Hello Farthest Frontier! It has been some time since our humble town builder left Early Access. The team released a round of hotfixes to address your most pressing issues before taking a step back and reflecting on where the game is and where it needs to go next. We have been reading your feedback, your dreams and your wants, and seeing how they meshed with our vision for Farthest Frontier.
We knew that we wanted to do something big, something that would get our old fans reaching for another journey into the frontier, and for our future fans to discover that this is a town builder worthy of their attention and time. With that in mind, we got right to work.
After two months of hammering away at the forge, we have v1.1, Farthest Frontier’s first free major update. It is packed with features and quality of life improvements that you have been asking for. So let us get right into it.
Table of Contents
Grid-based building was a design decision we made early on to create the strategic experience Farthest Frontier thrives upon. But you have made your voices loud and clear: a modern town builder should not be shackled to the limitations of the grid. With that directive, we put top men to the task.
What we came back with is not some compromise snappable angles. With v1.1, you will have full 360 placement of buildings. To add to that, we introduced significant leeway in how you can overlap building footprints, so that you can close any unfortunate gaps with decorations and create settlements to your exact liking.
Once we had free-build active, we were confident the community was going to love it. As such, free-build mode will be the default way to play going forward. But worry not. You can seamlessly toggle between free-build and grid-mode at any time during placement. You are effectively getting two ways to build in one!
We cannot wait to see what the community is going to do with free-build mode. It is really going to evolve how you approach designing your settlements, in a good way. Here are some more shots of what we accomplished with it.
Now there is one caveat with this new system: due to the pathing solution used for Farthest Frontier, we did have to keep Bridges, Crop Fields, and Walls on the grid. This is something we can hopefully revisit in the future. We will be keeping an eye on the community for what you want to see next!
Farthest Frontier has all the settings you need to enjoy it at a difficulty that suits your playstyle. And while the game does feature tutorials that explain the most important mechanics and an official in-depth game guide, we have seen many comments and reviews saying that there is nothing guiding you to learn how to play the game, which can be frustrating and a real turn off.
To help get you situated during your venture into the frontier, we are adding a new Guided Journey. The Guided Journey offers step-by-step objectives that you can follow to reach a Tier 2 Town Center. It is not all-encompassing and does not cover all of the game’s many production lines. We wanted this system to be just enough of a push for new players to get comfortable so they could discover the rest on their own.
Guided Journey will be on by default for all players, but can be toggled off during game creation. If you are an experienced vanquisher that has fended off their share of raids, feel free to turn this setting off (it will remain off afterwards).
This next feature really goes hand-in-hand with the new free-build mode, but it is also something that has been asked for many times in the past. Currently, when it comes time to upgrade your dirt roads or, witch gods forbid, turn all your carefully-placed plazas into brick pavement, there is nothing you can do besides click each one at a time. That, to put it bluntly, sucks ass.
But the game already has a very serviceable tool for managing your walls, where you can select multiple objects and upgrade/rebuild/salvage them all at the same time. So to makes things even, in v1.1, we are ripping out the Wall Tool!
Wait…we are ripping out the Wall Tool because it has been upgraded to the new Building Management Tool! You will be able to select multiple Decorations, just Plazas, Roads, Shelters, and yes, Walls to manage them all at once. This feature was already high on our list before, but free-build mode made it absolutely essential with the degree to which you will be able to overlap your plazas.
What is a major update without some new treats to make your settlement your own. We heard you liked the bridges we added in 1.0, so we doubled it. You will now have access to a new Wooden Bridge, available in Tier 2, for a more rustic look.
Give your neighborhoods a charming spray of color with Wild Flowers. Perfect for all the nooks and crannies you will find yourself creating in free-build mode.
The last addition is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but we actually found it very useful in free-build mode. We present…the Grass Clearing. Now all your lawns can meet the exact specifications of your frontier HOA.
While this covers the major additions, we did not stop here for upcoming quality of life improvements. Here is what else we have in store for you:
- Copy and Paste Building Settings to quickly transfer your setup between multiple buildings.
- Widget toggling during building placement
- Production buildings with overlays (ex. Mines) now display Desirability Widgets over shelters
- A search function for the Tech Tree
- Repair-All button has been added for destroyed building notifications
Now that you know what is coming, we are sure you want to know when you can get your hands on it. You will be pleased to know that we are planning to begin the public playtest of v1.1 on March 20th, with the playtest running a few weeks to ensure we did not miss anything major. Which brings us to what is coming right on the heels of v1.1…
If you have been keeping up with us on the forums, you know it is no secret that we are working on two DLCs for Farthest Frontier, one smaller thematic DLC and a huge expansion-sized DLC. Both DLCs will feature new mechanics and buildings that will add depth and immersion to your settlements, whether you are loading an old save or starting new.
We will be announcing the first DLC in the coming weeks, at which point you will be able to pick it up! We can’t wait to share what the team has been cooking up for you. We already have some big ideas for v1.2…
Some of our recent favorites, from the internet for the internet:
Share your best right here on our forum!
I was so glad to see 3 of the “Wishlist” recommendations I had wanted to see appearing in the MOAR category. Looks like it’s going to be a busy couple of weeks play-testing 1.1 