Sandbox game Omega Crafter adds new biome in expansive free update

The Omega Crafter samurai update has arrived, bringing a new biome, dungeon, and boss to the open-world survival crafting and sandbox game.

Take the city building and automation aspects of Satisfactory and Factorio, then combine them with the open-world exploration and boss battles of survival games like Valheim and Once Human, and wrap it all in a delightfully cozy package, and you have Omega Crafter. Launching into Steam Early Access in March 2024, the open-world sandbox game blends survival crafting and city building with a cast of programmable Gummi companions, and it just got even beefier with the launch of a new samurai-themed update.

Omega Crafter patch 0.9.0 is a hefty free update – developer Preferred Networks notes that it’s “our biggest to date” – and it’s heavily inspired by Japanese history and mythology. The focus is the introduction of the fourth biome, Fallen Samurai Isle, to the sandbox game. Alongside it comes a new Japanese-themed dungeon and another main boss, which the dev teases as “one of the most challenging battles in the game.”

You’ll also be able to bring that flavor into your base with additional building materials inspired by traditional Japanese architecture and aesthetics, and even cook foods such as sushi and rice balls in the newly added Itamae Kitchen. To help you get around, you can now craft a glider that is activated by pressing jump in midair, and build a boat capable of carrying up to six players across bigger bodies of water at once.

That’s just the beginning, however; this new Omega Crafter update is also packed with other additions and quality-of-life upgrades. The world level cap has been raised, and the way you raise it has been changed. Instead of the previous ‘bits’ system, you’ll now need a range of materials and processed items to level up the world state.

Additional upgrades have been introduced for player skills and buddy skills, and a rebalance makes it easier to boost the health and defense of your adorable Grammi buddies. Grammis in your city, meanwhile, will now have more attack power, allowing them to better help fight off any nearby troublemakers.

A new quick stack option in the inventory allows you to put things away much more rapidly, depositing them in stackable containers in your city. It’ll exclude items on your hotbar by default, but there’s the option to change this if you wish. In addition to this, the maximum stack limit has been unified to 100 for most items, with bow and arrows adjusted to a stack cap of 1,000.

There’s a whole lot to discover in the samurai update. Along with the new dungeon and boss comes ten new enemies, 21 pieces of equipment, ten ingredients, 58 building structures, 32 materials, two enchantments, three Grammi decorations, five fireworks, another arrow type, and a fresh potion.

Omega Crafter update 0.9.0 is out now. Alongside it, a 20% sale lets you pick up the game for just $19.99 / £16.79 if you buy it by Friday October 18. While existing saves will work with the new update, Preferred Networks notes that “starting from the beginning will provide a different play experience than before,” and encourages you to do so and “enjoy the more refined level design.”

If exploration is what really gets you going, be sure to browse the best open-world games to see what other adventures await. If you see yourself as more of a builder, here are the best crafting games instead.

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