Once Human developer teases the first big update, apologizes for the last bad patch

Once Human developer Starry Studio has teased the first big update coming to the open world survival game, which will include new PvP and PvE modes and "a new northern mountain region, monsters, and challenges." First things first, though, an apology: It seems that a recent maintenance update broke numerous items in the game and caused the demolition of a whole bunch of player houses.

The problem came to light shortly after the rollout of a patch on July 18: Players on Reddit began complaining about items and bases—sometimes just parts, sometimes the whole thing—simply disappearing. It didn't take long to figure out that something, somewhere, had gone very wrong.

did anyone else's house got disemboweled after the patch??? from r/OnceHumanOfficial

Developer Starry Studio, a part of NetEase, fessed up to the problem the next day. "We have received feedback regarding item and territory losses after yesterday's maintenance," the studio wrote on Steam and Discord. "We apologize for the inconvenience. Both problems have been identified and are currently being resolved as quickly as possible."

Players who lost items while using Once Human's "deposit" function will have the missing inventory returned to them through in-game mail, along with unspecified "additional compensation." For those who suffered housing loss, Starry Studio said "we will repair the affected territories and return the lost items and building materials to your territory Vault." Extra compensation for those losses is also promised.

"We sincerely apologize to the Metas who were affected and extend our gratitude to the Metas who reported these issues through the community and other channels, helping us identify the problems," Starry Studio wrote. "Thank you for your understanding and support."

Most of my home's walls and foundation disappeared after the patch. But I found them... from r/OnceHumanOfficial

As Kotaku noticed, the problem came to light just after developers had posted a message on the Once Human Discord asking players to post positive reviews on Steam. The game already has a "mostly positive" rating across more than 38,000 user reviews, but it's precarious: Currently, 70% of the reviews are positive, and if that drops by one point the rating will slip to the far less appealing "mixed" descriptor.

In light of that, it's understandable that developers would want players to nudge the percentage up, and also why they would delete the request in short order once the bugged update came to light. Of course, the deletion did not go unnoticed:

Well, these things happen, and the headache does not appear to have deterred players. Aside from a big dip on July 18 when the patch was rolling out—a process that does not appear to have gone smoothly—the concurrent player counts have remained steadily high. Maybe more notably, the game has not been subject to an immediate review bombing campaign in response to the trouble, which I, an eternal optimist, take as a sign that players are overall enjoying the game and thus willing to grant it some grace.

As for that first big update, Starry Studio said it will include "a new PVP gameplay scenario featuring confrontations between the main camps in the game, Mayflies and Rosetta, [and] a new PVE scenario with a new northern mountain region, monsters, and challenges." It also shared a teaser image:

A release date hasn't been set, but the update is expected to be out sometime in September.