Icarus's Week 246 update is out now (build 3.0.23.156115-rel-DangerousHorizons) with a new Tier 3 Metal Weapon Rack, a stack of fixes, and a first look at the free Newton patch coming alongside the next Elysium Great Hunt.

Crafted on the Machining Bench, the new rack uses aluminium pipe and screw construction. It improves on the Homestead-era Tier 2 Wooden Weapon Rack with higher durability and no flammability. The patch also corrects display positioning for several tools, including the Mining Laser, Jackhammer, Nailgun, Shovels, Launchers, and Shears.

Other highlights:

• Chocolate Cake can be deployed and collected/eaten normally again.
• The Dry Run mission drill's electricity state now updates correctly, fixing a potential stall after reconnecting.
• Grenades now stack to 10, preparing for upcoming launchers.
• The Server Browser shows the game version with cleaner list alignment.
• A big optimization pass on ambient and weather audio, including rain, hail, and biome ambience.
• Various client-side fixes for building cleanup and missing corpse inventories.

Last Friday's livestream was cut short by a studio-wide power outage. Breakers tripped, and when an electrician finally reset the external box, a spark ignited a wire fire below the server room's electrical box. The box was full of metal shavings (swarf), a common cause of electrical fires. The breaker cut power again, the wires cooled, and the electrician replaced the cabling. The studio's servers came back up without any perforce database corruption.

The next Great Hunt is coming to Elysium for owners of the Great Hunts Campaigns DLC, accompanied by the free Newton update for all players. Highlights teased:

• A new T4 multi-barrel launcher with more ammo capacity than the single-shot launcher.
• Radioactive creatures will have their own craftable vestiges and trophies.
• A new achievement set focused on the hunt, plus new equipment and events.

Newton is still in internal testing, with a closed external test underway.

The Slinker gets 8 new saddle options in next week's update.

The Dangerous Horizons expansion and Complete the Set bundle are available on Steam.

Icarus' Week 245 patch, build 3.0.23.155919-rel-DangerousHorizons, expands animal husbandry with breedable Tuskers. The four-eyed frost-biome beasts are no longer just mounts: craft the Tusker Serum at the Ranching Station, administer it to two healthy adults, and you'll have more baby Tuskers than you can handle.

Seven distinct Tusker phenotype variations are available to discover, collect, and breed, including one legendary. The changelog lists six newly unlocked phenotypes, plus new Tusker husbandry behaviors and the Tusker Fertility Serum item.

Next week's update adds the Tier 3 Metal Weapon Rack as another way to store and display prized gear while matching your base's design.

• Olympus scan missions (except Livewire) no longer fail if the Radar is picked up before scans are complete.
• Accumulation quests have clearer equipment requirements, map icons, hints, location updates, and an optional Gather Charcoal subquest.
• Styx Highrise construction now accepts both Wall and Ceiling Bunker Lights.
• Projectile Damage and Extended Ammo attachments unlock correctly via Ranged Weapons.
• Livewire search areas reappear after reconnect; Location 2 travel areas were expanded to prevent bypassing.
• Open World user reports now record the current mission.
• Launcher tuning: all weapon launch force is stat-driven, the Legendary Launcher gains 25% base explosive damage resistance, Launcher Guard C explosive resistance drops from 100% to 50%, and ballistic override no longer double-applies payloads to bouncing grenades.

The Future Content section of the changelog includes a RAD_O2 mission revamp, Radboss crossbow and trophy work, Elysium achievements, a T4 Roaster locked to Elysium_GH, jungle biome sculpting, speeder bike FX improvements, and an arcade machine minigame.

Store pages: Dangerous Horizons Expansion · Icarus Complete the Set

The Week 244 update for Icarus makes its waters much livelier. All 20 fish species can now spawn naturally in the world, each with three additional variations—around 70 unique fish total. Previously, only Snapper, Jack, and the poisonous Piranha appeared in the wild.

Fish spawning now uses the same biome logic as fishing: if a species can be caught in a particular body of water, it will also be seen swimming there. To help players catch the new variety, the update adds the T3 Carbon Fiber Fishing Rod, craftable at the Fishing Bench (renamed from Basic Fishing Bench).

The Dedicated Server Browser is out of beta after a round of fixes:

• Filtered search no longer lets mismatched servers appear while discovery is still running.
• Duplicate peer-to-peer sessions no longer show up in the list.
• The Matching Version filter is enabled by default and can still be disabled.
• The refresh button now shows a rotating loading indicator while searching.

• Fixed a garbage-collection crash when reserving UIDs for objects.
• Fixed AI not spawning correctly while players move around terrain.
• Updates to Accumulation mission hint text and objectives.
• Faction mission spawners no longer start destroyed/inactive, and destroyed states persist on reload.
• Fixes across Livewire, Avalanche, OFFENDER, APE_A, GH_RG_C, RG_B, and Elysium story missions; Farmer NPC now cleans up properly.
• Friendly soldier NPCs engage neutral enemies without being hurt first.
• Nailgun aim inaccuracy reduced for repairs; explosive resist displays as a flat percent.
• Double XP event and banner removed.

Next week’s update introduces Tusker breeding and new Tusker phenotypes, letting players discover new phenotype combinations as they grow their herds.

Further ahead, the patch points to Rad Boss rebalance work (including a Radboss armor set), FEV injection changes, new creatures like Beaver, Giant Turtle, Turtle Fish, and Coastal Crab, T2–T4 weapon racks, and a new Orka skin variant: Primal.

Links:

• Icarus: Dangerous Horizons Expansion
• Icarus Complete the Set

Hotfix 3.0.21.155383-rel-DangerousHorizons is out for Icarus, clearing a batch of mission progression blockers. The patch applies to both new missions and prospects already in progress once updated.

• LIVEWIRE: Killing the wolf pack before triggering the travel event no longer locks progress. Updated prospects will get wolf spawns counted before travelling, and wolf dens should no longer duplicate on reload.
• NEXUS: Mutated Creatures now spawn in the lab as intended.
• RELICS: Soldiers now spawn in the central lab as intended.
• COURIER: Soldier spawning at camps has been fixed.
• BREAKOUT: Structure spawning and decal cleanup are fixed.
• LIBERATION: The Secure Status mission step is fixed.
• NOMAD, SHADOWED, TEMPEST, DISPATCH, FRACTURE: Objectives will now display correctly after a completed building event fails to fire.

Known issue: OFFENDER can still stall because cave worms are not spawning correctly.

Icarus has received hotfix 3.0.21.155335-rel-DangerousHorizons, aimed at missions that use prebuilt structures.

The patch fixes multiple cases where those structures failed to spawn, which previously prevented missions from starting. It also fixes cases where prebuilt structures were not cleaned up after mission completion, with cleanup still respecting server settings.

Name collisions between prebuilt structures from different missions, which could block new structures from spawning when they should have, are also resolved.

One note for existing runs: some missions may spawn duplicate structures once as a result of the change. The patch says this should be a one-off, as prebuilt structures are now tracked more closely and references persist as they did not before.

Week 243 of Icarus is headlined by the biggest Olympus Operation Update entry yet: a major revamp of Livewire, the early Olympus mission that was the first combat-and-defense Operation players ever took on. The build is tagged 3.0.21.155201-rel-DangerousHorizons.

The reworked Livewire brings the mission in line with newer Icarus Operations: a fresh flow, new tactical challenges, clearer hints, a restored mission briefing, and a bigger role for NPC medics like Griff, including new dialogue. The quest now uses the newer infrastructure with lootable radar and backpack objectives, hedgehog collection steps, ambush-style wolf pack spawns, per-player scaling, and an Alpha Terrenus that uses a distinct skeleton and mesh. Prebuilt structures also load asynchronously over time instead of popping in, reducing mission stutter.

Senior designer John Frank says the Olympus Operations effort has no single end goal, but the team's focus is on clarity, preserving the sense of earned struggle, and updating older missions to current standards with balance passes, bug fixes, hints, and full revamps "as long as they deliver real value."

Since release, Icarus has had just three in-world fish types: Fish01, Fish02, and the piranha-like Fish03. Next week's update makes the dozens of fish from the fishing system appear in the world too, with spawn locations matching the areas where each species can be fished.

It also adds the Carbon Fishing Rod, a carbon-fiber rod crafted on the Fishing Bench with improved stats for easier fishing.

• Mission Rewards (Blueprints, Workshop Items, Legendary Weapons) should now unlock and persist correctly instead of being lost when leaving a session.
• The Lava Hunter no longer attacks random creatures or chases players endlessly; it now anchors near its lava arena.
• Prebuilt Structures no longer incorrectly connect to existing resource networks.
• Clay, Scoria, and Obsidian Sledgehammer Attachment recipes now use the correct item inputs.
• Metal Grate building pieces now have destructible meshes and break apart like other buildings.
• Beast Scanner scanning is disabled on Mounts because the damage modifier wasn't being applied.
• Solar Backpack and focused-item charging logic were fixed.
• Assorted audio, animation, tooltip, and co-op replication fixes are also in.

The changelog's Future Content section includes early WIP work on a large raptor dino, a coastal bird (kea), a turtle duck, a two-player speeder bike, passenger saddles, new character-customization toggles, and more Great Hunt RAD boss tuning.

The Dangerous Horizons expansion and Icarus Free Weekend Bundle are on Steam.

Icarus is free to play this weekend with double experience enabled. All DLC is on sale, and a "Free Weekend Bundle" containing the base game and major expansions is available at an additional discount.

Over the past year, 52 free weekly updates were released. Major updates include:

• Mendel Update: Overhaul of creature husbandry with genetics, bloodlines, phenotypes, inheritable traits, new farm animals, expanded talent trees, and improved tame commands.
• Kepler Update: Tier 5 technology, new weapons, tools, building pieces, and quality-of-life improvements for all players (released alongside Dangerous Horizons).
• Copernicus Update: Introduced Legendary Weapons with unique abilities.
• Mounts and Tames Updates: New tameable creatures (Forest Wolves, Ubis, Boars, Gribblers), carts, saddles, and rideable Mammoths.
• Timber Extraction Unit: Legendary harvesting tool that gathers wood and doubles as a ranged weapon.
• Single Barrel Grenade Launcher: First weapon of the Launcher archetype.

The Inaris Flashlight is the first Workshop-purchasable light source, found in the Gadgets category. Compared to the planetary-crafted T4 Flashlight, it has a maximum range shorter by about 15 meters but a 15% larger battery lasting through the first two nights on Icarus.

Content in development for the Elysium map includes:

• A new branching narrative mission chain.
• A new world boss called "The Malformation."
• A new two-person hoverframe.
• New creatures, items, and more.

The Olympus Operations update continues with a revamp to the Livewire Operation. The mission will be adjusted to improve the experience, similar to other early Olympus Operations being updated.

• Double Experience Event Banner and XP enabled.
• Workshop Flashlight renamed to Inaris Flashlight.

• Increased health and damage of Irradiated Mutation (Wraith).
• Fixed Sandworm Lifecycle Poster display (was showing corkboard).
• Added giant roach zapper audio event.
• Item Popup Widget weight number now includes items within its own inventory.
• Fixed shadow artifacts from DF meshes on Simple Building Shadow settings.
• Beachhead improvements: Easy XP penalty reduced from 25% to 0%; new quest tip for crouch stealth/damage bonus; creature movement speed baseline reduced from -10% to -15%.

• Mission RAD_E second half of quest steps now playable.
• Radboss mission: boss no longer sits still after 3 attacks; added roar break at 10% health; fixed melee attack double damage.
• Livewire updates: fixed quest flow; reduced Terrenus spawns in final stage; added prepare weapon and optional armor subquest.
• Correctly tagged aluminium building pieces (were tagged as iron).

A free weekend is now live for ICARUS, accompanied by a Double XP event that lasts for the duration. The game and all DLC are on sale, with a special limited-time 'Free Weekend Bundle' containing major expansions.

• Free Weekend Bundle: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/81998/Icarus_Free_Weekend_Bundle/

The bundle includes:

• Icarus (80% off) – Base game with Olympus map, 69 missions, unique creatures, 5 Tech Levels, Oil, Exotics, and 241 free weekly content updates.
• Dangerous Horizons (25% off) – Second major expansion adding Elysium map, 17 missions, drivable vehicle, new mounts, 35+ creatures, Tundra and Geothermal Biomes, radiation gameplay, and more.
• New Frontiers (33% off) – First major expansion adding Prometheus map, 27 missions, new mounts, Swamp, Volcanic and Grassland Biomes, new creatures and resources.
• Styx (33% off) – Expansion with Styx map and 33 missions, more challenging survival experience with unique biomes and creatures.
• Great Hunt Campaigns (33% off) – Experimental expansion with three branching mission campaigns across Olympus, Styx, and Prometheus, multi-stage boss encounters, and legendary weapons.

Additional bundle: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/

ICARUS store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1149460/ICARUS/