Starbound Update Will Add Permadeath, Wipe Universe
Celebrates by permakilling all things
In a post on the Starbound blog, the game's development team have outlined coming fixes and additions to the next version of the game. Good news: they're adding a permadeath mode, for those who want to add a little more risk to their galaxy exploration. Bad news: they're kickstarting this new permadeath mode by wiping the entire universe, including player's ships and characters.
It's like playing alpha games is already a kind of permadeath mode.
The developers say that this patch contains "a fix for save files", which should make it the last time they have to wipe ships and characters and "hopefully" the last time they wipe worlds. If you've built anything you're particularly proud of, take your screenshots now before your homestead is swallowed by the celestial wipe.
On the plus side, when you create your new character there's the promise of a greater number of decorative hats. Here's the full list of feature and content additions for the next update:
Additions:
- New game modes! Permadeath and drop-everything-on-death modes.
- Revolvers, pulse rifles, hand grenades, shivs, Floran needlers, Floran thorn hammer
- Human guards now wear soldier uniforms
- More decorative hats! Yay, hats!
- More random encounters
- Possibly more content, if it’s finished on time!
There's more on the official blog, including a list of the bug fixes the patch will bring.
I continue to vacillate wildly on how I feel about alpha games. On the one hand, I'm old enough to remember a time when PC games were regularly released in a broken state and never fixed, and so the constant updates and community engagement of the alpha process remains an exciting improvement. On the other hand, I lost a three-hour-old DayZ character the other day because I was beaten to death by invisible zombies other players could see but I could not.
Sometimes at night I fall asleep and dream of a universe where I'm a Nintendo journalist, and I write about three polished, excellent games every year. But after the sixth Mario iteration, the dream ends with me waking up screaming. So, you know. Swings and roundabouts.