Unique, science meets chaos, co-op survival game Abiotic Factor just received an utterly massive content update, officially emerging from Early Access with a feature-packed 1.0 update. Players can now dive headfirst into the full release experience of the title, richer and far more unpredictable than ever seen before. Whether you’re barricading hallways with lab equipment or improvising weapons from office supplies, the game’s chaotic charm and high-stakes experimentation have been cranked up to the next level.
Alongside a brand new 1.0 trailer, developer Deep Field Games has also released an incredibly extensive list of patch notes for the Abiotic Factor 1.0 release, which pretty much touch on every aspect of the title. There are so many significant changes listed that it is impossible to provide them all here. Even so, here are several highlights worth immediately noting:
General Gameplay Changes:
- Crossplay is now live! PS5 and Xbox scientists will be joining our scientific community. Please treat them nicely and show them the ropes!
- There is now a rudimentary compass on the Wristwatch. While in portal worlds, accuracy may vary.
- Added a wristwatch icon to the default wristwatch equip slot. No, you can’t equip a new watch at this time.
- Updated the startup movie.
- Updated splash screen text a bit. (Press any key to begin, etc.)
- It’s still not Nebraska.
- Some specific items can now be used in the Shield Slot – now called the Off-Hand Armament slot.
- A handful of new items have been added to fill this role and can be activated by pressing secondary fire, the same method to block with shields.
- Item Dispensers now have the official name of Quantum Exchanger, which is closer to what the Abiotic Factor wiki editors called it anyway. Great job, scientists.
- Area of Effect damage can now affect other things, such as furniture.
- Removed character rotation arrows from the Transmogrifier. The Lead Programmer told us we’re not allowed to rotate the scientist during gameplay or “bad things would happen.” It was not clear if he meant “to the game” or “to us.”
Combat & Balance Changes:
- Bullets now properly go to the laser dot (while also being affected by bullet spread around that dot location.) This fixes a bug introduced in Dark Energy, where the aim was offset from the laser dot and would never go where you thought it would go.
- Bullets now do 90% of their normal damage to Body Shields, down from 100%, due to new ways to deal with these shields more effectively.
- Shield Blocking has been reworked to be more balanced, but also a bit more interesting. Shields now have a value of Light, Medium, and Heavy. Shields will resist damage equal to or LOWER than their value. For example, a Medium Shield will resist Medium and Light damage, but not Heavy. When a shield fails to block a certain type of damage, it will still allow some of that damage to bleed through and injure the wielder.
- Made completely blocking damage with a shield award Fortitude XP.
- Energy Pistol (and its new upgrade) now deal slightly more snappy damage, with less delay on the actual damage itself. Largely remains unchanged otherwise.
- The Spear has received a substantial buff to bring it more in line with the weapon used to craft it.
- Damage from Grenades now completely resets the Body Shield cooldown, instead of just setting the Body Shield health to zero. This includes for enemies who have not yet entered combat or otherwise powered on their Body Shields.
- Shield now has a 30% chance to attackers, up from a measly 10% chance.
- The Pipe Pistol no longer has a fire delay..
- Base Assault logic has been greatly improved, allowing enemies to spawn in more interesting arrangements, often outside the base, or if the base is too difficult to find a good path to, the AI director will simply not assault the base at all. Previously, in this instance, the director would spawn enemies in really strange spots, or inside furniture. That should happen less, or not at all.
- Added a maximum time for assaults, in case enemies get stuck or destroy the majority of the base. They won’t necessarily go away, but they may lose interest in the initial assault location and find new things to do.
- Large improvements to the throwing arc visual, including pulsing it when cooking a throwable object, such as a grenade. Additional sounds have been added as well.
Portal World Changes:
- Various blast doors or other doors in Portal Worlds will no longer reset when the Portal World resets, leaving your shortcuts open on return trips.
- Replaced some off-brand artwork in Flathill with some proper artwork crafted lovingly by human hands. Humans hands with 5 fingers, even. Human hands by the name of Shaun. Human hands that are now clutching money we gave the human hands, because we like paying human hands to do human artwork.
- There’s a lead vest somewhere in Flathill. We can’t believe we didn’t notice it until now!
- Updated soccer field in Flathill. About time the city council stepped up and did something!
Weather Changes:
- Weather is now more likely to trigger if it was recently unlocked via progression through the Facility, instead of the system picking any random weather. This increases the likelihood of seeing new weathers as you progress. This chance will also just slightly outweigh weather types that are “requested”, e.g. by eating food that may cause weather to occur.
These highlights barely even scratch the surface of the sheer volume of changes Abiotic Factor has received since leaving its Early Access heading into version 1.0. Version 1.0 is ridiculously dense with content, and if you’d like to view all of the changes, you can view the full patch details on the game’s official Steam Page. Ready your reading glasses.
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