinds of exclusive rewards! These include a Limited Collector's Edition with an exclusive Kickstarter inlay, a 12cms tall high-quality statue of the Guardian, in-game rewards that will allow players to become part of the lore of the game, and many other digital and physical items!

Head there to check everything out and support us if you like what you see! And don’t forget you can help us a lot by spreading the word as well.

Thank you for your support, we hope you'll accompany us in this journey!

Techtonica is officially 34% off here on Steam, which is our biggest discount ever. We've just launched v0.3 and there's a ton of new features to sink your teeth into.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1457320/Techtonica/

Grab the game, tell a friend, and experience 4-player co-op. Together, you’ll plan your factories, dig into the terrain, and argue over who has the best layout.

Let’s get to work!

Hello there! It's your friendly neighborhood Community Manager, Katten, here, and it's finally time. Millennia is now officially RELEASED!!!

I have created a few things to assist you with your Millennia journey, and in the spirit of transparency, I'm starting with linking you to a Known Issues List that covers recent issues we found in the game.

Followed by a Player Resources page for Millennia, where right now you can find our Feature Breakdowns, Tutorials, and Wiki! This page will also be updated in the future to include modding guides written by me, but I'll also be sure to create a YouTube series on how to mod Millennia for all of you who requested it.

Finally, as this is a new game, you might have questions that pop up while you are playing, so I have created an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) below to hopefully answer all of the most important questions. If I find anything that is being asked a lot, I will also be sure to update it!

EDIT:

Multiplayer IP Login Solve Guide

Launcher Update Guide

“What multiplayer options are currently available?”

Answer: At launch, Millennia supports both local Hotseat play and “Cloud” Hotseat play. To access Multiplayer, players will need to create a Paradox Account first, then start the multiplayer game and do their turns in sequential order, like in the single-player game. To launch a Cloud Hotseat game, players must initially all gather in a lobby and be able to connect to each other to pass around initial setup information.

An alternative mode, where players can do their turns simultaneously, is planned for the future.


“When is the Simultaneous Multiplayer going to be available?”

Answer: We do not yet have a specific timeframe to announce here, but we are actively working on it and will share more information when it will be available (and beta testing opportunities) as soon as we have some details worked out.



“What modding support is currently available?”

Answer: At launch, Millennia does not have any direct modding support. We know that modding is important to the community and it is a high priority for us. Modding, with integrated Steam Workshop support, will be coming sometime in 2024 and we will share more details and a more specific timeline as soon as possible.

“How moddable will the game be?”

Answer: Almost all of the gameplay in Millennia is done via data-driven XML files, so we anticipate that most, if not all, of the content in Millennia will be moddable once mod support is available.

We have not yet determined what level of UI modding will be available when we first roll out mod support.



“How do I delete a Custom Nation I created?”

Answer: This is not possible from the in-game UI yet, but will be added in a future patch. Meanwhile, if you want to remove them yourself they can be found in the following folder: AppData\LocalLow\CPromptGames\Millennia\CustomNation

You may safely delete any individual .xml files there outside of the game as a workaround until the in-game UI is available.


“How do I find a list of available hotkeys?”

Answer: These can be found in the Options menu, under the “Controls” tab.


“How do I remap my hotkeys?”

Answer: Hotkey remapping is not available in Millennia at launch, but will be added in a future patch.



“I started going to the Age of Iron, then triggered the Age of Blood. The game let me still go to the Age of Iron anyways. What gives?”

Answer: Once you qualify for an Age advance and start putting research points into it, you are “safe” and cannot be forced out by your own Crisis Age progression. However, if another player reaches the next Age before you, that Age will become the only available Age advance choice.


“Why did my Khan just disappear?”

Answer: The special Khan unit granted when taking the Khans National Spirit only lasts for 50 turns. We will be adding better visibility into the time remaining in a future patch.

“I started a two-player Continents map and both of us are on the same continent!”

Answer: When playing on the Continents map with either two or three players, all players will start together on one continent (leaving the other one ripe for mid-game expansion). This will be clarified better in a future patch.


“Can I keep playing after the game ends?”

Answer: Not currently, but this is something we are considering adding support for.


“My Swidden Farm / Burial Mound / Monument shows that it gathers multiple things, but I don’t see them all in the Worker UI.”

Answer: Improvements can have both “worked” outputs that are only generated when a Worker is assigned to them, and “automatic” outputs that are generated just by having the Improvement exist. The UI for assigning Workers only shows the “worked” output, or what you will get by specifically putting a Worker there.


“Where is the Culture Power for Truce / Found Religion?”

Answer: Culture Powers for a given Domain (such as Engineering, Diplomacy, etc.) are only unlocked once you have gained at least one point in that Domain. For example, in order to use the “Found Religion” Culture Power, you must have at least one point of Arts XP.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Greetings, Survivors!

Another year of surviving against the machine threat has passed and Generation Zero is turning 5 years old. We can’t overstate how happy we are that we’ve been able to support this game we love so much for such a long time, bringing you new content, quality of life, and of course bug fixes.
Let’s have a look at the last 5 years of development.


From the initial release of the game in 2019 to two story DLCs and 30 major updates since, it’s fair to say that GZ has had an eventful journey. It’s hard to pick any single event to highlight as there were so many impactful releases that we’re immensely proud of.
The launch of the game was, as all game launches are, exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. We were so happy for players to finally get their hands on what we had been working on for three years.

The YouTuber IGP started a series on GZ right at release, which to this day is one of the biggest factors to making it a success. His support during the first few months and throughout the years after has had a tremendous impact and we can never thank him enough for it. If you’d like to check out his series on GZ, head here.
url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HahZwv3CQp0&list=PLVxH6E2fftreo-OiPWnysv3ABtxEbR2Lm&index=1

From the initial response, it was immediately clear that we had hit the mark when it came to atmosphere, sound design, and world building. On the other hand, it was also apparent that we had work to do when it came to stability and bugs, which we got on right away.
Within the first year, we released 10 updates bringing tons of fixes alongside new content like bicycles, the storage box, rivals, and experimentals.



In November, we even released the first story DLC, Alpine Unrest, which took players to snowy Himfjäll island and posed a new threat in the shape of Apocalypse class machines. We also switched the presentation of the inventory from a grid-based system to a list view to accommodate for the new items being added.

In 2020, we slightly reduced the cadence of our updates, opting instead for bigger releases with longer periods of quality assurance. It was kicked off by the infamous April 2020 Update, which introduced an accidental change to machine AI that led to players dying left and right. To this day, we have a small and very vocal part of the community asking for the April difficulty to be added back to the game and who knows, maybe one day we’ll be able to take the time and effort required for such a huge change. It would certainly be fun to watch!<br>



2020 also brought the game’s second major story DLC with FNIX Rising. It revamped the South Coast region with menacing FNIX structures and had you establish further relationships with the Resistance, which was preparing to deal a major blow to the machines. This was also the glorious beginning of Melee Weapons!
November brought us the biggest bad in Östertörn so far, the Reaper Tyrant. Watching players having to adapt their tactics to defeat this new enemy and get the best loot (yes, you get better loot if you destroy it before it self-destructs) was so satisfying for us. It's exactly what we designed it for and we loved to see that the community enjoyed it as much as we did.

2021 was a quiet year for Generation Zero. We added repeatable daily and weekly Assignments and the Resistance Update brought Base Building and Base Defense to the game. Sadly, there was a deep-rooted issue that was discovered in that update which delayed its release by multiple months for the Xbox community. This threw a wrench in the works of our development plans, but it wouldn’t be GZ without the computers rising up against their creators. Eventually, we were able to - once again - triumph over the machines and the Resistance Update arrived on Xbox just before the end of the year.


We really picked up the pace again in 2022. Starting out with Landfall, the update that introduced Soviet machines as a new enemy faction, we kept our heads down and worked on features we had seen you request in our annual player surveys. In April, procedural base assaults gave you an ever-changing challenge and tons of new spots to build a base in. We overhauled the intro missions of the game, adding the NPCs Therese and Pontus to guide new players and introduce them to all the systems we had implemented over the years. Today, we couldn't imagine the game without them!

This was also the year when Neebs Gaming decided to pick up Generation Zero and film a series of hilarious antics, bringing a new audience to the game and smiles to the faces of hundreds of thousands - including the dev team. We’re so incredibly grateful to them for putting their unique spin on our game and showing it to the world. Their GZ video playlist can be found here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ8Eudogu1I&list=PL1Uou2DWH7IGNbXolZicwaFcztb9OOxgY


Fitting for a release around Halloween, we added yet another much-requested thing: A flying enemy - the Firebird. Feared for its high damage attacks and hard to hit weak spots, it instills fear in even experienced players to this day. Luckily, this update also introduced Motorbikes, a means to get away from the Firebirds (or towards them) faster and safer.


To round out the year, we had one more community request to answer: new Experimentals. With the experimental KVM-89, Revolver, and Älgstudsare, new ways of approaching combat were born. We especially loved players taking on the role of “mobile artillery” with the Älgstudsare, a dev-favorite playstyle (no, not because we’re bad at the game).


This brings us to the year that brought you Guerrilla fighter’s best friend: the Companion. Fans and devs alike rejoiced when it was adopted in July 2023 and instantly spent hours getting it, customizing it, and taking it out for dangerous walks. While we sadly couldn’t give you free choice in naming your new buddy, we made sure to include lots of options for you to choose from and have been adding more since! If you have ideas for names we should add, please let us know. There can never be enough!

Eventually, winter time came around and we made sure to include two more updates before the end of the year. With the Guerrilla Research Update, weapon augmentation was made available and allowed each player to get even more in-depth in tinkering and tailoring their arsenal to their own playstyle. The most revered Augmentation Designs are (rather unsurprisingly) Life Stealing and Oversized Clip. Who doesn’t want to fire 500 rounds from an LMG and heal themselves with it?


Finally, we added a new mode of transportation - the Flakmoped. No longer just bound to riding alone, players formed mobile assault units with the combined fire power of a small country, getting flipped over constantly - having 4 players’ physics interact with the same vehicle at the same time is too much for a system where riding a bike into a pebble at 5km/h sends you flying.

So that’s it, the last 5 years of development! As any video game project, Generation Zero has had its ups and downs. We are extremely proud of the game it has become and the plans we have for it. All of this would never have been possible without the support of our beloved community - you!

Over 6 million players have joined the Resistance. You’ve destroyed machines and built the resistance. You’ve joined us during Dev Streams and created tons of content yourself. Many beautiful works of art have been created in honor of Generation Zero. You’ve also given us constructive feedback and stuck around to see us implement it over the years. Numbers cannot express the impact you’ve had on us and the game, but we can try to put it into perspective:



We are aware that having such a big player base is a huge privilege and also a responsibility. If you have been following us for the last few months, you’ll have noticed that there is a major focus on improving the stability and player experience of the game. These efforts will of course continue as we develop more content for you to play, starting with the next major update. We will keep supporting Generation Zero with new content, quality of life, and narrative in the future.
Thank you all so much for being the best community any game developer could ask for.

Special thanks go out to:

• Our Discord moderators asidk9thorn, Dreguen, Hyäne, Major, Miles Lexicon, Rayleigh, Sgt Engee, and VioletThunder9. You rock.
  
• Our Forum moderator Zesiir, for enhancing many Dev Streams with his presence and helping us keep the Forum a positive and constructive environment.
  
• Our former moderators Ichi, Larz, Mirrin, Pronto, and Sanginius, for gracefully handling the influx of users during the Beta and at launch.
  
• Tenebris Infinite and Wired Gaming for consistently covering GZ with YouTube videos and streams. Many would have been lost without your informative content!
  
• All the dedicated artists who put time and effort into creating fanart, much of which adorns our office walls.

With all the love,
The Generation Zero Dev Team

Get ready for some deckbuilding fun because Deck of Ashes is participating in the themed Deckbuilders Fest on Steam! To celebrate, the game is available at a whopping 80% discount until April 1st!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1016730/Deck_of_Ashes/

But wait, there's more! Another awesome game joining the fest is Cats on Duty! While it hasn't been released yet, you can already play the free Prologue and wishlist the game! Cats on Duty is a thrilling strategy game where players lead a team of courageous cats on missions to save the world from evil creatures.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2447260/Cats_on_Duty/

Don't miss out on the chance to support these fantastic games during Deckbuilders Fest!

Hello, Bravelanders!

Spring has come, and so new event. But in Braveland’s territory is still cold. However, there is no time to freeze since you have so many tasks to complete. And whoever works hard will receive a worthy reward. Get started!

The king announces the tournament. Fight shoulder to shoulder with your comrades, try to get Jin into your army!

The event won't last for long, so hurry up and join the tournament. Prove yourself worthy to wield the power of this fighter!

Harrowing post-apocalyptic adventure Rauniot emerges from the ruins
on 17th April 2024.

Silence, only leafs rustling in the wind and ravens in the sky croaking, watching you. Something is off, you can feel it. Empty gas pumps and junk everywhere, but also something you need on your journey heading towards your goals. Meet people who saved from the radiation, bullets and cannibalism, while exploring detailed and atmospheric environments.

Will you find what you are looking for? Step your boot on this challenging but essential path of Aino.