Once Human: Isles of Abyss turns the ocean into a giant living nightmare
No, the lighthouses are not safe
- Explore five dangerous sea regions
- Build from skiffs to sea fortresses
- Dive for resources beneath the waves
Lighthouses have one job, and it's keeping you off the rocks. Except, the ones in Once Human's Isles of Abyss expansion would sooner eat you, which tells you most of what you need to know about how Starry Studio sees the open sea.
Isles of Abyss is the biggest update Once Human has had since it launched in 2024, and it takes the Stardust-polluted world out onto the water. That water, it turns out, is alive. Surprise, surprise. The ocean is an ancient thing called the Sunken Lord, it's waking up, and it's watching everything that moves across its five sea regions. Jaws at least had the decency to be a shark.
Six rules is a lot for one body of water. They come from the logbook of Malla, a navigator who has, by her own account, “drowned a thousand times”. Between them they cover the ocean's nastier tricks, from those hungry lighthouses to islands that turn out to be living things in disguise.
A base that can leave is a good idea. You start out with small skiffs and can work all the way up to Mobile Sea Fortresses, floating bases with a workshop and heavy guns bolted on. It's base-building, or boat-building, I suppose, though at that size the difference is mostly whether it floats.
Off the boat, you're hopping between islands and diving underwater for treasure and resources, and whatever you haul back feeds into your progression on land.
Isles of Abyss arrives in Once Human on October 22nd as a free update across PC, mobile, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Cross-play and cross-progression cover the lot, so your mobile save comes with you whichever screen you pick up.
Here’s rule seven from me: don’t sail towards lighthouses.
Before you lay down a keel, our Once Human codes have some freebies to put towards that first hull.
