Icarus adds 3 new missions, makes it easier to find your own corpse

Icarus spaceman corpse face down in snow
(Image credit: RocketWerkz)

Survival game Icarus had a big launch last weekend, but it was a bit of a bumpy ride for players who experienced optimization problems, crashes, and issues with the game's offline mode. Throughout the week developer RocketWerkz has been hotfixing and patching the game, and heading into this weekend another big patch has gone live.

First, for those who have powered through many or all of the missions in Icarus, three new prospects have been added. In Fire Walk players will have to recover a bio-weapon that was dropped on the planet's surface, in Wet Work there's yet another big predator to eliminate, and Solid Metal will direct you to gather resources, process them, and stuff them into drop pods for extraction into outer space.

And good news for anyone who has died on the planet and then tried to recover loot from their own dead bodies: that should be a lot easier now. Until today it was frustratingly hard tracking down your own corpse (or the loot bag that represents it)—the map simply doesn't zoom in all that close so it's hard pinpointing the exact location of your death icon, and dense foliage is extremely good at hiding all sorts of things, from animal carcasses to the sack of loot you drop when you die.

There will now be an in-game marker to show your loot bag, so you won't have to rely solely on the map, which should help immensely. Player icons have been improved in general, and compass waypoint icons have been enlarged.

Other highlights from the patch notes include gold spawning in greater frequency, two new items you can craft in the space station workshop (a hammer and a campfire), and the squashing of bugs that could prevent players from completing the missions El Camino and Desert Expedition. 

I've been enjoying Icarus myself, discovering that after the early grind to level up, starting over from scratch on each new mission isn't nearly as repetitive as I expected. I still hate and fear bears, but at least now when they murder me I'll have an easier time finding my corpse.

Here are the complete Icarus patch notes:

  • Added three new missions, FIRE WALK: DELIVERY, WET WORK: EXTERMINATION and SOLID METAL: STOCKPILE.
  • Added two new workshop items, the MXC Hammer, and the MXC Campfire.
  • Increased frequency of gold spawns.
  • Increased meta deposit quantities on harder missions.
  • Added in-world marker for player loot-bags.
  • Improved map player icons. Added support for colours. Icon's get smaller when zooming right into the map. Made compass waypoint icon bigger.
  • Added Scrolling with mouse wheel now works on talent views with no zoom enabled
  • Added Scroll bars on talent views are correctly hidden when they aren't needed (Player & Blueprint only need one)
  • Added HUD window to display connectivity status information.
  • Added additional connectivity information to the escape menu.
  • Added button to allow players to cancel out of a save prompt on leaving their prospect.
  • Changed prospect notifications will now forcefully appear on the screen if it contains unclaimed resources/items
  • Changed electrical wall and ceiling lights to no longer require shelter.
  • Changed Cooking Station to no longer require fuel.
  • Improved accolade popup notification window and added images.
  • Improved locomotion animations for Buffalo and Wild Boar.
  • Updated HUD. Now Talent and Blueprint points always show if any are available.
  • Decreased movement speed while carrying animal carcasses (-10%/-20%/-30% depending on size).
  • Removed Fog Of War on Outposts.
  • Updated translation information for Asian and European languages.
  • Fixed issue with El Camino mission which could prevent it from progressing.
  • Fixed issue with Desert Expedition mission which prevented players from continuing if they left the game during the boss fight.
  • Fixed several issues relating to reloading mission state.
  • Fixed issue with scanned meta-deposits not reloading properly.
  • Fixed issue where cosmetic rain was not applying effects correctly.
  • Fixed issue with some accolades where the quantities in descriptions were incorrect values.
  • Fixed issue with mislabelled Cougar accolade.
  • Fixed issue where Coal Ore could be taken off-world.
  • Fixed issues where some electrical wires could not be deleted.
  • Fixed issue where some outposts were missing their map image
  • Fixed issue where players could use invalid characters in naming their outposts.
  • Fixed issue with 'If It Works' talent where knives can split trees but don't grant wood on auto-collect.
Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.