- Update 58.200 - Menu Overhaul - 18 September 2026
Menu Overhaul Most of the screens you open outside the game have been rebuilt, and there is a lot more you can change now. Survival tips with twelve videos built straight into the game, and a menu that behaves the same on the title screen and mid-run. One menu, everywhereRows are grouped, the page you are on stays lit, and Escape closes what is in front of you instead of everything at once. Pause in the middle of a run and you get the same menu you get on the title screen, not a different one with different options. Sound and game settings, rebuiltBoth pages existed before. Both were rebuilt, and the important part is that they now work properly between app launches - set them once and they are still there tomorrow. Sound is separate volume sliders that apply while you drag them, so you set them against the sound you are actually hearing. Game covers night length, key map display, inver…
- DirectX 11 launch option for older AMD graphics cards - 17 September 2026
Older AMD card and AREAZ would not start? Try this first Since the DX12 update on August 28, some older AMD cards crash while compiling shaders and never reach the game. R9 300 series, RX 400 and 500, and integrated Radeon are the ones reported so far. Older NVIDIA cards are not affected, they drop to DirectX 11 on their own. Older AMD cards do not, so the game has to be told. There is now a second launch option. Press Play in Steam and you get a choice: Play AREAZ (DirectX 12, the default, nothing changed) DirectX 11 (older AMD graphics cards) Pick the second one if the game would not start for you. It runs the same content through DirectX 11, so the jungle uses simpler geometry and there is no frame generation, but it launches. If you are on NVIDIA or a newer AMD card, ignore the second option. Nothing changes for you. What is coming The next update detects an unsupported card at star…
- Video settings rebuilt: DLSS, frame generation, resolution - 13 September 2026
Video settings are rebuilt. You can now set resolution and display mode, pick your upscaler, switch on frame generation and tune the jungle separately - most of the controls that decide how the game performs were either missing, or in two cases quietly broken. Your video settings were reset once with this update. On first launch the game checks your hardware and picks settings to match it. If you had yours tuned the way you like, set them again - it only happens this time. NewResolution and display mode. There was no way to change either before. Upscaling. DLSS on GeForce RTX cards, TSR on everything else. DLSS quality modes, from DLAA down to Ultra Performance. It was locked on Quality. Frame generation on 40 and 50 series cards. Render scale for everyone, including cards with no DLSS at all. Grass density and grass view distance as separate rows. Grass is the most expensive thing in t…
- Update 0.58.1: what your GPU actually runs - 4 September 2026
Update 0.58.1 - what the DX12 launch showed us, and what comes next The DX12 and DLSS 4.5 update did what it was meant to do. The jungle hitches are gone on every card we have seen, and the game now runs on machines it never ran on before, from a 2014 workstation card at 720p to a 5090 at 1440p. Update 0.58.1 is small on purpose. It is out today, mid fest, because the last week gave us more real performance data than the previous four years, and two moments were missing from it. What comes next: the graphics settings The settings screen was built before DLSS existed, and it shows. The next update reworks it: A resolution scale slider, so cards without DLSS get a real performance lever instead of dropping whole presets. DLSS quality modes exposed. Today it is locked to Quality. Frame generation as a visible switch on RTX 40 and 50 series. Clear labels for what your card is actually using…
- DX12 and DLSS 4.5 - Update 0.58 - 28 August 2026
DX12 and DLSS 4.5 are live The renderer is rebuilt. AREAZ now runs on DirectX 12 with DLSS 4.5, and on modern hardware the difference is not subtle. What you can expect:RTX 30 series - DLSS upscaling, more stable frame times, noticeably smoother traversalRTX 40 and 50 series - substantial gains on top of that thanks to frame generationAll nextgen cards - the streaming hitches are gone. You may still see a spike the first time you enter an area, then it settlesOne thing to know: DLSS is active, but this update does not expose settings for it yet. I want real performance data from real machines before I start handing out switches that change it. Why this took so long The longer version deserves saying properly. I moved AREAZ to Unreal Engine 5 as early as it was possible, expecting better tools, better optimisation, better performance. What the early UE5 releases actually delivered was ex…
- 🛠️ Help Shape AREAZ – New Crafting UI Options (Your Feedback Needed) - 6 December 2025
Hey survivors 👋I’ve been working on improving the Crafting / Inventory UI in AREAZ, with a big focus on helping new players better understand the two-hand crafting system from the start.Note: The crafting system itself isn’t changing — this is purely about clarity and usability.AREAZ crafting is based on what you hold in your hands, not just clicking a recipe — and I want to make that feeling clearer and more intuitive visually.Right now, I’m testing three different UI layouts:1️⃣ Original version – Crafting hands centered at the bottom – The system longtime players already know2️⃣ New – Centered & Framed – Hands stay in the center – Clear framing and labels – Crafted to better explain “put items in your hands to craft”3️⃣ New – Two-Column Layout – Recipes on the left – Crafting hands + inventory on the right – Shorter drag distance – Designed to guide new players more naturally from i…
- Update 0.57 Storage Boxes - 15 November 2025
New Update 0.57 is here! This one moves the game over to Unreal Engine 5.6. It’s a pretty important step for future development, because the next stop is the freshly released Unreal Engine 5.7. That version finally gives us access to the new Nanite Foliage and improved procedural tools — and we really hope these will boost performance in our foliage-heavy open world.Gameplay ImprovementsI’ve also been working on the core mechanics. To pave the way for possible (not confirmed!) gamepad support, I’m adding proper item dragging between your character inventory and external containers — something along the lines of SoT.This also let me introduce a long-requested feature:Storage Boxes!You can now craft a simple, placeable Palm Leaf Storage Box. To pick it up, it needs to be completely empty. Look at the box to highlight it, and you’ll get a new tab in your inventory UI where you can drag ite…
- Update 0.56 Bottleneck Fix - 15 March 2025
Hi, updated the game to new Unreal Engine 5.5 version. That allowed me to fix bottle neck when moving the whole physics volume for ocean to simulate tide. This was causing GPU to wait for CPU, and so GPU not being fully utilized and resulting in low FPS even on better rigs. Currently I am able to run 2k resolution on my: - RTX 3060 on 80-100FPS when testing, with occasional drops to 60FPS (when loot economy is being calculated) - RTX 4070 on my laptop even reached 100-120FPS. This is considerable improvement to previous 50-30FPS on UE 5.4 Hopefully you will experience similar results. Other fixes are include mainly, but not only: - animals receiving now properly hit damage by arrows - 1 -2 arrows should be enough even for larger ones. No more "walking hedgehogs" with dozens of arrows in them - missclick in menu should no more result to character being unable to melee. On the other side…
- Update 0.55 SFX - 16 November 2024
Hi, based on your reports I have made audit on sound settings. Its turned out that sound classes got overwritten when adjusting the individual sound class in Sound Settings. This was not easy to found as the code to adjust, save and load sound settings looked properly and simple testing by manipulation of sliders didn't manifest this issue. Additionally some sounds that were not assigned to proper sound class were identified and properly set. When testing the sound settings additional problem popped out - miss-click with mouse in Menu or Inventory wasn't consumed and caused character not be able to perform melee or shot action. This should be fixed now as well. Good news is we are now working hard on next Inland map, Enjoy some preliminary shots from its early development To get more news on new map, provide reports and feedback please join our discord: https://discord.gg/XW3jaebbwH Tha…
- Update 54.400 - 22 September 2024
Hi, just fix on UI - character statuses and crafting menu. Should be now more responsive and work properly on higher resolution. At least what I have managed to test. For lower resolutions there might be still problem as especially crafting menu requires a lot of width. Will try to address this as well when UI art will be reworked as well. Thank you for your understanding. Duro Game Creator
- Update 0.54.3 New UE version - 4 August 2024
Hi, small update - updated to newest version of Unreal Engine 5.4.2 As game seems to run smoother and also render looks smoother I decided to push it into live branch for you as well. Additionally these finally seems to be a good stable candidate for next Inland map, so started officially new map production today. Enjoy Juraj Bachar Game Creator
- Update 0.54.2 Weather - 7 July 2024
Hi, implemented UDS Weather to game. Can be used for various weather effect, replacing those from UE4 version. Currently rain and storm are implemented. Added and slightly increased chance for rain and storm even for Eden game mode, and they can occur during the first day already now. Remainder on their effect on character and items: Negative: Rain will make character and items wet unless covered in shelter. Rain does not impact items in inventory. Wet wood or other fuel will prevent fire to start up. You can not start the fire during the rain, but rain will not extinguish already lit fire. Storm will extinguish even burning fire unless its sheltered. Positive: Rain/storm will replenish fresh water catch in rock or in rain-catcher. Fixed issues with arrows collisions. This was again bug by UE4.0 moving to UE5.0. Its very hard as they do not manifest in editor, only in final packaged gam…
- Update 0.54.1 Level Redesign - 30 June 2024
Hi, Bringing you the game update on newest UE 5.4.2 version. This fixed several issues we had due the previous UE version and were not caused by game logic itself. To improve performance in UE5 we have moved as much foliage as we could from instanced foliage to terrain automaterial. In jungle grass was removed completely and replaced with small plants that match jungle ground floor. Some terrain textures were replaced as well. Liana now spawn at new tries covered with them. Bamboo forest was reworked. Small plants nearby water stream were moved to automaterial as well. this includes the nettle. In swamp small plants and nettle were moved to automaterai las well. Reeds were replaced completely by new models. This do not interact with character, crocodile or boat yet. I have removed the UE generic skysphere, and clouds and put back the UDS, which is now available for UE5 as well. The new…
- Update 0.54 - 26 May 2024
Hi, it has been a long time. Finally I have managed to get a stable game build on Unreal Engine 5.3. This works quite nice and will provide sound platform for future development, while providing us new long awaited tools for game development and especially level design. Additionally I have a new member in the team who will be focusing mainly on level design. Prior this update the development was done on introductory UE 5.0 version. Newer UE versions 5.1 and 5.2 did brake a lot of stuff and were not of much use. This is why development was mostly blocked for long period of time. Lot of testing was done on enabling DX12, but there is some bottleneck we managed to isolate on raytraced foliage, blocking us to enable DX12. I have even consulted it with several game industry professionals, we were not able to identify exact issue. So the game is still on DX11 and we will continue to develop i…
- Update 0.53 Improved Reptiles - 12 November 2023
Hi it has been an very difficult time for me both professionally and personally. Anyway things are getting slowly better, so I would like to restart the development. Its quite metaphoric - with reptiles update - as development was on turtle speed... On the other side, it hard shell helped to survive this difficult time. I am blocked by current stage UE 5 - where each new engine version 5.1 -> 5.2 -> 5.3 causes lower performance. Still trying to identify he cause for it. Unfortunately until this is solved, the production of new maps is totally blocked and had to be postponed towards 2024. The debugging is painful and slow process as I have to do manual updates between versions 5.0 up to 5.3 Anyway to bring something positive - thanks to that I have managed to slightly improve performance of existing build. F.e. so called "showroom camera" - in inventory clothing tab is rendered now only…
- Update 0.52.001 Fix - 26 November 2022
Hi, fixed following issues in game - items in back will not duplicate on ground after loading the savegame (players reported) - when died with open inventory/menu - this will be closed (players reported) - cut harvested palm leafs will be scattered on ground, to prevent highlight flashing Thank you for all reports, they are really important finds and are addressed. Juraj
- Update 0.52 Killer Insects - 19 November 2022
Hi all, this update brings 3 types of new insects or their behavior into the game. First is the ants swarm roaming through the jungle and beach. It will destroy any food it will find - fruits, vegetables, coconuts, meat and even animal corpses (inclusive those in traps), leaving just bones behind them. Ants swarm can cause small damage to player by biting. The only protection against it is to set up fire that the ants will try to avoid and hope for the best. Wild bees hives are getting swarms as well. If player comes to close, they will release a wild bees swarm that will attack and follow player for a while. So going few meter away from hive is no more enough. Last - completely new insect are mosquitos. Mosquitos swarm are present in swamp. They can bite you and cause malaria illness in future. Currently malaria is indicated on player HUD but has no effect yet on player. It will come w…
- Update 0.51.004 HUD - 8 October 2022
Hi, done some changes players requested lately: 1) Energy Circle now shows - calories available light green - calories to digest dark green 2) Added Shield Icon to represent Repellent: Visible only if repellent is active. Effect does loose in time. Will be used against Mosquitos to prevent Malaria in incoming "Killer Insects" Update 3) Inventory can be closed by Esc key (key assigned for Menu) New Unreal Engine version 5.1 was announced. Will continue to work on fixes. Also working on first map adjustments. Thank you for you support and please join our discord for direct communication. https://discord.io/areaz Juraj Bachar Game creator
- Update 0.51.003 Fix - 2 October 2022
Hi all, thank you for your patience, now I am finally starting to address underwater process, that was heavily mentioned in feedback and reviews. With transition to Unreal Engine 5 and to Lumen Global illumination direct lightning, the old postprocess was completely broken and other approach was needed. So I had to rework how the whole lightning and postprocess was used in game. Ocean underwater New lightning and postprocess is now prepared. Still needs some work - the distance visibility is to high. Added shadows back for corals and seaweed. Made some new features - low breath will result to low colors, and blur. So you are warned to surface and catch some air. I might just keep this and remove the breath icon. Considering to do the same for stamina icon. Noon: Evening: Indirect lightning Had to completely make different approach to lightning during evening/night. Character should be n…
- Update 0.51.002 Fix - 17 September 2022
Hi, just fixed issue with straw bed crafting. Thank you for report. Juraj
