If you played DustFall over the summer, it’s almost a different game today. Version 1.5.0 brings a new hardcore mode, and since 1.4.0 the map, the art, combat and half a dozen other systems have all changed. Here’s the rundown, newest first.
1.5.0: hardcore mode, now about survival
Out now on Android; coming soon to iPhone.
Hardcore mode is no longer just permadeath. Now water, food and rest drain as you walk, and if any of them hits zero you start losing health. The game warns you at 25%, at 10% and when one runs out.
- The canteen. You leave the Refuge with it full, good for two swigs. Refill it by drinking at springs and waterholes, once per place every 2,500 steps. It can’t be sold and you don’t lose it when you fall.
- Places to drink and rest. Several settlements and springs have water; safe places let you rest. If you can’t yet, the game tells you how many steps to go. Drinking and resting work in normal mode too.
- The tent. It restores all your rest anywhere on the road, but pitching it in the open carries a 30% chance of a night visit: raiders, a thief, rats, a scorpion, a pack of dogs…
- New things on the road. The pale scorpion now comes out by day too, there are waterholes and shade along the way, and one town square sells water and rations.
That’s thirteen new night and road illustrations. And for everyone, hardcore or not: the quest guide now traces the way to the last known place even when the destination is still in the fog.
From 1.4.6 to 1.4.10
- Portuguese and German. The whole game, all 740 scenes, now reads in four languages.
- Short daily jobs. Eight quick jobs for days when you don’t walk much.
- The map grows with you. Moving to a new act no longer wipes the old one: the map keeps every act you’ve crossed, with roads between them.
- Tighter prose. The whole script was cut to three quarters of its length: same story, fewer words.
- And more. A guided combat tutorial, a new well to explore, shops whose stock refills at dawn, and every scene picture shown whole on phones, no more cut-off heads.
September: from 1.4.0 to 1.4.5
A new map
The full map, exactly as the game renders it. And here's a section up close:
The map was rebuilt from scratch — dozens of repainting passes — and with it the hunting zones, now elliptical instead of a plain circle sitting on the road: they cover more ground around the actual path, so you no longer have to walk in a straight line to run into an encounter. There’s a bigger, green “you are here” marker, and the map’s info panel now explains the game’s systems, not just how steps are spent.
The art, repainted
Hundreds of new or corrected illustrations, across more than twenty review rounds: the mill, the workshop, the bridge, the theft council, missing combat scenes, scenes that were showing the wrong image. Yelko — the Scrap Crew’s beast — is no longer three meters tall. The wasteland now looks a lot more consistent with itself, without old art clashing against the new.
Combat, rebuilt
VATS now targets specific body parts — head, torso, legs — and wounds land where you got hit, not in the abstract. Armor subtracts by percentage and can deflect a hit entirely. There’s a five-turn cap, bosses that react to your first shot, sound and vibration on taking damage, and a screen of defeated enemies when you win. Melee is finally a reliable option, not a coin flip.
Health and poison
Poison hits harder now: 1 health every 100 steps, and a bite takes 20 off in one go. The snake also shows up in acts 4 and 5, not just at the start. Wounds are shown under the health bar, with their effect in plain view.
Gear and economy
Gear was reorganized into Weapons and Armor dropdowns, and jeans and ammo moved out of the map panel to keep it cleaner. Bálsamo is now written as a doctor, in both Spanish and English.
A full English translation
The whole game genuinely speaks English now: quests, clocks, weapon descriptions, all 96 side jobs, and characters like the Cosmic Knight, the Scrap Crew, and the towns of Almond Grove and Spur Twelve.
And the stuff you don’t see
Two softlocks were closed where saving could leave you with nowhere to go, and eight scenes plus eleven endings that showed the wrong image got fixed. The screenshots on this page are the new ones, taken straight from the game as it plays today.
If it’s been a while since you last opened it, it’s worth going back in. See it all on the DustFall page, or download it directly on Google Play and the App Store.