Ludeon Studios have released the massive free 1.2 update for their colony management sim, RimWorld.

Update 1.2 overhauls quest generation, revamps the utility item and consumables systems, adds a new class of psycasts designed for non-combat social roles, and includes a huge number of balance changes requested by the community. Some of these updates are for the base game, while others require the Royalty expansion.

You can find the full changelog here, and the update 1.2 dev diary below.

You can find an abridged rundown of the game (via Steam) below:

RimWorld is a sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Inspired by Dwarf Fortress, Firefly, and Dune.

You begin with three survivors of a shipwreck on a distant world.

• Manage colonists’ moods, needs, wounds, illnesses and addictions.
• Build in the forest, desert, jungle, tundra, and more.
• Watch colonists develop and break relationships with family members, lovers, and spouses.
• Replace wounded limbs and organs with prosthetics, bionics, or biological parts harvested from others.
• Fight pirates, tribes, mad animals, giant insects and ancient killing machines.
• Craft structures, weapons, and apparel from metal, wood, stone, cloth, and futuristic materials.
• Tame and train cute pets, productive farm animals, and deadly attack beasts.
• Trade with passing ships and caravans.
• Form caravans to complete quests, trade, attack other factions, or migrate your whole colony.
• Dig through snow, weather storms, and fight fires.
• Capture refugees or prisoners and turn them to your side or sell them into slavery.
• Discover a new generated world each time you play.
• Explore hundreds of wild and interesting mods on the Steam Workshop.
• Learn to play easily with the help of an intelligent and unobtrusive AI tutor.

RimWorld is a story generator. It’s designed to co-author tragic, twisted, and triumphant stories about imprisoned pirates, desperate colonists, starvation and survival. It works by controlling the “random” events that the world throws at you. Every thunderstorm, pirate raid, and traveling salesman is a card dealt into your story by the AI Storyteller. There are several storytellers to choose from. Randy Random does crazy stuff, Cassandra Classic goes for rising tension, and Phoebe Chillax likes to relax.

Your colonists are not professional settlers – they’re crash-landed survivors from a passenger liner destroyed in orbit. You can end up with a nobleman, an accountant, and a housewife. You’ll acquire more colonists by capturing them in combat and turning them to your side, buying them from slave traders, or taking in refugees. So your colony will always be a motley crew.

Each person’s background is tracked and affects how they play. A nobleman will be great at social skills (recruiting prisoners, negotiating trade prices), but refuse to do physical work. A farm oaf knows how to grow food by long experience, but cannot do research. A nerdy scientist is great at research, but cannot do social tasks at all. A genetically engineered assassin can do nothing but kill – but he does that very well.

RimWorld is available on Windows PC, Linux, and Mac via GOG and Steam.

Image: YouTube