Caves of Qud: Diaspora expansion hits Early Access December 9 for $14.99

Caves of Qud is getting its first expansion. In an October 15 post on the game’s Steam page, the team at Freehold and Kitfox announced Caves of Qud: Diaspora, which launches in Early Access on December 9 for $14.99.

The studio says it chose Early Access so the expansion can grow without a fixed deadline. A core set of features arrives in December, and the team plans to keep expanding them through 2027, much like the base game evolved before its 1.0 release.

In the Early Access version

• Animal and plant characters: players can pick from several animal and plant stocks, such as a dog, cat, frog, chameleon, vine or tree, and customize them as usual.
• New mutations: animal and plant mutations, including claws, a muzzle and a tail that can be turned into a prehensile one; mutated humans can use them too.
• New true kin arcology and castes: four castes from the Great Rondures on the Ocean of Iber: Propeller, Starsteer, Man of Kelp and Delphine.
• Spears: a new weapon type that hits enemies two tiles away.
• New creatures and items spread across the surface and underground areas.
• Dromad caravans: players can ride saltbacks and trade with the dromads at their moving shell-bazaars.
• Better roads and rivers: new world-generation rules make it more likely that following a road leads somewhere interesting.

Planned for 2027

Later updates are slated to add a questline about the migrants arriving in Qud, built around an eccentric dromad named Je’ome the Bounty, and two humanoid factions, the foxen and the snailfolk. The list goes on with fresh biomes to explore, extra creatures and gear (item mods included), new things to cook with, and new diseases and fungal infections to catch. Further additions include underground villages, roaming mega-caravans, dungeons that span several zones, and new music.

How long Early Access will last

Freehold says it does not have a firm end date, but expects Early Access to run for around a year, with updates arriving weekly or monthly. An Early Access roadmap is due when the expansion launches in December. The developers have not decided whether the $14.99 price will stay the same after Early Access or rise slightly.

The base game update that the studio pairs with each expansion should land around the time Diaspora leaves Early Access, or a little earlier. Until then, those changes will be part of the Diaspora Early Access build. The team also says translations and a mobile port are still happening on separate schedules.