Vintage Story, the wilderness survival sandbox inspired by lovecraftian horror themes with some impressive depth to it has a huge new stable release up.

A survival game that just continues to impress me. Slow and difficult to get into but very rewarding once you learn the mechanics which have a surprising amount of depth. That depth gets deeper with the Seasons Update, which I don't think I need to explain too much with the big highlight being a full season system which includes: snow accumulation, there's season-specific foliage and temperature dependent plant growth.

Not only seasons though, graphically it got another bump. There's now SSAO (screen space ambient occlusion), specular sunlight reflections on water surfaces and more foamy water. Also added: persistent world map, lots of new flora for hot and wet climates like Fern trees, crotons and rafflesias, in-game help improvements and tons more. Have a look at the new trailer:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Not only did they focus on some massive feature additions, they also detailed a bunch of performance improvements that made it into this release so you might find it running a bit smoother in places.

In a previous article here, a user mentioned that they thought it had "constant-online DRM" but the developer cleared up that misconception in a comment to mentioned that it does a single authorisation check when starting up. You can even block it after the first time and it will keep on working. So DRM-free it's technically not but it's reasonably sane.

You can buy it from Humble Store , itch.io and the official site .

Volcanoids is pure joy if you love steampunk and great big machines, as it combines the two together and now it has online co-op. Probably one of the most unique survival base-building experiences, especially with your base being something that goes with you on your adventures.

Released yesterday was online co-op support, along with a brand new trailer to show it off, and I will admit my own hype for it has increasingly somewhat dramatically after watching it. This was the most requested featured for Volcanoids and it's an obvious fit for such a base-builder. Currently it only supports a max of 4 people. Check out the trailer:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Since this is the first version of it, there's a few limitations in place. Only one drillship can be owned right now but they said that will be changing in future updates, and only the captain can save/load. When a new player joins they will spawn directly into either the drillship or the submarine if the crew doesn't have their own drillship yet.

Plenty of improvements were also added, like death no longer being such a major issue as you will respawn but you will drop your backpack that will need to be recovered. There's now a panel they call The Boiler, which gives you a readout of some essential info and access to some important controls too. Most importantly though, you shouldn't be overloaded with info now with a more gradual research and unlock system.

The developer appears to be working hard on getting the Linux version in a good state too. With this latest update some OpenGL detection and text rendering issues should be fixed. The team is also working with Unity to get Vulkan support into a good state, as they said Unity + Vulkan "is less than optimal" right now.

You can get Volcanoids on Steam where it's 25% off until May 27.

Oxygen Not Included continues getting bigger, with the free Banhi's Automation Innovation Pack update out now. As the name of the pack suggests, it's focused on automation.

This new free pack includes new automation sensors: Counter Sensor, Timer Sensor, Wattage Sensor and Conveyor Rail Sensors. Also included is an Automation Ribbon, letting you sending up to 4 signals along a single tile. There's also new automation output buildings, updated artwork, a Solid Filter building for Conveyor Rails and more. Two really useful little robots got added in too with the Sweepy Bot and Sweepy Dock, they're not particularly smart but they can help with some of the more mundane tasks for your colonists.

Klei also produced another of their fantastic animated shorts, check it below:

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I adore Klei's artwork and these animations are fantastic, I really wish they did more and longer versions of them as I could happily watch a little series of it!

This free feature update is part of Klei Entertainment's new roadmap to extend ONI, that we posted about previously as "ONI is still fully in development". Like a lot of games, when they release they're not quite done and it will be fun to see where the first full expansion to ONI will go in terms of features.

You can find Oxygen Not Included on Steam .

Tags: Steam, Indie Game, Action, Itch.io, Survival, Early Access

Sipho is a little favourite of mine to keep an eye on, a game where you create a creature from parts inspired by real-life sea creatures (zooids) and attempt to survive against the many other types.

One feature in particular about Sipho is awesome, which is the sandbox Aquarium mode where you can do practically anything you want. The problem was, it was previously locked behind a challenge wall that was actually really quite difficult. Now that more progression has been added, the developer All Parts Connected has unlocked the Aquarium for everyone.

With the Aquarium you can spawn in decorative objects, enemies, turn on unlimited nutrition to build the biggest monstrosity you can and a whole lot more. Heck, you can even tell it to play itself and just sit and watch—it gets a little mesmerising.

If you like your slightly weird games with a really fun idea, Sipho is definitely one you should check out. It's improved a lot over the last year too, some of the new body parts you can unlock are good fun for taking down lots of enemies. A serious challenge though, some of the boss battles and other larger creatures can really take some skill to eliminate.

You can pick up a copy of Sipho on Steam and itch.io .