Greetings, Nomads!
Prepare yourselves.
We’re beyond happy to finally announce the plan for Last Oasis.
This Wednesay March 26, 2025 at Midnight (00:00 EST) we will be taking the official servers down for maintenance. We expect this to last until Thursday March 27th, 2025 at 2pm EST when we will make the official servers live for the final Season 6 test. During this test, you should expect bugs, crashes, poor balance, and general unpleasantness. This test will also be available to all console players on Xbox.
We expect the test will last for 5-8 weeks but this may vary.
Season 6: Chapter 1
As many of you know, Season 6 is the product of the players. Between the three of us primarily responsible for the design and implementation of Season 6, we have well over 10,000 hours in the game, and many more thousands discussing it with and amongst you on Steam and Discord. Season 6 will be the most heavily tested season ever, with tons of changes directly influenced or suggested by you. We believe Season 6 is a great first step towards making Last Oasis the best version of itself.
The full list of changes for Season 6 is too expansive to even summarize properly, so instead, we want to talk about our vision, our guiding principles, and what you can expect in Season 6 and beyond.
Out with the Old In with the .. also Old?
Many things have changed over the past few years and we wanted to clarify the state of some of our core features going into Season 6. This includes content that was removed or never released as well as some new fresh ideas to expand upon. Here are some key points that may be familiar.
Lobby - The Lobby returns! There is one small change, which is that the interaction to travel/go to the lobby is now only at the center of each edge, rather than the whole length.
Schematics - Schematics were repurposed into an input in quality crafting recipes. Now, to unlock new technologies, you simply have to level up and get tech points, and you can craft basic versions of anything once unlocked.
Hardpoints - We’ve removed Hardpoints and players can once again build in any location on the walker. Instead as softpoints with a structure limit associated with their rig.
Grappling Hooks - The lock out and stamina regen nerfs were removed and replaced with a lock-out on block. And of course the stamina/length/reeling power were all rebalanced to be more like prior seasons. This should help to remove some of the worst combat offenses associated with grappling while still keeping it enjoyable to use.
PvE - PvE tiles were removed and replaced with an expanded trade zone safety protection zone/timer. PvE encounters were overhauled and rebalanced. Season 6 will see the introduction of the Koa and GoGo, in regular and warmob form. (Unfortunately Killin will have to sit this season out.)
Ride the Walker
We remember the first time we learned about Last Oasis. It’s probably an experience many of us share. Messing around in Steam and the Last Oasis Steam Announcement trailer pops up. Giant wooden walking machines. A herd of them, rolling through the forest, chasing an even larger one. Seeing tons of them, of all scales, traveling across various biomes, until an epic final clash.
This was the Last Oasis that captured our imaginations.
This inspired us to re-center the walker as the core part of gameplay. For a long time, the risk-reward balance of walkers resulted in stale, risk-averse strategies.
To remedy this we’ve added multiple new POIs and event maps which will encourage players to use walkers in a much more spontaneous way, while balance changes around walker weapons and walker and base raiding will make the risks easier to manage and the rewards far greater.
Hearing all the positive feedback around how walkers feel important, meaningful, and powerful was our favorite result from all the testing so far.
Scheduled Chapters
You might notice the use of “Chapter 1”. As we previously announced, we intend to move forward with planned wipes approximately every 8 weeks.
We think this is an important change for at least the foreseeable future. The reasons for this are numerous, but most importantly it will allow us to iterate more quickly and new things without being committed to them for months or years at a time.
Between Chapters you should expect balance changes, bug fixes, and some experimentation. New content and features that take more time will be released when it’s ready as a new Season.
Accessibility
Last Oasis is a skill-based directional melee full loot MMO survival game. A niche within a niche within a niche. Within a niche? We're not sure you could even make a venn diagram to represent such a thing. We know that all those elements are important to the charm of Last Oasis. However, the simple fact is that we have to become more accessible to players.
This is across the entire game - the grind, the features, the balance. The previous version of Last Oasis was simply not sustainable.
To that end, we’ve added many new features, mechanics, and balance. These include the anti-personnel turret, the walker crew and cap limits, reworking essentially every recipe and crafting loop, restoration of the off-map lobby, making fully destroying walkers significantly more difficult, expanding the trade station safe zone, and the list goes on.
Fully achieving this goal will take some time, but we think we are on the right track.
A full list of changes will be included in the next announcement, but we strongly encourage you to join the Discord, find a community, and experience this version of Last Oasis for yourself; that’s whether you played the most recent test, haven’t played for years, or have never played.
See you in the wastes!
