Once Human's Isles of Abyss ocean expansion launches on PS5

Once Human’s Isles of Abyss expansion is coming to PlayStation 5 on October 22, Once Human lead game designer Vincent Tao wrote on PlayStation.Blog. The post calls it the survival game’s biggest free expansion so far and gives the date as October 22, with October 21 shown in parentheses.

What the expansion adds

Five ocean regions. Isles of Abyss takes the game off dry land and out to sea. Players start on a starter island and can tackle the other four ocean regions in whatever order they like.

A hostile, living sea. The whole ocean is framed as one conscious being, the Sunken Lord. Lighthouses known as The Tower and ghost ships called Voyagers act as its manifestations, and regions throw hazards such as thick fog, black tides and fire falling from the sky. Regional bosses sit inside huge towers, and the Sunken Lord is the final fight.

Mobile Sea Fortresses. Every voyage begins on a simple wooden raft that can be built up into a customizable ship, which doubles as a forward base, workshop and artillery platform. The team’s examples range from a pirate ship with broadside cannons to a drilling rig, a sci-fi aircraft carrier or a free-form floating fortress. Friends can group their ships into fleets.

Land and sea progression. Materials found on islands feed naval technology and heavy weapons, while deep-sea runs yield materials that improve gear and bases on land. An underwater layer adds diving into sunken ruins, gathering rare resources and deep-sea hunting.

PS5 features

The PS5 version uses DualSense haptic feedback for waves, storms and hull impacts in naval combat, and adaptive trigger resistance when firing ship cannons or shooting grappling lines at enemy vessels. The console’s SSD is used to move between land, the ship’s helm and underwater areas without breaking play.

To be ready for launch, players can download Once Human from the PlayStation Store; the expansion itself is free.

What we don’t know yet

The post does not give a launch time or list patch details for the PS5 update.