I bring spooky tidings, Captain.

Our latest update unlocks a region, includes a new standalone ‘Abandon Ship Story’ and has a whole host of other cool stuff!

We’ve released a trailer to accompany our latest Major Update, which you can watch here:

First, some important house-keeping: Adding a new region means your saves from previous versions will not work with this latest update. We have added some new quick-start locations with ship customiser to get you close to where you were previously – we’ll explain that in more detail below.

If you are mid-playthrough on the previous version and wish to continue it, then you may switch over to this older version of the game via the Beta Branches system:

– Go to your Steam Library
– Right-click on Abandon Ship and select “Properties”
– Go to the tab marked “Betas”
– In the drop-down box, select the one called “0.5.9802 – The Perilous Bounty Version”
– Wait for the game to finish updating, you should see the branch name listed after the game name.

If you’re up-to-date on the Beta Branch (i.e you already have the items listed below) then your saves will be unaffected.

So what’s in the latest update?

New Region: The Haunted Seas

In the main game, The Haunted Seas is accessible after you have defeated the Kraken. It’s located near the top-left corner of the world map.

In order to get further into the Haunted Seas, you’ll need to commence a side-quest in the port of Mox-Mortis.

If you want to dive straight in however, then you should check out our new standalone story that is based within The Haunted Seas:

 

New Story: Haunted Seas Escape

We launched into Early Access with both the main story and a separate story that was focused around a combat campaign. We enjoyed making this and always intended to do more (as explained in our Roadmap) – these ‘Abandon Ship Stories’ are meant to be standalone and cross over with the main game in interesting ways, and is something that if the community likes, we’ll do more of.

In this particular story you play as a Captain with a tragic past. A routine job goes awry when they are lured into The Haunted Seas and must attempt to escape whilst uncovering the truth.

But what can you expect to find in The Haunted Seas?

Well, while we don’t want to spoil all the surprises we will cover a few things here:

 

Ghost Ships

These spooky vessels sail The Haunted Seas, looking to claim lost souls.

They are manned by soulless automatons, who are weaker than standard crew, but led by the dreaded Lich Captains. These tough demons are able to ressurect their fallen comrades, which provides a tricky tactical conundrum to overcome.

 

Ghost Mortar

Each Ghost Ship comes equipped with at least one of these macabre weapons. It fires a blood splat onto the deck of your ship, and a handful of zombies emerge from it, ready to attack your crew.

Zombies are individually weak, only needing a couple of hits to cut down – however, in groups can be dangerous if left unmanaged.

 

Strange Environments

The Haunted Seas is Death’s own realm, and as such, the normal rules don’t always apply. Expect to navigate environments unlike ones you’ve come across so far…

Some environments are actively hostile and will seek to crush you, so be ready for anything.

Oh, and there’s also a Zombie Kraken 😉

 

What else is in the update?

We’ve also added quite a lot of new systems and done a bunch of polish and bug fixes.

For the patch notes on everything that we’ve updated, you can check out this post here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/551860/discussions/9/1734343065623850270/

Some of the bigger items we’ve added in this update include:

Two New Quick-Starts

Now, when you select a new Main Story game, you’ll have a drop-down box that allows you to select multiple quick-start locations, roughly spread around the length of the story.

In the two new options, because these are much further into the game, you’ll have an opportunity to visit a special port where you can customise your ship and crew.

These new quick-starts serve two purposes. The first is that they’re handy for players that want them. The second is that you’ll be able to approximate where you’d got to on previous versions of the build where saves were invalidated.

Two new difficulty levels

Some people want to be able to play through the game primarily to experience the story, others wish to have the ultimate challenge. We’ve added a Casual and Hardcore difficulty mode for players to set up the sort of game they want. We’ll no doubt tweak these as development continues.

 

Ship Expansion

• Swivel Guns are no longer in matched pairs, so you can equip each side differently (a much-requested feature).
• We’ve also massively expanded the Ship Section Upgrades. Previously, you only had the choice of three section upgrades. Now, you have up to 35. These upgrades provide a performance boost, have more armour, better durability against hull cracks and fires, and can be repaired faster, giving your ship an extra edge.
• The new Ship’s Storage allows you to store weapons in it. These can be swapped around in the Ship Management menu, and mean you can switch your loadout to suit the situation. Normally like to get up close and personal, but that isn’t working so well against a Sea Fort? Switch to your long-range weapons before engaging and rule the waves!

We hope you enjoy this latest update. If you like what we’re doing, please leave a Steam Review, as it really helps us out.

Similarly, if you want more of these standalone ‘Abandon Ship Stories’ that are separate from the main game, let us know – we have some cool ideas for other ones, so if it’s a popular feature we’ll keep making them.

As for what’s next, we’ll keep unlocking regions and adding new systems as we do so – and if the ‘Abandon Ship Stories’ is a much-requested addition, we’ll keep adding them, too 🙂

Good luck in The Haunted Seas…

The Abandon Ship Crew