Once Human sets sail for the Isles of Abyss in October

Once Human is leaving Nalcott’s familiar shores behind. NetEase Games has announced Isles of Abyss, an ocean-focused expansion scheduled to arrive in October 2026 with scattered islands, naval exploration, underwater locations and new survival threats.

Although the initial teaser offers only a brief invitation to cross the forgotten ocean, an official preview for the scenario’s final closed test provides a considerably clearer picture. Players will construct facilities across a maritime environment, gather unfamiliar resources, sail into dangerous waters, confront random ships and participate in server-wide encounters connected to the mysterious Sunken Lord.

The important distinction is that Isles of Abyss is being developed as a new survival scenario, not simply as a permanent extension attached to every existing Once Human map. It will have its own world progression, environmental rules, technology, resources and phased objectives.

Its individual systems are still under development, and NetEase warns that content tested before release may be adjusted. Even with that qualification, Isles of Abyss appears to be one of the game’s most extensive attempts to transform its basic survival loop.

A fragmented world beyond Nalcott

Previous Once Human scenarios have largely been structured around connected land regions explored on foot, by motorcycle or through other ground vehicles. Isles of Abyss replaces that geographic continuity with an archipelago surrounded by open water.

Players will travel between scattered islands, establish facilities, locate resources and advance a new storyline across both terrestrial and underwater environments. Dynamic weather and a day-and-night cycle will influence exploration, while the threats found after sunset will become more dangerous.

This division between islands changes how distance functions. On a conventional map, a player can often travel directly between objectives while collecting materials or discovering smaller points of interest along the way. In an archipelago, every journey potentially becomes a separate expedition requiring preparation, navigation and a suitable vessel.

The ocean is therefore more than empty space between conventional zones. It contains its own enemies, events, environmental dangers and progression targets. If NetEase delivers the density suggested by the test outline, travelling between islands should become part of the survival experience rather than downtime between important destinations.

Ships become central to exploration and combat

Players will need vessels to cross the new world and engage with its maritime activities. Coverage surrounding the expansion’s Gamescom reveal describes ships as configurable platforms that can support transportation, construction, resource management and combat.

The final-test documentation confirms a substantial naval-combat component. Players will operate multiple cannons, with a radial selection interface designed to make switching between weapons faster. Cannons affected by projectile drop will receive a pre-aim line, while their control camera has been adjusted to improve targeting during navigation.

Water territories have also received handling improvements. They should begin moving more easily, and the developers are attempting to reduce problems associated with slow or difficult turning.

These may sound like minor interface refinements, but naval combat depends heavily on responsiveness. A large vessel already carries considerable visual and physical weight. If changing weapons or correcting its direction requires too many inputs, combat risks feeling cumbersome rather than deliberate.

The pre-aim indicator is particularly important because ballistic weapons behave differently from conventional firearms. Players must account for distance and projectile trajectory while both their own vessel and the target may be moving. Giving them clearer aiming information should preserve the challenge without making successful shots feel arbitrary.

The final balance between ship size, durability and manoeuvrability has not been published. Ideally, heavier designs will provide greater protection and firepower while smaller vessels retain a meaningful advantage through speed and access. If one configuration becomes superior in almost every situation, much of the promised construction freedom will become cosmetic.

Calamity Towers connect exploration to server progression

As World Progress advances, Calamity Towers positioned throughout the ocean will gradually activate. Players can rally allies, sail to the corresponding region and attempt to defeat the active tower.

The first successful destruction of a Calamity Tower will distribute rewards to every player on the server. It will also increase World Progress, accelerating the scenario’s transition toward its second phase.

This structure makes the towers more than isolated world bosses. They operate as cooperative milestones whose completion influences the entire server. Later variations are planned as both World Progress and Scenario Progress advance, potentially preventing the activity from remaining static throughout the season.

Server-wide progression can create a strong sense of shared purpose, particularly when players see dangerous structures appearing across the ocean and organize fleets to confront them. It also introduces a familiar problem: individual participation can feel less meaningful when highly active groups complete milestones before more casual players can experience them.

The universal first-clear rewards partly address that issue because players can benefit even if they are not present for the decisive battle. However, receiving a reward by mail is not equivalent to participating in the encounter. NetEase will need to balance activation timing and repeatable variations so that Calamity Towers remain playable after the server’s most organized groups have defeated them.

The Voyager can be boarded or destroyed

Not every ocean encounter will appear at a fixed destination. The Voyager will travel along randomized routes through the world’s major waters, creating an event that players must locate while it is active.

Once encountered, Metas can choose to destroy the vessel from outside or board it to steal its supplies. Voyagers will appear in multiple forms, with larger ships and more sophisticated facilities producing tougher challenges and better loot crates.

The possibility of boarding is more interesting than a standard health-bar encounter because it supports two different approaches. A heavily armed ship may be capable of destroying the target directly, while a smaller group could potentially prioritize access and looting.

The final test description does not explain whether boarding leaves the attacking vessel vulnerable, whether the Voyager continues moving or how players transition between naval and interior combat. Those details will determine whether the choice represents a real tactical decision or merely two routes toward the same reward.

Random travel paths should at least make the ocean feel less predictable. A convincing maritime world needs activity that exists independently of the player, and a large vessel appearing unexpectedly on the horizon can provide that impression more effectively than another permanent map marker.

Four Haywire Zones rewrite the rules of survival

Haywire Zones are special survival events affecting different island groups. Four variants are planned for the final test, and each changes the conditions under which players explore and fight.

Mist of Deceit

A dense fog reduces visibility, with the effect becoming more severe as the player loses health. Light-producing items can disperse the mist, making illumination part of both navigation and combat preparation.

Connecting vision to health creates a dangerous feedback loop. Taking damage makes subsequent threats harder to see, increasing the likelihood of receiving further damage. Players who enter without appropriate light sources may therefore find recovery significantly harder than in an ordinary encounter.

Skyfire

Golden meteorites fall across a volcanic region, transforming the environment and concealing valuable resources within the impact sites. The event combines an environmental hazard with an economic incentive, asking players to approach dangerous areas precisely because those areas contain the most desirable materials.

Its effectiveness will depend on whether the meteorites produce meaningful decisions. Valuable resources should require calculated exposure rather than simply waiting for the impact animation to finish and collecting the remains.

Time Rain

Objects caught beneath Time Rain enter a state of temporal disorder. Plants and animals develop at abnormal speed, while equipment and other items deteriorate more rapidly.

This event has the potential to affect gathering, durability management and combat simultaneously. Players may be able to exploit accelerated biological growth while accepting increased wear on the tools and equipment used to harvest it.

Time Rain is one of the scenario’s most conceptually distinctive hazards because it creates possible advantages as well as penalties. A survival mechanic becomes more interesting when preparation allows players to manipulate it rather than merely resist a recurring debuff.

Black Tide

Pollution washes over the islands in cycles, generating successive Pollution Zones and repeatedly changing the local conditions.

The cyclical structure could force players to reconsider safe routes and base placement instead of treating pollution as a fixed boundary. However, it may also become disruptive if the timing is difficult to understand or if established facilities are repeatedly invalidated without meaningful counterplay.

Together, these four Haywire Zones suggest that Isles of Abyss will use environmental rules to distinguish its island groups. The strongest examples do not simply reduce health; they alter visibility, resource availability, durability or territorial safety.

Calamity Nests add randomized combat spaces

The Calamity Owl’s energy has spread across the archipelago, creating Calamity Nests on multiple islands. Each Nest will use a randomized layout populated by obstacles and powerful combat units.

Players must fight through the interior, remove the threats and ultimately eliminate the Calamity Owl to claim its rewards.

Randomized layouts can help these spaces remain less predictable across repeated visits, but procedural variation alone does not guarantee replayability. Different arrangements need to change movement, enemy positioning and tactical choices rather than merely relocate the same collection of rooms.

The activity should fit naturally into island exploration. While Calamity Towers act as visible server-wide objectives, Nests appear to offer smaller combat challenges that groups can discover and clear during ordinary travel.

The Sunken Lord waits behind collective progress

The scenario’s principal threat is the Sunken Lord. According to the official final-test preview, this encounter will be a four-player dungeon that becomes available during Phase II once the server’s Purification Progress reaches 100%.

This means access is not determined solely by an individual character’s level or equipment. The server must collectively advance the scenario before the dungeon opens.

Locking the principal encounter behind shared progress gives the world an evolving structure. Players begin by exploring, developing technology and completing maritime activities before confronting the force connected to the ocean’s larger mystery.

The downside is that players joining late may experience a different progression rhythm from those present at the beginning. Depending on how servers are managed, newcomers could enter after the community has already completed the buildup, reducing the narrative and mechanical impact of the transition.

NetEase has not yet published the final phase durations for the release version. The test will use a five-day first phase followed by a 17-day second phase, but the developer explicitly states that this schedule only applies to testing and should not be treated as the finished seasonal cycle.

Treasure maps lead beneath the waves

The ocean expansion will not restrict exploration to the surface. In the Abyssal Sea regions, players can acquire treasure maps leading toward concealed underwater sites.

Confirmed locations include shipwrecks and laboratories containing rare treasures. The official description also indicates that long-sealed underwater laboratories will support group expeditions into deeper areas.

Underwater exploration can provide the expansion with spaces that feel different from both the islands and naval combat. Movement, visibility, oxygen management and weapon behaviour could all potentially affect those environments, although NetEase has not formally detailed all of those mechanics.

Treasure maps give submerged locations a stronger discovery loop than placing every site directly on the interface. The system encourages players to find information first and then interpret it to locate the corresponding area.

It remains unclear how frequently maps appear, whether they are consumed after use or how much variation exists among underwater sites. Those details will decide whether the activity becomes a genuine exploration system or a repeatable loot route that is quickly solved by the community.

Nightfall makes the islands more dangerous

The scenario retains Once Human’s survival emphasis through dynamic weather and changing time conditions. When night arrives, more dangerous enemies will appear across the islands.

A meaningful day-and-night cycle can influence when players choose to gather resources, construct facilities or travel toward distant objectives. Daylight may provide safer preparation time, while nighttime expeditions offer greater risk and potentially different opportunities.

Wild Deviations will also appear throughout the environment. Players can engage these creatures directly and attempt to capture them, preserving one of Once Human’s central collection systems within the new scenario.

The interaction between day-night threats, Haywire Zones and dynamic weather could create substantial environmental variety. It could also produce excessive system overlap if multiple hazards activate simultaneously without sufficiently clear feedback.

The final test will be important for determining whether players can read and prepare for these conditions or simply endure several unrelated penalties at once.

A final confidential test will precede release

NetEase is recruiting approximately 4,000 North American players for the final Isles of Abyss test: 2,500 on PC and 1,500 on consoles.

Applications close on September 4, with successful candidates expected to receive confirmation before September 9. The test runs from September 16 at 9:00 PM PT until October 8 at 3:00 AM PT.

Participation requires signing a non-disclosure agreement. Screenshots, streams, recordings, written leaks and other test materials cannot be distributed without permission. All character data created on the test server will be deleted after the test concludes.

The test includes the scenario’s central region and primary activities, allowing NetEase to evaluate the complete experience rather than one isolated system. Feedback will be used to adjust the scenario before its public launch.

Its end date suggests that Isles of Abyss may arrive later in October, but NetEase has not announced a specific launch day. The only confirmed public window remains October 2026.

A real expansion of survival rather than another biome

The most promising aspect of Isles of Abyss is not simply its visual change from mainland ruins to an archipelago. Its announced systems require players to reconsider transportation, construction, resource collection and collective progression.

Ships create logistical questions that ground vehicles do not. Calamity Towers connect naval combat to server development. Voyagers make the ocean less predictable, while Haywire Zones introduce hazards with rules extending beyond basic damage. Underwater laboratories add another exploration layer, and the Sunken Lord provides a destination for the scenario’s shared progression.

There are also substantial risks. Naval movement must remain responsive, ship construction needs viable alternatives rather than one optimal design, and server-wide objectives should not exclude players who join at different times. Environmental systems must create understandable decisions instead of stacking unavoidable penalties.

The final test exists precisely because those elements need refinement. NetEase has already confirmed that its content does not represent final quality, so every mechanic described before release remains subject to adjustment.

Nevertheless, Isles of Abyss appears to be more ambitious than a conventional regional update. It changes the geography around which Once Human’s survival systems operate and introduces a world where the journey between objectives may be as dangerous as the islands themselves.

The Ocean Expansion arrives in October. Beyond Nalcott’s shores, players will find an archipelago shaped by unnatural weather, roaming vessels, submerged laboratories and a presence waiting beneath the water.