A First Look: New Avatars

We have something exciting to share today. As part of our commitment to communicating more openly, we're giving you a real, raw, development look at our new character system.

Let us be clear: this is not the finished product. You'll notice colour artifacts in darker tones, some garment fitting that still needs adjustment, and shaders that aren't final yet. Makeup polish, and a lot of finishing touches still to come.

Even at this early stage, the jump in quality is clear. The models, the textures, the hair. It's a completely different level of fidelity, and that's before the final shaders, normal maps, and detail passes that will take things even further. We'll be sharing another round of screenshots very soon, and video footage too.

We are using a very modern baseline character, giving us high-fidelity meshes and a broad ecosystem to build on top of. We can already run them in CryEngine today for both player characters and NPCs, with the core animation set successfully converted and imported. The system isn't locked to a single base model either, which gives us real flexibility in how character creation works going forward.

On the garment side, we've built a batch-processing pipeline that converts all existing armours, clothing, weapons, and animations from the old character topology onto the new one automatically. Everything you own carries over cleanly.

Every humanoid in Entropia Universe will be rebuilt on these new models - and when they land in Unreal Engine 5, they are going to look even more incredible than what you're seeing here.

In-Game Video Capture

We want to give you the tools to share Entropia Universe with your friends, our community and also the outside world. That's why we've built a video capture system directly into the game client. It runs on an optimized GPU pixel buffer with very low overhead, so most of you won't notice any performance impact at all. No OBS, no extra software, no streamer PC. Just play the game.

The system captures footage in the background and lets you grab any recent moment with a hotkey. You can also set it to auto-capture specific events like HOFs, big kills, or deaths, so your best moments are saved without you even thinking about it.

From there, you can jump into the built-in editor and trim it up, or simply publish as is with a single click and no hassle at all. Share directly to YouTube from inside the game. TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms may follow, but YouTube is the focus at launch.

Recruit a Colonist

We're also building a referral system called Recruit a Colonist. You get a personal invite link, share it with anyone, and earn rewards as the people you bring in hit milestones in the game.

We're starting conservatively with the rewards. We want them to feel meaningful without opening the door to abuse, and we'll adjust as we see how things play out.

And it ties directly into the video system. Capture a great moment, upload it, drop your Recruit a Colonist link in the description. Your gameplay becomes your invite.

Extending New Player Content

We are excited to share that we are building on the existing work in overhauling the new player and lower level player experience with a brand new RDI lab, leading on from Fort Lahar. This provides a repeatable, show stopping dungeon and boss fight experience.

New arrivals to Calypso who seek danger and substantial rewards should venture into the RDI Lab. This content takes players deep into the Fort Lahar swamp to an underground, secret laboratory filled with hidden perils. To find it, follow the road west of Fort Lahar.