- New demo out for Party-Based RPG Fest! - 13 September 2026
Ahoy captains! We have released a new demo to celebrate we are part of Valve's official Party-based RPG Fest in the coming week!The new demo features:Improved monster AIAlmanac now provides categories and includes helpful hints Visual improvements to ocean renderingTweaked progression so it's easier to get hold of weapons earlyMap will no longer tank your framerate when it's openUI improvements, I think we write this every time but hey there's a lot of UI and we keep improving it!Other minor bug fixes The update is on the smaller side since we are focusing on designing and planning out the progression for the full game. In the meantime I hope you will enjoy the new build and as always let us know on Discord or Steam what you think of the game! Safe winds Skipper Alex
- How to not get stuck in lakes - World and island generation in Sea Of Rifts - 28 August 2026
Ahoy folks I'm back from holiday with another devlog! This time I talk about how the world and islands are generated in Sea Of Rifts and how the player getting stuck in lakes led to a redesign of the whole generation to fit the game better and make it easier to adjust to create the right gameplay experience. There's also a peek at the shader we use to automatically texture the islands. Enjoy!
- How to make a systemic indie game - Sea Of Rifts Devlog #2 - 6 August 2026
Ahoy Captains!I'm back with another devlog. This time it's about my approach to making a systemic game as an indie developer. You can watch it here:Safe WindsSkipper Alex
- What time is it? It's time for an updated demo! - 22 July 2026
Ahoy ahoy captains! We have a freshly caught update to the demo for ya. New FeaturesSave slot system, you can now have multiple saves going at the same timeBug and feedback tool, Hit F4 to let us know if the game has sprung a leak and need some caulkingTime of day tracker, a much requested feature!More variation in quest difficulty, this one was a lot of work to get in! You can now find a larger selection of quests when going to the bulletin boards with varying difficultyEnemy levelling. You can now encounter more difficult specimens of Shiftlings if you venture out into the RiftsNew nighttime hazards: Gloom & ShredderMore quest types & eventsBug fixes and tweaksIsland generation & placement more naturalFlare effect on ramming weapons (no more red-nosed battleships)More additions to the AlmanacFitted cannons to the Marauder HideoutGeneral polish, typo fixing, and bug squashingBalancingR…
- Hoist the colours, sailors! - 8 July 2026
Art Director Sofie here to tell you about one of the systems we made that allows us to easily recolour ships and other assets in the game without having to make a new variant of a texture map each time. Not only would this be an inefficient way for the team to handle visuals, but importing color variants of texture maps would also eat up storage space. No, we needed a smarter approach!Therefore we made a custom shader we call HSV Offset Shader and a database asset the system picks a random offset set from. The values in the database are defined in the HSV colour space - hue, saturation, and value - to make it easier to recolour already existing assets. This is how it works: The shader grabs the colour from the base mapThe colour gets converted to the HSV colour spaceAn offset to the colour is then applied based on the Colour Shift MapThe colour gets converted back to the RGB colour spac…
- Feature Focus: the Almanac - 24 June 2026
Ahoy Captains!This is the first post in a series called Feature Focus where we’ll take a feature, system, or mechanic from Sea of Rifts, pin it to our Natural Philosopher’s workbench, and see what makes it tick.Today it’s Narrative Designer Fergus here to talk about a new feature from May’s leviathan update to the demo. Among all the other exciting additions to Sea of Rifts, you might have noticed a new tab in your Journal: the Almanac. I’m really happy with this feature as it helps us solve a problem we’ve had since first drafting the lore of Sea of Rifts, namely that it’s been rather tricky to convey it to the player. Given the nature of the emergent narrative sandbox we’re making, we don’t know when players are going to encounter certain events, what information they’ll have when they do, and if they’ll even remember it when they need it. As such, introducing lore in narrative events…
- Fresh catch: An update to demo has just landed in your net - 14 June 2026
Ahoy captainsWe have been busy taking in your feedback after the latest demo release and have a fresh catch of a build for ya!New featuresSee what thought is affecting a crew member on the crew pageFittingly you can now figure out why the crew does not like being out at night, spoiler: they get the Heebie-jeebies!More quest types addedAdded Buttons to randomize your starting captain portrait and the name of your shipYou can now see the stats for your captainBug fixes and tweaksFixed mood ping-pong bug, Thanks for reporting the issue Leiishroom and Eszrah_Plays!Fixed issue with having journal and map open at the same time when playing in 16:10, thanks for reporting the issue Leiishroom!16:10 specific UI tweaksCombat UI tweaksGeneral UI tweaksFixed typos and outcomes in world eventsMore sound effects and volume balancingMap can be closed with ESCVarious quest fixesUpdates to the tutorial…
- New trailer and demo launching at Endix Showcase May 23-24th - 15 May 2026
Ahoy captains!We are excited to be part of the Endix Showcase to present Sea Of Rifts in a new unique and creative way. Endix is a free digital event built as a game in Unreal Engine. this allows you to join the Showcase no matter where you are. You download Endix through it's Steam page and then create your own avatar to explore the expo with. You can find our booth at Floor 1 and have a chat with us about the game. New trailer and demoWe will also show a new exclusive trailer and release a large update to the demo. If you visit our booth there might also be a secret for you to discover!You can meet us in the expo at these times:Saturday May 23th: 11am - 2pm & 4pm - 8pm UTCSunday May 24th: 11am - 2am & 4pm - 8pm UTCLooking forward to see you there!Skipper Alex
- We are part of Lovecraftian Days! New playtest build to celebrate - 14 April 2026
Ahoy Captains!To celebrate we are part of Lovecraftian Days we decided to release a new playtest build. This comes with a bunch of new features and fixes but might not be as stable as the demo build. Here's all the new goodies: New features Lots of improvements so UI is more mouse friendly Reworked aiming UI so it’s more clear how you aim and also made it easier to stay on target Added target lock mechanic. Once a target is in your sights you can lock it and weapons will keep aiming towards it Added two new regular weapons, the mine and torpedo launcher! Added three new Shaped weapons so you can go full Frankenstein with your ship! Added weapon groups so you can be more strategic with what weapons you fire Clearer when switching quests If a story choice has a random outcome it is now telegraphed before you pick it Rewamped tutorialColor pass on the whole game to make it pop more Balanci…
- Taking aim for better combat - 3 March 2026
Ahoy captains! It's Skipper Alex here with an update on what we have been working on. We have made a lot of progress on the mini road map we posted back in December. As game dev goes I ended up having to do a couple of iterations on the new aiming mechanics but it's shaping up nicely. More mouse friendly camera controls and aimingWhen using mouse you can now tilt the camera and the aim up and down while scroll let's you zoom. If your aim intersects with something you get an indicator showing you where it is.For controller it works similarly but tilting the camera also controls zoom.Target Lock Mechanic 2.0The target lock mechanic now supports locking onto the nearest target if none is hovered. When the locked target is destroyed the target lock also jump onto the next closest target.Weapon Groups - And new weaponsWeapons are now placed into groups. This allows you to save powerful weapo…
- Merry Christmas! - 24 December 2025
Hello Captains! We wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Years here from Out Of Bounds Games. Sofie our lead artist have been having a lot of fun dressing the game up with Christmas themed decorations so we thought you deserved to see it as well. It's been a year with lots of progress on the game with the highlight being the release of the demo and showcasing at G-Star in Busan. We appreciate the time many of you have put in with giving us feedback and reporting bugs. It really helps us improving the game so keep it coming! We already have some updates to the demo planned for next year so if you haven't already follow our Steam page to get notified when they land. Here's to next year! Skipper Alex
- Let us chart the course ahead! - 3 December 2025
Ahoy captains! Now where we have done a few patches for the demo we have had time to pour over all the feedback you have given us on the Steam forum, discord and the occasional letter in a bottle. We wanted to give you a little update on what we will focus on next: Combat improvementsMake aiming require less multi tasking by providing a target lock mechanic or slow down time when aiming when zoomed in.More weapon variety and able to switch between different weapon groupsMake combat more “spikey” with special attacksBug: Some enemies never stop chasing youWhile in combat, if you pass a world event engine stops and sails still get curled back in. Can result in you dying because you fail to escape.In fact we have already started experimenting with some new weapons, the feared land torpedoes! We have also started prototyping the target lock mechanic. Still needs some fine tuning but it's ni…
- A new playtest build appears! And the plan going forward - 26 November 2025
Ahoy Captains! It's Alex here with a new build and an update on how we will approach development going forward.Playtest builds are back, here be potential dragonsWe got a lot of really valuable feedback on the demo and want to react to it as quickly as possible while also making sure the demo is stable. This is by far the largest game anyone on the team has worked on and while we could spend a lot of time testing each release it would take time away from actually working on the game. We are therefore going to use the playtest as a way to get changes out quickly so you can help us confirm they work and find any potential bugs before we set them live for the demo. With that out of the way here's the new changes in the playtest build:New featuresBig overhaul to performance on both the CPU and GPU side.Swapped input for sailing and steam inputESC can now be used to go out of more of the UIT…
- Showcasing at G-Star and next demo patch - 20 November 2025
Ahoy Captains!It’s Alex here with a quick update. We have the second patch for the demo in the pipeline. The reason we have not released it yet is we have been busy showcasing Sea Of Rifts at G-Star in Busan the past week.The fine folks at Unity invited us to showcase in their booth and since neither Fergus, our narrative designer, nor I had been to South Korea, we jumped at the chance! It has been a lot of fun seeing a whole new group of players learn about the game. It was also cool to experience South Korea. We didn’t have a lot of time to do any sightseeing but we did get to try a lot of delicious food and snacks.Hoped she named her ship The Flying Dutchmen We have also been making tweaks to the demo based on the feedback we received at the expo so both keyboard and controller input is more intuitive now among other improvements. We also showcased the game on Steam Deck so I made so…
- First patch for the demo is now out! - 5 November 2025
Ahoy captains!Thanks for all the feedback and kind words we have gotten on the demo so far it's been very motivating to see the game being in the hands of new players - and it also revealed some areas that needed improvement. We have therefore just pushed a new build: New featuresNew layout for the Beluga so it’s got more offensive oomphOption to have camera rotate with the ship to potentially make it easier to aimA new close range weapon called a carronade has been added. It has yet to be determined if a volley from them is called a carronadeadeA new marauder armed with the carronadeA new spiky inhabitant has started appearing out at sea, better don’t go too fastPaying crew is now a location in port making it easier to see it’s something you have to do before leavingArrows in the HUD now shows if the mood is going up or downGreater range for setting mouse sensitivity. Thanks for report…
- The June playtest sails into view! - 14 June 2025
Ahoy freebooters we are back with a new playtest build! As usual it's a mix of new features, UI improvements and bug fixes. New featuresChanged layout in journal so there’s now a dedicated page for seeing the status for the crew and one for their combined statsDuties UI also got an overhaulFaction economies where favour can be earned and spentThe choice based text content now shows if it is connected to a questQuests can now lead to an area instead of a specific location making spotting more useful to find what you are looking forWhole game got a color pass so there’s more omph to the visualsSunken City got more artwork implementedIsland and harbour generation also got an overhaulWhen selling in shops the items and equipment the shop will not buy is now shown but greyed outWhen starting a new run the journal automatically opens to let you assign crewMap got an overhaul with an arrow poi…
- Playtest build April 2025 now live! - 27 April 2025
Hello captains! We have a new playtest build with some big updates on the hook for ya. New features Save games! Not the most exciting feature but something that has taken a lot of effort to get in. You can now open the pause menu when not in the tutorial or combat to save the game. The game is also saved when entering and leaving a harbour. A new Rift has been spotted out at sea! This one is still in development but we would like your feedback on what we have made so far. We are quite excited to hear what you think. New starting ship: The glass cannon Tarpon Rumours now have their own page in the journal Streamlined creating your captain More things to take with you in the life boat when starting a new run You can now name your ship when starting a new run More narrative content More sound effects More crew traits More Auxiliary Equipment with a wider range of effects Traits and Auxilia…
- Playtest build February 2025 now live! - 28 February 2025
Ahoy freebooters we are back with another playtest. Here's the new stuff: New features - Different starting ships. When starting a game you now get to pick which type of ship you want to play as - New starting ship the Beluga: A heavy freighter bristling with turrets - New main quest that points the player towards the Great Rift - More content for Red Tides - More variety to challenges - Changed controller input scheme so you now fire guns with the right trigger. Sails are deployed/hoisted with DPad Up/Down - Separate reload sounds for each weapon type - Increased the amount of available crew in harbours by 2 - Rebalanced character traits - Character traits can now affect difficulties of tasks in a challenge - Hover explainer in challenge to show how the chance a crewmember adds to a task is calculated - Particle effects have gotten an overhaul - Towns now also have weapon shops - Impro…
- Playtest build January 2025 - 31 January 2025
Ahoy freebooters We are live with a new build! There's been a big overhaul to combat and challenges. New features - Big graphical overhaul to the UI - Ships use a better physics model so they ride waves better - New aiming method where you can always fire cannons and adjust level of auto aim in the options menu - New weapon: The fast motor cannon - New weapon: The experimental convolution cannon that pushes enemies - New weapon: The full pounder, a giant iron fist ram that lets you suckerpunch other ships! - Challenges have been improved with new mechanics - Do heists for the Shaped Folk - Reworked how enemies spawn so it scales better with the intended difficulty - A big chunk of vibes related to crew relations has been added - Vibes now show portraits of involved crew - Streamlined tutorial level layout to make it faster to complete - Monsters have been moved over to new AI system - A…
- Coming up: First playtest of the year! - 24 January 2025
Hello captains! Just a quick update to say we are back with another playtest the last weekend of January. We will provide some more info next week but here's a sneak peak for one of the new weapons we are adding to the game. In for a penny in for a pounding! Safe winds Captain Alex
