The bizarre classical roguelike Caves of Qud (opens in new tab) received an update today, adding the final end-game region of Qud and a new stretch of main quests to go along with it.Qud has been updated many times before, but the main quests additions since Tomb of the Eaters (open in new tab) a few years ago.

The "Staircase of the Moon" update is a massive one, adding all kinds of new creatures and items in addition to the "Staircase of the Moon" itself. It also includes a new village, Chavvah, as well as the Tree of Life and its NPCs, as found in Qud, a post-apocalyptic science fantasy landscape.

There is also an updated UX and UI overhaul of Qud, making the game more accessible than ever. While very traditional roguelike in many respects, the new UI adds multifunctional support for controllers, mice, and more. In this latest design pass, extensive renderings like the play area have been tweaked, and new UI bits have been added to things like targets, options, and help screens.

Of course, no update to Qud would be complete without such delightfully dickish additions as: "New liquid added: warm static electricity" which apparently can be drunk. New liquid added: warm static" This is apparently something to drink. After all, this is a game that can have 12 arms (opens in new tab). [If you're interested in science fantasy, dynamic storytelling, deep simulation mechanics, and classic roguelikes, hurry up and dive in. Hundreds of hours of fun await you.

New creatures are also on the way: "Zero Jelly, Unimax, Dawning Ape, n-dimensional Star Shell, Dream Clangr, Growlithe Apotheote, Monad and Dream Wren. And, as Freehold Games told us in an email, "there are a lot of very strange things that can only be found in areas that have been terraformed by psychic crystals." The full patch notes can be found on Steam. (opens in new tab)

You can find Caves of Qud on GOG (opens in new tab), itch.io (opens in new tab), Steam (opens in new tab).