Taking on quests and dealing with random events, you will end up engaging other ships in combat, having to employ their best tactics in order to out-manoeuvre and out-gun the enemy. The game focuses on “Age of Sail” ships in a Fantasy setting, framed in an Art Style inspired by classic Naval Oil Paintings.

Life on the seas is surviving on the edge; battles are hard fought, death is permanent and the world reacts to your actions. But you are the Captain; Ship destruction is not the end of your story. As long as the Captain is alive, there is always a way back to the top.

Abandon Ship is available on Steam Early Access for $19.99 / £14.99.

Fireblade Software unleashes The Spider Islands, a major update for Abandon Ship.

 In it, Captains will be able to venture into three new regions:

• The Spider Islands, an arachnid-infested area with huge webs stretching between islands. Engaging in battle in this region will attract the attention of Giant Spiders that attack both vessels.
• Cannibal’s Lurk, where savage tribes defend their homes by paddling out in canoes.
• Peril’s Cauldron, home of the Sea of Serpents – a map patrolled by capricious people who live in harmony with local venomous snakes.

In keeping with previous updates, these areas are filled with unique islands and quests, some with lasting consequences on the environment.

Do you side with settlers, ousting the Cannibals from their lands? Or help them defend their homes from invasion?

Can you stop the spiders expanding beyond their region into the Silk Keys, or will the area fall?

Many more weird, wonderful and grim stories lie out there, waiting to be discovered.

Alongside these new regions, the headline systems includes allowing you to change your ship weapon layouts, tripling the potential combinations of how you – and the enemy – customise your vessel, a Visual Blueprint system that allows you to change the appearance of your ship, new weapons and upgrades and a whole lot more.

Here's what we've added...

3 New Regions

The regions we’ve unlocked are:

• Spider Islands
• Cannibal’s Lurk
• Peril’s Cauldron

Head south to gain access to them, and they're unlocked once you defeat the Kraken - the second and third Quick-Starts commence with these areas accessible.

Ports are few and far between in these areas, so only enter them with a well-supplied ship with a full crew!

All of the new maps contain a wealth of unique events and islands to discover. We won’t spoil everything, but here are some examples of what you can expect…

Spider Islands

Stemming from Mother’s Grasp, Arachnids of all shapes and sizes have gradually spread out, taking over the entire region. Tales of treasure and the availability of rich silk draw people to the region, despite the danger it poses.

Blanket web permeates the skies, obscuring visibility, while thick strands connect the islands together.

If you’re forced into combat in this region, the disturbance draws the attention of the larger spiders. These periodically drop down onto both ships and attack. While individually weak, they can overwhelm weakened stragglers and the red spiders explode into a pool of acid, so be sure to stay on top of any infestations.

The strong winds of the Wild Sea, and poisonous gasses of the Forsaken Sea stop the spiders from expanding beyond their region. The Silk Keys had none of this protection however, and it fell to Aldous Spiderbane to stop their encroachment, pushing them back to near extinction. Unfortunately he was unable to complete his task, and in the years since the spiders reclaimed the territory they lost. You can visit Aldous and undertake a special quest for him in the Silk Keys, which lie in the Shattered Empire region.

We’ve added a handful of new weapons in this update, none are available in ports and can only be obtained by completing quests. If you want to get your hands on the Spider Egg Launcher, you’ll have to go looking for it somewhere in the region.

Also, beware of strange vessels with spider iconography that can be found in the area. The crew only utter the words “Mother knows best” and are seemingly ignored by the arachnids.

Cannibal’s Lurk

The second of our new regions has a different kind of infestation: Cannibals.

These natives wear imposing masks designed to intimidate their prey, and will paddle out to battling ships, boarding both at the start of combat. If you can dispatch them quickly, you may gain some advantage over an enemy still distracted by them.

While it’s easy to assume the locals are savages, the settlers drawn to the region are not blameless, drawn by misguided rumours of cities of gold. One event in the bottom of the area sees you responsible for determining the fate of both factions.

In this region you’ll once again team up with Sigismund, the explorer you encountered in the Howling Seas. He’ll reveal what was at the centre of the imposing mass of Ice before joining him on another one of his adventures.

Peril’s Cauldron

Our third region contains a broad selection of maps to explore.

Head to the Sea of Serpents and explore the Writhing Atoll. Strange people who live in harmony with the snakes patrol the area in custom vessels. They are capricious, just as likely to attack unprovoked as provide you with a gift.

It is in this region that you have a chance to gain the Snake Venom Gun.

One of the other maps in the region may contain an island familiar to those who have braved the Haunted Seas. It is here that you’ll obtain the Ghost Mortar

This weapon was previously only found on Ghost Ships. Now, should you complete the associated quest you can unlock it and use it against your foes.

Ship Visual Blueprints

The community have often asked if they’ll ever have the chance to take control of the cool-looking ships available to the other factions, and now you can!

The Visual Blueprints system is available from the Ship Management menu in the Journal, and once you’ve acquired a Blueprint you can swap over to it as long as you own the same class vessel.

You have to earn the Blueprint however, and you can only do so by capturing it intact. Your blueprints are not tied to a save game, so once you’ve unlocked a blueprint you’ve unlocked it in any of your games.

We intend to add many more Ship variants for each class before full release, and in this update we’ve added two more to find (we’ve given hints on where to find them in the region descriptions above)

Ship Weapon Layouts

Accompanying the Visual Blueprints is another ship-based system, and this one allows you to select a different weapon layout.

By choosing a Strike, Bombard or Heavy Bombard you can choose to forgo your cannon batteries and replace them with more Swivel Guns or Mortars. The Heavy Bombard can gain even more Mortars by losing the Swivel Guns on the ship.

This opens up a wealth of new customisation options with your ship and weapons, and there can be some potent combinations. It takes a while (and sufficient booty) to find everything you want, but it’s fun trying different setups and testing their effectiveness.

Of course, anything you can do, the enemy can do too – so be prepared to be on the receiving end to some of these deadly combo’s.

You can swap Weapon Layouts at any time in the Ship Management section of the Journal.

AI Ramming and Boarding

The AI will now ram and board you. Some ships will be more aggressive in this than others, but even defensive-minded ships may decide a quick “ram-and-run” may be an efficient way to stop you once you chase them down.

This, combined with the Weapon Layout changes mean that existing players should be on their toes when engaging in combat, as there are many new ways the AI can hurt you.

Anti-Ram Upgrade

To help you keep ramming AI ships at bay, we’ve created the Anti-Ram.

This one-shot-per-battle-per-side upgrade can be equipped into the side-slot on your ship (the same space Gargoyles and Harpoons go) and, once an enemy attempts a ram on you, the button will light up. Pressing this in time will fire out the Anti-Ram, which is stuffed with explosives. Upon impact, it will halt the ramming vessel, inflicting damage on it. This will allow you to either move out of range, or attempt a counter-ram.

We’re also conscious that ramming is something some players do frequently, and wanted to give the AI something to counter that with. If they have it of course, but it’ll give Rammer-Spammers pause before going in for the kill :)

Coastal Defences

Coastal Defences are like Sea Forts, but are land-based. You’ll find these scattered throughout the world, and they’ll open fire on you if you’re at Wanted Level 1 or above. If you engage in battle in range of a hostile Coastal Defence, it’ll bombard you in combat, too.

We plan on doing a lot more with Coastal Defences in a future update, so consider this their opening salvo.

Surrender

Sometimes in battle the AI may now plead for mercy, which you may choose to accept, or fight to the bitter end. Likewise, if you’re at deaths door, the AI may offer clemency if you’re prepared to give up some of your hard earned loot.

Massive Optimisations

We’ve done a huge amount of work optimising the game, so those players with Integrated graphics can now run the game much faster with the correct settings.

If you previously weren’t experiencing high enough framerates, we advise checking them again. You can switch via the in-game settings menu and see the difference, so it’s simple to achieve the right visual quality and framerate sweet-spot.

If you’d been running the game on Low quality previously, you may wish to see how the game runs on Medium settings with this update.

On our test machine with an Intel HD630, combat (which is the most-intensive part of the game) is running at a steady 30fps at 1920x1080. Lowering the resolution gives a hefty speed boost, too.

Patch Notes

If all that wasn't enough, we've done a load of bug fixes, quality-of-life improvements and polish, too! Head to this post for the full details.

Key Features

• Tactical and Savage Combat. Each battle is hard-fought, always on the edge of defeat. Your only chance of overcoming the odds is to employ every advantage you can and utilise all the tools at your disposal.
• Ship Destruction is not the End. Life in the world of Abandon Ship can be brutal. Death is permanent. But the game doesn’t end if your vessel is destroyed. You are the Captain, and as long as the Captain is alive, there is always hope. By escaping to a Lifeboat, or even being stranded, alone in the water, there is still a chance to survive and fight your way back to the top.
• Explore a procedurally generated world from Tropics to Arctics. Engage in quests or deal with incidental events on your journey to save the world from a Doomsday Cult.
• A Personal Adventure. Customise and upgrade your Captain, Ship and Crew. Build yourself to be worthy of any foe, whether that be human or otherwise. But be prepared to make moment-to-moment life-or-death decisions for you and your crew.
• Take on adventures in a world that reacts to your actions. Quests may drastically change the environment. Make decisions that create friends or enemies that may later come back to help or hinder you.