Wastelander — patch notes and updates
Stored observation / content update:
Dated developer announcements recorded from Steam. Open the source for the complete update.
| Update | Date | Excerpt / source |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0.5 Controller Overhaul and QoL Patch | 2025-12-28 | CONTROLLER/STEAMDECKswitched to a software cursor instead of hardware due to input lag + cursor invisibility issues with on some Linux distros and steamdeckadded support for joystick sensitivity, pan sensitivity and zoom sensitivitymany dialogues had buttons that did not show controller button hints and did not react to controller buttons. Standardizing this to fix as many cases as possibleGAMEPLAYIsolated Fortifications - Remote buildings are shielded while they are not adjacent to any OF YOUR other buildings. (supply drops, relics etc. will no longer block the shield function of this augment)Reactive Lava - fixed bug where some explosion ch |
| Animation Overhaul and Bug Fixes | 2025-12-01 | VISUALSThe main beef of this patch has been to re-write our animation system. The one we had in place was from early development and was never set up to support all animation timings. As a result more than half of animations we intended to play in the game never actually did. Listed some cases belowalmost all animations triggered by end turn were not playing (grassing, explosions etc.) Should work nowalmost all animations triggered by a storm were not playing. Should work nowHurricane Force relic ability now has a disperse animationHarvest and Core Mine now have a new wasteland animationcleaned up various visual artifacts in desert and shield |
| Bug fixes and stability improvements | 2024-08-22 | Animator bug fix This one is a little complicated but there was a bug where building sprites and animators were being reset when you right-clicked or hovered over tiles. This will likely have wide ranging implications but so far this addresses some of the following: Fixes bug where right clicking on a gateway spawned by would flip the gateway back into a ruin (but only visually) Fixes bug where right clicking on a relic spawned by would flip the relic back into a ruin (but only visually) Fixes bug where hovering past animated tiles (e.g. windmills) "resets" the animation as you pass with your cursor. This makes it look like the animation is s |
| First post-launch stability + QoL patch | 2024-07-19 | Welcome back! This is just a quick post-launch QoL + stability patch. To everyone that reported issues through discord and steam discussions thank you so much for helping to improving the game! Endless moved to level 4 We noticed that players were frequently going from tutorial or their first beginner game directly into an Endless game. Our best guess is that they're assuming it's a "sandbox" type game mode when in fact it's a very large, high difficulty map with no time limit. For this purpose we're moving it to level 4 so players can have a little more experience before attempting it. QoL improvements All standard games will have a "next ga |
| Wastelander 1.0 is Live! | 2024-07-12 | Wastelander 1.0 Has Arrived! It's been a long road but we're finally ready to remove the Early Access tag from Wastelander. With the 1.0 release comes a fairly large amount of QoL changes and improvements! https://i.imgur.com/Hd537jb.gif Re-mappable keybinds & Controller Support We've completely reworked our input system to support re-mappable keybinds for all players. Added a bunch of new controls and menu navigation features. Controller support! As of right now XBOX, Playstation, and generic gamepad style controllers have been fairly heavily tested. https://i.imgur.com/edW8K21.png Improved Menus Home Screen, Daily Challenge, and Standard / |
| Unlock/Level System + v1.0 Release date! | 2024-06-18 | Release Date We're finally nearing v1.0 and releasing the game from Early Access! Our planned release date is July 12 and we'll be working hard on polish and release prep right up until that date! Leveling System One of the last major gameplay components we've added is the leveling system. New players will start with a smaller pool of augments and blueprints when they first install the game. Playing games will increase progress towards level ups, and each level will unlock a small additional set of Blueprints, Deployments, and Augments choices up to a current cap of level 7. Some game modes are also hidden behind level restrictions to prevent |
| Major visual update! New Animations / VFX. | 2024-05-21 | Ability / Item / Augment trigger Animations! This is a major milestone on the road to release. The game desperately needed animations to make it feel more "alive" and we've finally made some major progress on this front. This patch contains a large amount of new animations. Construction, Abilities, Items, Storms, etc etc. Please keep an eye out for weird behaviors and let us know what you think! If there are any animations you hate also please let us know, and we'll see if we can make any adjustments. https://i.imgur.com/uP27uVs.gif https://i.imgur.com/4j4mrRB.gif https://i.imgur.com/L4qjLOC.gif We've got a lot more polish and improvement wor |
| New Trailer is live! | 2024-05-14 | As we continue prepping for launch from Early Access, we'll be doing more social media posting and promotional work as well. Here's a brand new Trailer for Wastelander that's just gone live to our Youtube and Steam page. Check it out! |
| Tutorial updates and polish | 2024-05-10 | This patch contains another round of updates and improvements to the tutorial. It now contains videos to show specific gameplay elements as well as reduced amounts of text. Please let us know if you see any issues or have any suggestions. |
| SFX Overhaul, Lots of Bug Fixes and Polish | 2024-05-06 | Sound Effects Overhaul The game now has more than just 3 sound effects. A ton of abilities and interactions now have unique sounds. Menus, UI elements, and several other dialogues that didn't previously have sounds now do! This is the first of a series of large planned polish tasks, and should help make the game feel a lot more alive. Let us know what you think, and stay tuned for more updates! Bug fixes + other You can now click on objective banners to bring up the last objective and its details Completed a minor rewrite on the camera which fixed a long-standing issues with panning and zooming that could create strange jumps, and sticky poin |
| Tutorial Improvements, Bug fixes | 2024-04-24 | Tutorial pass The tutorial has become significantly outdated so we've been working it again. A lot more visual aids and explanations have been added to ease the onboarding process. Feedback would be greatly appreciated! Bug Fixes Push Left ability from hurricane engine was not functioning correctly at all. Fixed removed all references to "infinite" mode. These were just mislabeled endless mode games storm text for endless games had typos and said that connecting ruins would win you the game (this isn't true in endless mode) starting a new endless game wouldn't warn you that any existing game would be deleted error dialogue now correctly shows |
| Endless Mode is Here! | 2024-04-16 | New Game Mode - Endless Endless mode is our latest game mode release, and a long awaited feature for many players. This game mode allows you to play Wastelander without turn limits, on a MASSIVE map and push your base building skills to the limit without being limited by the length of the game. https://i.imgur.com/CTE2lim.png Create massive and intricate colonies over a large number of turns. https://i.imgur.com/dIzn4yq.gif The goal in endless mode is to accumulate enough resources to activate the optional "Repair Ship" ability in order to escape the planet and survive! https://i.imgur.com/XFrdAbz.png Engineering Lab For balance reasons, the |
| 0.7.6 - Map Generation and Bug Fix patch | 2024-03-11 | In preparation for our Infinite mode release we have had to dramatically improve our map generation efficiency and resting FPS performance. These changes WILL affect how maps are created slightly but should also significantly improve performance and load times. + bug fix - "Unknown" entries on leaderboards now correctly show up as "In Progress" + bug fix - "The Maze" scenario had a bad configuration that would prevent some scores from uploading correctly + bug fix - scenarios could not be restarted instead you had to abandon them from the menu and select them again + bug fix - map generation bug that caused bottom left corner to have dispropo |
| Early Access Patch 0.7.5 | 2024-02-01 | It took a bit longer than expected, but this patch will contain the first pass of our map editor. Make your own scenarios and play them, or share them with others. The UI for this version is not polished, but we will continue to improve it over time. Please report any issues and share your creations! |
| Hotfixes | 2024-01-18 | - hotfix a bug with agriwall - fixed an issue with reward dialogues |
| Small improvement patch. | 2024-01-16 | - escape will now close general dialogues and popups (except for item and augment selection dialogues). - text improvements - slightly increased small font size - Unstoppable Fissure now reveals all tiles in vertical line, not just tiles that exploded (behavior now matches description). |
| Update Notes For Jan 10 | 2024-01-10 | We're back from vacation and working hard to get through the Early Access goals. We had a bunch of new users join us over the holidays so we're addressing some problems we noticed thanks to the increased activity. + Tutorial limit is now 100 turns (previously 30) + Fixed an issue where playing a tutorial would delete any uncompleted games you currently have going + Fixed an issue where tutorials didn't have a leaderboard + Fixed wording on Sustainable Architecture to be a little more readable (thank you Wizzer) + Fixed a weird issue where Wiki boxes were not rendering correctly + Fixed bugs with input dialogues, either not showing up (in the |
| Fixed soundtrack bug | 2023-12-22 | - Fixed a bug that was causing the soundtrack to only play a single song. Hopefully there is some more variety in the in-game soundtrack again :) |
| UI Improvements Phase 1 | 2023-12-11 | This patch contains a large round of UI improvements. Almost all of our button and menu assets have been replaced. Please send any feedback you have on these changes, or report any bugs you see to our Discord server. This will be our last patch of the year, but we'll likely be following up with a number of visual and audio improvements alongside our normal planned patches next year. See you in 2024! |
| Scenario Maps + Map Editor Coming Soon! | 2023-11-27 | Features Scenarios This patch contains several "Scenario" maps, which are custom maps that have interesting layouts and new challenges to solve. In order to create Scenario maps we had to develop a map editor tool which is currently being used internally only, but will be available in the following patch for players to use to create their own custom maps! Refactors We had to do a large amount of refactors and infrastructure work in order to support custom maps, we've tested these for stability as thoroughly as possible, but if you see any strange issues please report them to our Discord server, or Steam Community page. Thanks! What's Next We' |
| Basic Custom Game Config, Two more Desolation Levels, New Achievements | 2023-10-27 | Custom Games As we start moving towards a map editor and custom scenarios, we have added the first step -> custom games. You can now edit multiple components of your custom games including: + Starting storm level + Number of Ruins + Number of alien shields + Number of turns to complete + Map Size Map Generation There are a few things we didn't like about the map generation that have been addressed in this patch to make games hopefully more fun and more consistent + You can no longer spawn along the edge of the map. The closest you can be is 2 tiles away so you always get the full value of your 5x5 base reveal. + The clearing the base starts i |
| Early Access Patch #2: New Content, Reworks, Fixes, and Achievements | 2023-10-13 | New Achievements + Win a game on insane difficulty with 0 fog tiles remaining on the map. + Connect 6 different gateways, or unstable gateways on a single map. + Store 30 of each resource at the same time in a single game. + Connect to every relic on the map in a single game, on insane difficulty. + Win a game on insane difficulty without losing a single building to storm damage. New Content + Redistributor (relic) > randomly rerolls tiles in a 3x3 target area and then fogs them. Costs 4 energy to use. Doesn't affect tiles with buildings on them or wasteland tiles + Unstoppable Fissure (augment) > Causes a vertical line of tiles centered on t |
| First Achievements, Desolation Levels, Cloud Save, Small Balance Changes | 2023-10-02 | FEATURES Desolation Levels! - Unlock a higher tier of challenge once you beat your first insane mode game. - Each Desolation Level will add an additional difficulty modifier to your map. - Beating a game on a given desolation level will unlock the next level. How much challenge can you handle? Basic Achievements - Added a small first round of Steam achievements to the game, most of these are based around difficulty levels and the daily challenge. We'll be adding many more, as well as improving the achievement artwork in the future! Cloud Save - Basic cloud save so you don't lose your desolation progress. Improved game creation flow. BALANCE C |
| Roadmap Update #1 | 2023-09-15 | Hi everyone, Now that we've got our first EA stability patch released we'd like to give a quick roadmap update so you know what to expect in the coming few weeks of early access development. This won't be a roadmap for the full EA period, just for the next 3 patches. Patch 1 - Scaling difficulty levels past Insane - This will be an incremental difficulty toggle that you'll be able to increase as you beat each subsequent level. Each difficulty level will add an additional modifier to the map that will increase the difficulty in some way or another. Patch 2 - Content Updates and improvements - We've been gathering a ton of data on augment / blu |
| Post-Launch stability patch | 2023-09-13 | Our first post-launch patch is here and a few days early! These changes are mostly focused around reported bugs, issues with the tutorial and general issues with the new player experience. + reinforce cost now displayed correctly if you have no metallurgy labs placed/connected + added intro tips whenever you start or load a game. This pool will be expanded as time goes on. Tips can be disabled in settings + added first anticheat measures + added time tracking to post-game stats + various additions to tutorial to help new players + fixed a crash when loading games with no building or fog in the bottom left corner tile of the board + fixed scra |
| Launch Week Update! What's next for Wastelander? | 2023-09-08 | Now that the dust is settling after our early access launch, we just wanted to post a quick update about what's next for Wastelander. Firstly, thanks so much to all the early adopters who have purchased the game and left us positive reviews so far! All the early support has really given us a huge boost of focus and drive to start getting new feature dev underway, and we appreciate all of you! Our first EA patch will be coming on Friday September 15th and it will mostly be a bug fix and polish patch that will contain a lot of improvements to things we noticed new players were struggling with/confused about during launch week. After that patch |
| Early Access Launched | 2023-09-05 | Hey everyone, We're really excited to share that after more than 2 years of development as a two person team, we've just launched our first game today on Steam! We've worked hard to give the game as much replay value as possible with stuff like random seeds, daily challenges, tons of different building and tech options that can be found throughout each game. Every map is a unique experience. Thank you to everyone who participated in the betas, provided valuable feedback and made content! We hope you will enjoy the game and stick around for the many new features we have planned as part of our early access. |
| Closed Beta period is ending! | 2023-08-30 | Thank you to everyone who participated in the Closed Beta. We got a ton of feedback and some of you submitted twitch vods and youtube videos that were super super helpful. Now that the game is about to enter Early Access the Closed Beta is coming to an end. Due to this, ALL beta keys will be disabled on September 5th 2023 at 11am PST. Thank you for your understanding |
| 0.5.2 augment and ui patch | 2023-08-09 | UI pass LOTS of ui changes. Still not fully complete but much better. Added a placeholder loading page that will get better eventually too. new content new augment → Temperature Inversion: effects that produce lava now produce ice instead. Effects that produce ice now produce lava instead new augment → Aerodynamic Design: buildings that are adjacent to at least 3 other buildings are shielded. Buildings that are adjacent to 1 building or less are marked by every storm. new augment → Rocky Stronghold: Your buildings adjacent to at least 3 mountain and/or wasteland tiles are shielded. buffs/nerfs imitation gateway - removed drain but increased c |
| 0.5.1 grass rework and balance patch | 2023-07-19 | Game Balance Grass is being re-worked. As of this patch, all grass is permanent and not "generated" by buildings. Placing grass defense buildings like solar mirror will convert tiles to grass ON BUILD instead of requiring connection. Any changes to nearby terrain after such buildings are constructed will no longer cause them to try and fill this void. Spore Tumor no longer automatically fills radius if the surrounding terrain changes between uses. Spore tumor and feed tumor ability now list radius and number of uses respectively. Agri-Wall, Solar Mirror, Irrigation Pump, Aqueduct etc ALL spawn with their grass zone when constructed (whether c |