Something terrible is afoot at RimWorld. Or rather, RimWorld is already quite frightening. Cannibalism and all that.

Sorry, what was I talking about! RimWorld has announced a new expansion called "Anomaly" that promises "all manner of monstrous, mystical, and insane threats. It centers on what happens when unlucky settlers offend "crazy superintelligences," a Lovecraftian litany of horrors that will try to annoy everyone if they get themselves in a bad mood.

Claiming inspiration from Cabin in the Woods, The Cthulhu Mythos, The Thing, Hellraiser, and more, this expanded version of RimWorld - Anomaly seems to bring a terrifying new challenge to your colony. You must build proximity alarms to detect invisible soul-eating hunters, deal with parasites that infect the colony's inhabitants and turn them into contagious Manchurian candidates, defend yourself against the growing mass of flesh enveloping the land, and suppress the "filthy energy" of the "pulsating obelisk" near your base

"I have to do things like...

My favorite new element is the "beautiful golden cube" that enthralls the colonists. They erect statues of the cube. They worship the cube. They love the cube. Hey, man, this cube doesn't sound half bad! Maybe I should get into cubes myself.

Lucky for us, this expansion has a variety of new tools to ward off these new threats. Everything you'd expect: flamethrowers, new guns, and more. Ludeon of RimWorld Studios also promises "IEDs to resurrect the dead" and "pulsars to mutate bodies that transform creatures," all of which have a very ethical ring to them: hellguns that mutate bodies, like those used by Albert Schweitzer. They can also research new threat fragments in order to find new ways to counter new threats.

Tynan Sylvester, founder of Ludeon, said, "We wanted to give players a new kind of emotion that they had never encountered in RimWorld: ...... We wanted to provoke new feelings of fear, psychological tension, suspicion, and mystery," he said, explaining why he branched out into the unattainable: horror. The theme of horror unleashes a new emotional landscape for us to explore.

"And then I saw 'Cabin in the Woods,' and I thought Monster Lab was amazing."

RimWorld - Anomaly doesn't have a specific date yet, but it is "Coming soon" next month. If you want to know the development status, you can follow it on Steam.

Update: This article has been changed to more specifically note that the expanded version is scheduled for release next month.