Once Human's Isles of Abyss Update Sets Sail on October 22
The update trades the game's land-based survival loop for ship handling and open water, pushing Once Human toward an oceanic map where weather, randomized combat areas, and server-wide goals carry the progression instead of a fixed route.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
NetEase Games announced that the ocean-themed update Isles of Abyss for Once Human will launch on October 22. The survival scenario adds a maritime map with a ship to steer, islands to explore, weather and day-night cycles, randomly generated combat areas, a server-wide Calamity Tower objective, Voyager ships, and a four-player dungeon boss called The Sunken Lord.
The announcement came during the Xbox Tokyo Game Show 2026 Broadcast, where Starry Studio's survival title showed off its next scenario. Isles of Abyss opens the entire map of the forbidden islands. Players steer a ship between islands, gather resources as weather and the day-night cycle shift, and build facilities against environmental and enemy threats. Combat areas with random structures appear on the islands, and defeated enemies drop rewards. At sea, the Calamity Tower runs as a server-wide objective and Voyager ships appear alongside it. A final pioneer test for North American players began September 17 and runs 22 days, split into a 5-day Phase 1 and a 17-day Phase 2, with the final scenario stage cycle decided at release.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.