RimWorld is adding a new horror-themed expansion known as Anomaly that would put players into terror-filled scenarios inspired by various classics.
The sci-fi colony management game is considered unparalleled when it comes to creating wild stories through random gameplay events. It already has a few nifty expansion packs, adding new features such as royalty, religion, gene editing, and child-rearing.
RimWorld Anomaly Expansion Pack
(Photo : Ludeon Studios, Tynan Sylvester, Double Eleven / Screenshot taken from official website)
Ludeon Studios recently announced the new Anomaly expansion. The new pack's content starts once the colonists "accidentally provoke a mad superintelligence." In the release blog, the developer said that it would mark the start of manifesting madness.
These would include monstrous creatures, mind-bending mysteries, infiltrating parasites, and sanity-shredding phenomena that would twist players' worlds around them. The highly popular game is already considered a relatively horrifying game, albeit less in a supernatural or paranormal style and more in highlighting man's inhumanity to his fellow men.
RimWorld is a game that allows players to harvest organs and manage their slave population by placing dead bodies inside terrifying cages. However, the Anomaly expansion seems to be more focused on providing external horror threats that would force colonists to band together in order to survive, according to Polygon.
The game's developer also shared some tantalizing scenarios in the new expansion pack that players have a chance of encountering during their playthroughs. One of these is a massive flesh creature that is growing across the landscape and consumes and covers the entire map with a quivering mass of meat.
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The creature defends itself using beasts and acid and players will get samples of its nervous system when they fight it. These could be studied until they are able to venture into the monster's heart and kill it for good.
Another addition is a pulsating obelisk that crash-lands near the player's base. They can try to suppress its filthy energy. However, it could respond and violently mutate the colonists, copying them endlessly or abducting them to an endless gray maze.
A Variety of New Changes
The new Anomaly expansion is expected to launch alongside the game's 1.5 update, which has so far taken 18 months to make. Ludeon Studios founder Tynan Sylvester said that the new expansion comes as he wanted to give players new kinds of emotions that they have not yet encountered in RimWorld, said PCGamesN.
He added that the team behind the game wanted to avoid making the new update feel just like a collection of monsters that players can shoot at. In order to do this, they designed the new threats to follow the arc of classic horror stories. These include The Thing, Cthulu, and other Lovecraftian mythos.
RimWorld's 1.5 update is currently available on the "unstable" Steam branch and can be accessed by players by right-clicking the game in their Steam library, clicking Properties, choosing the Betas tab, and selecting the "Unstable" branch in the dropdown.
The full 1.5 patch notes feature 18 pages of changes but the headlines are books, which players' colonists can read to improve specific skills. It also focuses on new lighting options, performance improvements, and bionic jaws, which can be used if a colonist loses theirs in an unfortunate accident, according to RockPaperShotgun.
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