The Karma Level just got a massive overhaul.
Tons of new props and details: gravestones, a crashed spaceship, and Blackrocks spreading around the graveyard.
But that’s not all — something ancient and malevolent has been unleashed.
The mysterious Blackrock Entity decided to release one of its deadliest servants:
the Blackrock Phantom.
For now, it’s confined to the Karma Level for testing... but don’t expect it to stay there forever.

Other updates:

• ⚙️ Story Level 4 is now live! The story deepens, alliances form, and… yeah, we might need stronger weapons.

• 💣 Corebomb is now cheaper and lighter — more boom, less burden.

• 🧩 Fixed a bug where the player could lose their main weapon after dying.

• 🦠 Glimmergrub balance slightly adjusted — they’re still nasty, just fairer.

I’ve got tons of ideas for Blackrock, but I’m also taking some time to polish things up.

Please be patient — I won’t stop until Blackrock reaches the standard it deserves.

I hope you have fun,

Joe

Hello everyone!
I know I’ve been fairly radio silent for a while, but that’s because I’ve been working flat out on the upcoming Patch 0.4, which is by far the biggest update to the game to date!

Before jumping into the features, I can confirm this update will be launching in early November, so very soon! There will also likely be a beta beforehand, so keep an eye on the Discord.

Anyway, let’s take a look at 0.4 — Busy Work.

The first and most notable change: the world overhaul.

Fargone has often felt a bit empty — something I’ve always been aware of. But due to performance issues, bugs, and the general refinement needed, I had been prioritizing other areas first.

With the Game Health Update that launched last month, it was finally the right time to expand the world a lot. The Plains currently remain untouched (as I have specific plans for that area), but nearly every part of the Grasslands and Mountains has been massively expanded. Existing POIs now feature tons of new areas to explore and more detail, while brand-new POIs have been added — plus lots of smaller points in between to make traveling feel far more rewarding and interesting.

Loot has also been completely overhauled, with all these areas featuring much more to find. Both containers and loose items have been reworked across the map to complement the new POIs.

AI spawning has also been reworked, now featuring a mix of handcrafted setups and dynamic spawns — making areas feel more dangerous and alive (or dead, y’know, because zombies).

Overall, the Barrens have never looked or played better, making exploration much more interesting and rewarding — which leads nicely into the next feature.

Despite the world overhaul being the biggest feature, the name of this update — Busy Work — actually comes from this system.

“Busy Work” refers to the massive increase in both the number and variety of missions.

When speaking to important NPCs such as Sal, Catcher, Haydes, and more, you can now ask about available work. Unlike standard missions, this is a dynamic system that allows these NPCs to offer a variety of missions every 1–2 in-game days. Each NPC has their own mission pool with unique rewards — including a new random reward system — giving you tons of new ways to earn gear, reputation, money, and more while exploring the revamped world.

New mission types have also been added:

• Rescue missions (save captured people)

• Assassination missions (take out faction VIPs)

Both can lead to larger firefights and more challenging encounters. Some missions even include deeper lore snippets, further expanding the world and laying the groundwork for the eventual full main storyline.

The Bounty Board has also received its long-overdue overhaul — tripling the number of available missions and introducing the random item reward system to all bounty missions as well. You won’t be short on things to do or earn with this update.

With all these new ways to earn and find loot, I wanted to make equipment more interesting too.

In this update, both weapons and armour can now receive a randomised set of mods.

Lore-wise, people living within the Barrens have been tinkering with their gear — making each piece unique, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Mods typically have both positive and negative effects, while rarer ones may only provide benefits. Occasionally, you might even find a purely negative mod — a failed experiment of sorts.

Mods affect item value and a range of stats, meaning that even a weaker weapon at base level might outperform your current gear once mods are factored in. Looting just got a lot more exciting.

Lockpicking is a new mini-game added in this update, making exploration and looting even more engaging. Some areas now have valuable loot hidden behind locked gates, requiring both skill and the right tools to access.

Locks come with varying difficulty levels, and mastering the art of lockpicking will take practice — but the rewards are worth it.

With this update, a brand-new enemy is being added — with another two currently in development and hopefully ready in time for this update as well.

The Undead Bear can now be found roaming the mountain region. Unlike other undead animals such as dogs, the bear is slower but cannot be staggered and will relentlessly charge until dropped. They’re fairly easy to deal with alone, but if they stumble into an existing fight, they can certainly provide a new challenge!

With the Busy Work update, the game will be receiving a range of new items for you to collect. You’ll be able to hunt down a rare new bolt-action marksman rifle, a new higher-quality Kritch (AK-47) variant, as well as three new unique weapons — which I’ll be keeping a secret for now, so you’ll have to find them yourself!

Alongside weapons, there are four brand-new equipment sets:

• Survivor Set

• Bandit Militia Set

• Military Gen 2 Set (currently worn by the Silent Warriors in-game)

• Cold Weather Set (designed for exploration in harsher mountain conditions)

Each set includes gloves, pants, chest, and boots — meaning a total of 16 new pieces of equipment to find in the world.

Additionally, there are several new gear pieces linked to the Gen 2 set, including two helmet variants and a new gas mask as well as 4 new backpacks. Altogether, this update adds 29 new equipment pieces and weapons to loot — all of which can benefit from the new random mod system. Many of these are also included in the new random rewards for bounty and dynamic missions.

Human AI can now be recruited to join the player in their adventures across the Barrens. Each faction has its own requirements:

• Runners will join you if you are either very friendly with them or by bribing them.

• Military members will only join you if you have a high enough reputation.

• Hollowed can also be bribed, similar to the Runners.

• Liberty currently cannot join you, but there are plans underway to make them a joinable faction soon.

Combining this with all the new missions and ways to earn reputation, you can now fully immerse yourself within your chosen faction.

There will also be even bigger improvements to the faction system coming later this year.

Life in the Barrens continues to evolve with AI improvements across several areas.

Firstly, the AI pathfinding system has been completely reworked, fixing long-standing issues such as AI cutting corners. The new system is much more stable and performant, allowing for a greater range of movement during combat — for both human and undead AI.

Human AI in particular has received several major improvements to target tracking. Previously, AI would prioritise a single target over everything else, often ignoring nearby threats — making them too easy to exploit. Now, AI more efficiently scans for and prioritises threats based on distance and danger level.

You’ll also see AI looting the battlefield after combat, making them feel more alive and believable. They’ll typically only take some items to avoid over-encumbering themselves — and if you’re unhappy about them stealing from a corpse, you can always reclaim what they took by… less peaceful means.

Human AI will also now also spawn with experience tiers meaning you may encounter harder variants of each factions members out in the Barrens, these also tie directly into some of the new VIP missions.

Finally, human AI movement has also been refined — they now move faster and more fluidly, making them less predictable and harder to track.

Fargone will also be receiving its first suite of Steam achievements with this update. These range from simple, easy achievements to some much harder ones that will test your skill and dedication.

This is just the initial set — more achievements are planned for future updates as development continues.

There are also plenty of changes and improvements coming to all areas of the game, including the following:

• UI Improvements: The way stats are displayed has been redesigned using a new bar system. Previously, armour stats were shown as raw numbers, which made it difficult to gauge their effectiveness since the values were quite low. The new bar system makes comparing gear much easier and clearly shows how stats are being boosted or penalised based on the item’s condition or attached mods.

• Health System Rework: Previously, you would suffer immediate health or stamina penalties as soon as any of your needs fell too low. Now, when your needs drop too far, you’ll begin to gain sickness debuffs that lower your wellness level. As wellness decreases, penalties will gradually appear — meaning you’re only punished for long-term neglect of your needs, not instantly for missing a meal or drink.

• Audio Improvements: Many weather and ambient sound effects have been replaced or enhanced with higher-quality versions. There are also numerous new UI sounds for item interactions, as well as unique sounds for different items to improve immersion.

There are even more changes beyond these, which will be detailed in the full patch notes upon release.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this early peek behind the curtain — I’m genuinely so excited to release this update. A ton of work has gone into making this something special and making the game much more replayable and enjoyable.

Full patch notes and further details will be released with the update in early November, so I’ll speak to you all again very soon!

– Jordan

Hey Triune Followers!

Starting October 27th and running through Halloween, Eternal Tombs will be hosting a very limited test of our Halloween Event "The Hallowed Grave". This test only contains a small bit of functionality within our persistent event system and allows users to test event quests, event purchasing, event harvestables and some small-scale dynamic event mobs. It also contains a few small cosmetic rewards and some minor decor in certain zones. We have also included the higher level zone "Kilivith Woods" for you to jump into and check out as you progress. It is also important to note that this event contains multiple new optimizations for performance, which is a huge priority within this test. In addition, we want to be upfront that server support will be limited during this time as we are tracking server stability and will be diagnosing and troubleshooting server issues and crashes as they occur, which may mean that the servers are down for longer periods of time. Thank you again for helping us test and we hope that you enjoy the small pieces of The Hallowed Grave!

Signup at our website here: https://www.eternaltombs.com/Home/Register

- Josh
Creative Director

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• Added "Alt-Historical" and "Random" deposit generation modes at game start for more varied and replayable worlds.

• The layout partitioner has been improved for better automatic node spacing on the main screen. Node base size has been slightly reduced for a cleaner interface.

• A new visual effect provides clear feedback when investing funds into a node.

• Nodes can now be accessed directly from each other by clicking their name in the node detail panel. A highlight will show what is clickable.

• Added a maximum limiter to aggregate displays.

This update overhauls combat from the industrial age onward with 18 new battle types like:

• Modern Battle becomes the standard for late-game engagements, featuring mechanized infantry, tanks, and air power.

• Blitzkrieg offers high-risk, high-reward rapid breakthrough tactics.

• Trench Warfare represents brutal attritional combat.

• Air Battle introduces pure dogfighting for air supremacy.

• Attacker Bombardment runs against enemy ground forces and infrastructure.

• Guerilla Warfare allows weaker nations to fight in harsh terrain. Urban Guerilla Warfare bleeds armored columns in cities.

• Artillery Barrage allows forces with superior numbers and technology to soften enemy armies from distance.

• Mercenary Bribing offers a diplomatic option to turn enemy hired soldiers against them.

• Armored Tech research unlocks powerful mechanized warfare.

• Armored Manufacturing produces Armored Forces for the battlefield.

• Airports support air operations.

• War Planes Manufacturing creates War Planes units.

• Air Trade routes open new commercial possibilities.

• Railways can be built in regions to form a Railway Network, improving logistics and industrial efficiency.

• Telecommunications enhances national unity, bureaucratic efficiency, and cultural cohesion across vast distances.

• Steam of Industrialization event acts as a catch-up mechanic, allowing less advanced nations to accelerate industrial development when bordering technologically superior powers.

• Siege Technology now evolves into Artillery Technology, upgrading siege workshops to Artillery Manufacturing and units to modern Artillery.

• Administration Collapse event represents a catastrophic failure for overstretched and unstable empires.

• Silk Fever and Spices Fever increase demand for specific luxury goods.

• Sacred Philosophy creates synergy between faith and scientific advancement.

• Multicultural Society reduces the negative impact of foreign populations on National Unity.

• Lenient Faith lessens instability from heathen populations.

• The Navy Forces node now displays a detailed pie chart showing fleet composition by power source (Wind, Coal, Oil, Nuclear).

• High-tech naval forces now correctly consume resources for maintenance.

• Cavalry tech stops improving battle effectiveness after 600, transitioning to a ceremonial role.

• Luxury craft output gain from Industry has been reduced.

• Output is also reduced when there are no available destinations.

• Trade diplomacy menu issues have been fixed and streamlined.

• New alert added for cancelled treaties.

• AI trade and discovery alerts are now cleared when opening the trade menu to reduce clutter.

• New loading screen illustrations added.

• A new music track for later ages features a crossover with our game Khaligrad.

• Fixed errors in historical resource generation and some region biome assignments.

• Fixed a bug where Laissez-Faire could cap Interventionism at a negative value.

• Corrected an issue where Laissez-Faire could cause Interventionism to spawn too early.

• Slightly reduced Sailing Tech generation from Port Capacity.

• Improved error messaging when save file writing fails due to insufficient disk space.

• Fixed an issue with the Resource overview not showing more than 64 sources possible.

• Minor localization fixes and improvements.

Note: Save files may not transfer well to the new version.

The waters around the island are calmer now... but something stirs beneath the surface.

This update fixes a ton of bugs, tweaks fishing balance, and begins our slow descent into a new Cthulhu-inspired theme.

Bugs Fixed

• Moving fish disappearing or duplicating

• Auto-highlighting fish inconsistency

• Octopus bait not working

• Incorrect bait costs

• Fishing reel growing over time

• Quest text mismatch (Skoumprí vs Skoumpri)

Improvements

• Hold Right Click to move items without selecting

• 20 % bigger Reel UI for smoother fishing

• New 2D Angler character

• Transition to the new Cthulhu-themed world

Temporary Downgrades

• No angler animations (for now)

• Island & platform visuals are in progress — polishing soon!

Massive thanks to @Minakie 🐛🧹 for the relentless bug-hunting and help making this sea a little cleaner!

🎣 Download the new demo and tell us what you find beneath the waves…

Follow Fishing Corner to get notified about our upcoming Early Access launch in January!

Marinos & Vicky

​- Fixed bug where you could draw in the ocean of custom maps

- Added ability to hold the left shift key to only draw in unclaimed territory

- Added Great Expand card, which will appear when leaders with "The Great" leader trait draw a Large Expand card

- Added random splash text to the main menu

Yep, we have more enhancements coming your way. Join us to see some and talk about others, as well as enjoy the game

Check out the DreamHack Atlanta sale at https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40157993/sale/DreamHackAtlanta2025

The Lorry can now get damaged from collisions and its boiler can now over-pressure/explode.

I've implemented the first basics for the Competitor and with that more Deliveries difficulties can be unlocked.

This patch also features some important bugfixes.

EARLY ACCESS 0.9.0.5

• Fixed crash when the Boiler explodes.

• All Delivery difficulty levels are now unlockable, except for custom. However: here are still some missing things in the later levels. Such as new monsters and obstacles.

• Added new parameters to Delivery difficulty levels and updated the difficulty progress.

• Difficulty select menu will now default to the main selection screen instead of the Custom difficulty, when it is unlocked.

• Competitor now spawns in the Town, grabbing at players from underground. Don't get caught!

• New Competitor animations.

• Demon now turns and flies smoothly.

• Improved existing Demon animations.

• New Demon animations for catching players.

• Added timer to ensure Demon drops player after 30 seconds.

• Demon now drops player on delivery end, so it doesn't mess up player movement.

• Lorry boiler now has a safety valve with effects.

• Lorry boiler can now explode when overpressured for too long.

• Added crashing sounds for bumping the Lorry into things.

• Lorry can now break down due to collisions when playing higher difficulties. Repairs can be done with the wrench.

• Wrench now spawns in the Lorry.

• Minor bugfixes.

• Fixed a bug that would cause in progress lobbies to appear in the server browser

• Fixed a bug that would make all melee attacks bleed

• Fixed a bug that dashing on top of the Soulwitch would cause the player to take damage

Make sure to update your game to V1.0.1 before playing!

Hello, Candy Reclaimers!

Every wanted to play together or against your friends and family? Now you can! With the new local multiplayer feature, you can play with up to 4 players on Quest and Steam/PC (crossplay supported) in your local Wifi or wired network.

Will you share the candy? Will you keep it for yourself? Will you shoot, while the others eat? The other way around?

Three modes are available:

• Team: Form a team! No competition - one life, one score, one enemy!

• Coop: Be a team, but still be yourself! Share life and total score, but compare in a friendly manner!

• Versus: Your life! Your score! Whatever you shoot is yours, and yours alone.

Halloween is upon us, so let's have fun!