New demo update is live - Play now
Welcome, Explorers!
If you saw the latest news from us, you already knew that today we’re launching a new update for Lysward’s demo.
Since the demo launch, you’ve given us a great amount of feedback - and we took that seriously. We’re building this game for you, after all. And one thing you guys said was that Lysward didn’t feel survival enough.
You wanted survival? YOU GOT SURVIVAL!
Lysward is now harder than it was before. The desert is more brutal, the heat is more unforgiving, and to top it all off, there are storms and dangerous creatures roaming around. We won’t hold your hand, and you will die many times before you learn the ways of the sands. So if you’re looking for a more chill survival game, Lysward might not be for you.
This update touches almost every system in the game, from the very first minute you wake up to how you survive and construct.
What’s New:
Death camera: Dying feels a whole lot more impactful now, thanks to new third-person death animations you’ll have in-game. We hope you will have as much fun with it as we had making it. We dare you to share your death cams on social media.
Base building: We have it! But in this update, we’re bringing just the first module you can build. We will bring more updates to base building in the near future; we’re polishing the experience to be the best it can be.
New onboarding and initial cave: We’ve completely reworked the opening experience and initial cave area to give you a more engaging entry into the game, especially when it comes to the shadow and sun mechanics.
Research tree: Unlock new technologies, blueprints, and buildings through our fresh research system and updated progression mechanics.
New creatures: New wildlife and threats have migrated into the desert. Can you pet that dog? There’s only one way to find out.
Memory Chamber: We felt the players needed to test a bit more of their newly learned ability before coming back to the desert, so we remodeled the memory chamber to offer you that chance.
Mother Tree Leaderboard: See how close you can get to the Mother Tree compared to players worldwide. Join the leaderboard and beat the devs’ time!
Note: Simplified Chinese has been removed from the demo. We’ll be adding localization updates in the future.
There are other exciting new things in the demo, but we’re not gonna spoil everything for you. Go discover them.
Pardon our dust
We are pushing this update out specifically because we need your feedback. And since this is a major update, you will encounter some bugs, balance quirks, and temporary placeholders.
For example, while the game will be voiced by our official voice actors, for the newly added situations we are currently using temporary internal team voice-overs as an addition - no AI voices involved. We’ll be swapping these out for professional recordings down the line, but we wanted to get these new features into your hands as soon as possible rather than holding back the update.
For the complete list of known issues, please check this thread in our discussion forums.
So go on and try out base building, break things, push the mechanics to their limits, find all the ways you can die in Lysward, and let us know what feels great and what needs work.
Jump into our Steam Community Hub or hit up our Discord to drop your bugs, thoughts, and suggestions.
See you in the desert,
Snowcastle Games