Echoes of Elysium has released its Tempest update, which adds rain and wind that directly affect a player’s airship. Rain no longer passes over a ship harmlessly: a soaked vessel takes on water, an effect MassivelyOP likened to flying a giant water-filled bucket.
Wind is the update’s other new hazard, and it frequently arrives alongside rainfall. High winds change both how a ship should be built and how it is piloted, according to MassivelyOP’s report on the patch, adding constraints that did not apply under the game’s previously clear skies.
The weather is not uniform across the map. Tempest ships a variety of biome-specific weather cycles, so the conditions a crew has to plan around depend on where they are flying. Alongside the weather systems, the patch adds interface improvements that surface key information about the airship more prominently, and a full trailer for the update has been published.
A roadmap that keeps shifting
Tempest arrives well behind its original schedule. Echoes of Elysium entered early access in January as a co-op airship sandbox, and by March its developers were pointing to what they called a "major reception turnaround" in the wake of 20 patches. The roadmap in place at that point put this weather update in spring rather than late August.
That same roadmap set out a summer update, which was to have introduced:
- A new biome
- Caves
- Dungeons
- The Pilot class
- Customization
None of that content has shipped on the timetable the roadmap set, and MassivelyOP notes that the plan has moved since it was published. No new date for the summer features accompanies the Tempest announcement. For now, the rain, wind and biome-specific cycles are the substance of the update: they change how an existing airship is built and flown, while the new biome, caves, dungeons, Pilot class and customization the roadmap listed remain outstanding.