It’s a wrap: Happy holidays!

Hello everyone!

Now that the Uncharted Depths update has been released and hotfixed, we’re about to vacate the premises of our virtual office and take some time off for Christmas. Before that, let’s take one more moment to admire the scenery and appreciate everyone who took a dive under Europa’s ice this year.

Rewind

Without dwelling on what kind of a year it has been on Earth, let’s turn back the clock by a measly nine months to when we released the Silky Smooth update, the first of this year’s five big updates. It’s almost unbelievable that that was actually this year, too – the total UI overhaul then was a sorely needed, massive effort, and now it’s starting to look so dated already!

After the Silky Smooth update was when things really started happening here. Ever since then, we’ve been seeing a dizzying increase in Discord server members, subreddit subscribers, likes on tweets, reactions and responses on Steam news posts… Just when we think we couldn’t possibly do better than we did last time, there are 15-hundred people thumbing up a news post about the next update. For us, Christmas came really early this year, and never left. Thank you for every time you clicked on something to let us know we’d done something right – or wrong. Please keep clicking, and sending messages, and reporting bugs. We hope 2020 on Europa was as amazing for you as it was for us, and that 2021 will improve on this year in every way.

Barotrauma update logos 2020
That’s a lot of updates! Which one do you think was the most important?

Fast forward

So, what do you do after 1.5 years, 8 named updates and nigh-countless nameless ones in early access on Steam with your first game? Well, more updates, of course. The next one, a smallish QoL and content update, will probably be along in February. We’ll cook up some proper content tease once we’re so full of festive food we don’t even want to see another ham before this time next year… but for now, a couple of likely-looking additions:

Following this update, there will be several more releases next year, and a couple of pretty big ones, too. There are still so many things hanging around our Trello roadmap and the backlog of our issue tracker, waiting to be implemented, and we are incredibly fortunate to have the development time available to continue working on them (that’s all thanks to you). There are a number of monsters we still want to (re)add to the game, the evolution of map locations is still in the works, and the alien ruins are waiting for their own overhaul, to name a few of the bigger topics that we’re particularly looking forward to.

Holiday time

Before any further updates, though, it’s time to take a break. We wish you the best possible holidays, and if you spend some part of them in the Europan ocean, smooth seas and gentle honks. See you next year!

‘Twas the night after update, and all through the sub
Not a creature was stirring—excepting a grub.
The boiler suits were flung in haste over the chair,
For hopes of the Honkmother were no longer there.
The crewmen were restlessly tossing in bed,
For the fent and the morphine were heavy as lead;
While captain in her jacket, and I in my own,
Had just made up our minds that we would not lie down,
When outside the hull there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.
To the nearby air vent I snuck with my flashlight,
Flung open the shutter, and behold what a sight!
A creature with scales and a sack full of goodies
Crawled out of the vent and demanded some cookies.

Barotrauma season's greetings 2020
Happy holidays!

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