Craftopia becomes a massive seamless open world with new update
Japanese game developer Pocket Pair released the “Seamless World Update” for Craftopia on June 28. The update removes the original map of the game and introduces a vast new game field. The update also includes major balance adjustments and the addition of new actions and techniques. As of June 28, the seamless update is available on Steam, and the Xbox version will follow.
Craftopia is an open-world survival action game that supports multiplayer play. According to the Steam store page, the game was designed to be a utopia that incorporates elements from a variety of different video game genres. Specifically, the gameplay includes elements such as crafting, farming, fighting, building, survival, hunting etc. The player starts their adventure in Craftopia by accumulating resources and gradually developing technology, while essentially spending their time freely.
The newly released “Seamless World Update” has completely reinvented the structure of the game field of Craftopia. Until now, the game’s field worked like a map divided into small island units. The different islands had various environments such as forests, volcanoes, snowy mountains etc. But since the islands existed independently of each other, players had to travel back and forth between the different biomes via road.
With the new update, this original map has been replaced with a new, massive world map. The vast new field that contains multiple interconnected biomes allows the player to seamlessly wander during their adventure. Multiplayer play has also become more intuitive and comfortable to play with this update.
The update also includes small-scale biomes in addition to the large biomes in the field. The structure of dungeons on the field has also been reinvented, and it appears that players will have new puzzles to figure out using their crafting skills.
Combat in the game has also been redefined with new actions – evading an enemy’s attack at the right moment can now give you the opportunity to launch an attack which can greatly reduce your enemy’s shield gauge. There is also the new element of Shield Break, and battle overall seems to have been given depth with the tactics regarding shields. In the area of crafting, new automated facilities such as Pipelines have been introduced. According to the official news on Steam released before April, other elements such as Vehicle Inventory and Pet Skills have also been introduced, and the system of refining weapons has been simplified.
The Seamless World Update was naturally accompanied by balance adjustments, including changes to the paths and difficulty of acquiring items, as well as changes to item parameters. Some items have been removed, some have lost their effects and some items have become impossible to equip. This update comes as more of an overhaul of the entire game rather than a simple change in map structure.
While there are limitations, a method to transfer over items that have been collected so far has been prepared by the developers. Specifically, items currently equipped by the character, items in the character’s inventory, pets in inventory, and enchantments attached to the items can all be transferred. On the other hand, money, skills, mission accomplishments etc. are reset with the new world. Since the update brings a whole new system to Craftopia, the developers recommend experiencing the game from scratch, with a new character and no previously acquired items.
According to a post on the official Steam page, as Craftopia continued to be updated upon its early access release, problems that could not be solved in the short term and issues that required fundamental changes to the game gradually grew larger. This is why the developers decided to make serious improvements to Craftopia, even at the cost of the update being significantly delayed. As a result, the Seamless World Update, with a rebuilt core, is available now after two years of development.
There are also continuous additional updates planned in the upcoming period, such as the release of the new “Brigandine Valley” map, additional caves and balance adjustments in July. August will bring the opening of the “Sherbert Iceberg” map, new skills, Steam achievements and more.
Craftopia is available for Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S/PC (Steam/Microsoft Store) and is on a 40% discount on Steam until June 30.
Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-06-28 12:00 JST)
