Lightyear Frontier launched into early access a little over a year ago, and it generally seems to have trudged along reasonably well since then. It’s not quite ready for 1.0 just yet, but a new update was announced by developers Frame Break and Amplifier Studios earlier this week that sounds like it’ll be bringing in some much needed changes.
Appropriately titled the Shifting Gears Update, there’s two big things it’s changing. For one, the world itself is about to get a lot bigger. The devs explained that while a lot of people liked the “lush nature of the game world,” it was also just a bit too small. So, the map is increasing in size for “large-scale farming”, with the main progression system receiving a rework for “higher emphasis on farming.”
Hazards like tornadoes have been added in too to make getting around this bigger world a bit more challenging (but you can also just turn that off if you’re just in it to relax).
Plus, as previously mentioned by the devs, the narrative is getting reworked, namely mostly cutting out the character PIP-3R as a constant voice in your ear. Jay Castello called this one quite accurately in their early access review of the farming sim last year.
The narrative isn’t going away completely, and PIP-3R may appear again further down the line. But for now the way you’ll learn about the story is through Inspection Points, which are just bits of flavour text that appear in certain areas, and Artifacts Findings, which are also just bits of flavour text from artifacts you find.
On top of all of that, there’s a lot more features coming like a new mod chip system to upgrade your mech, automated drone watering, and a lot more. You can check out the full list of additions over on Steam.
The Shifting Gears update isn’t too far away either, as it’s currently due out June 4th, just under a couple of weeks away.