ICARUS Beta #2, "Storms": x4 Bigger Map, New Firearms... and A Character Wipe

If, like me, you have also been patiently waiting for Friday to play ICARUS Beta Weekend Two, you might be quite happy to hear this: RocketWerkz dropped the update 24 hours early! You certainly won’t hear me being excited about this in real life, but the nasty weather feature is finally here!

icarus beta weekend 2 storms weather variations — *There is nothing more relaxing than a mug of hot cocoa and watching your hard work getting slowly demolished by the storm.*

Aside from the challenging climate, the “Storms” weekend comes with quite an impressive list of features, which we will cover in this article! But first…

My Progress from Weekend One Got Wiped…?

To go along with the gloomy theme of the update, let’s start with some bad news!

Thankfully, there is only one instance of it and there are a plenty of exciting new features as a trade-off, but this still isn’t something beta testers were expecting. Along with the access to beta testing we got a promise that “your character progression will persist between beta weekends,” so it’s a shame to see that already being changed for the second weekend.

Developers have explained that this happened due to “the extensive gameplay changes and some big backend improvements,” but there is no indication that something like this won’t happen again down the line. Fingers crossed!

Many More Things to Play Around With!

MAP IS BIG and Cave Spelunking!

First of all, this weekend we are getting a much larger playable area!

icarus beta weekend 2 storms 4 times playable area map — *I guess we will just have to take their word for it, because our in-game map will be blank… for mysterious reasons.*

The map is now four times larger, with many “caves, lakes, waterfalls and cliffs” to explore!

And, if you like finding boundaries, you can get a sneak peak into the arctic and desert areas that will get unlocked in the future Beta Weekends. 😉

Speaking about caves — if you want to find more valuable metal ores (gold, copper, aluminum), you will have to venture inside at least one of them, with thirty caves total scattered around the map.

And, yes, you might want some of these resources, since there are more recipes and building options getting unlocked with two new building tiers. (Hm… can I make a golden pickaxe?)

Be careful, however, since if you happen to accidentally fall off a cliff while exploring, you can actually get fractures now!

More Animals, More Guns!

Animals are another thing to keep in mind as you venture forth into the depths of the forest. Wild life will get more dense, aggressive, and dangerous. Their complexity and variety have been improved upon, and they will now scale as you level, too. In other words, it might be the time to unlock more weapons…

So, ditch that wooden spear and get yourself a gun! The developers heard the community’s requests for two very specific guns, and now you can unlock them in the game — the Shotgun and the Hunting Rifle!

icarus beta weekend 2 storms new guns new animals — *It does make hunting a little easier, hm?*

Keep your eyes out on the graphical performance of your device this time around, since developers have prepared some optimizations for us to test out, especially if you have some higher-end gear! Apparently, ICARUS will now “take advantage of many of the latest graphics rendering techniques,” so we might be in store for some exciting eye candy this time around!

Alright, enough talking — it’s about time we hopped in and saw the updates for ourselves, anyway!

If you are Beta testing the game, what were your impressions from Beta Weekend One? What are your thoughts on the changes? And, if you are waiting for some thoughts, stay tuned, friends: we will be more than happy to share our impressions very soon!
(Update: and we have! You can read about our ICARUS Beta Weekend Two experience in our newest article!)