Encamp Devlog, September 2026

Encamp's September update adds human raiders, including a cannibal variant, and ties pawn behavior to personality traits. It also replaces the game's opening, adds perk trees to 12 skills and opens four new biomes.

Raiders

Human raiders are now the main threat once a colony has grown past its first days. They arrive in daylight as a warband led by a named captain, and some bring a battering ram. Their equipment is set one step behind the colony's best, so they arm up as the colony does.

Raiders walk in through any gap in a colony's walls or break a wall to make one. Anything they carry off the map is lost. A raider who goes down drops everything they took, so players can recover stolen goods by stopping the party at the wall or on its way out.

Players respond by drafting pawns, which pulls them off their work with one key. Drafted pawns can be sent at a target, ordered to advance across an area and fight anything in their path, or told to hold a position. The ram's roof shields its crew, and the hand cannon is the intended answer to it.

Cannibals

Cannibals are a variant of human raiders that start turning up as a colony grows stronger. They come in smaller parties, mostly archers, and leave the stores alone. The party fires at one pawn at a time and starts eating once that pawn is down. Players have 20 seconds to reach the pawn and carry them off. If no one arrives, the pawn dies and leaves a skull bearing their name, and every pawn who saw it takes a lasting mood penalty. The raiders leave once they have eaten their fill.

A New Opening

New colonies now start at golden hour with two pawns and one evening to get through. The first night covers lighting a fire, finding food, deciding whether to take in a stranger who approaches the camp, fighting off wolves and raising a signal pyre to draw recruits.

After that, players choose from a board of goals instead of a fixed sequence: shelter, food stores, a watch, exploration and early research. Completing two of them and planting a Home Flag founds the colony. Places worth searching, such as an abandoned camp or an overturned cart, now sit near the starting area from the first minute.

Traits That Drive Behavior

A pawn's traits now decide what it does. A pacifist refuses to fight, a heavy sleeper stays asleep through a raid and an empath seeks out whoever is in the worst mood. When a trait makes a pawn refuse an order, the game names the trait.

Pawns under sustained strain can reach a breaking point and withdraw, and the player's response decides whether they recover. Event cards now follow specific pawns as things happen to them, including a first kill, a nightmare, two rivals assigned to the same room and a pawn who returns from a long trip to find no one noticed.

In their free time, pawns sing, stargaze and tell stories at the fire. They gather after raids, and when the colony buries one of its own, the player decides whether work stops for a funeral. Beer is new as well. A drink relieves stress, while too many lead to fumbled work and a hangover.

Perk Trees

Twelve skills, including farming, mining, cooking, melee and shooting, now have perk trees. Each tree has three branches, and each branch ends in a capstone perk. A pawn earns a first point at level 8 and another every five levels after that, enough to complete two branches but not all three. Two farmers at the same level can therefore work very differently.

In farming, the Harvester branch raises the yield of each plot to nearly three times the base, while the Steward branch triples work speed. Other perks add abilities. A forester can regrow stumps in minutes, a hunter can fire three of every four shots without spending ammunition, a fighter with Iron Heart never bleeds and a master smelter gets double output from every craft.

Crafting skill now also sets item quality. Better smiths turn out more Fine and Masterwork weapons, armor and tools, which deal more damage, give more protection or work faster.

Expeditions and Parties

Players can now send pawns past the edge of the explored map. The send dialog sets who goes, their weapons and armor, their packs and their food. In the field, pawns drink a healing draught when a wound turns serious and bandage one another after a fight.

A first expedition may begin with a passing trapper who reports a wounded stranger lying in the open. A pawn sent out with a few days of food can bring the stranger home as a new recruit. Players can also pick any point on the world map as a destination.

Pawns sent out together remain a party after they return, with one badge and one map marker, and the party can be selected as a group or put on soldier duty. Outposts have also been fixed. Anyone passing through can sleep in their beds, and haulers from the home colony bring outpost materials back.

New Biomes and Weather

Four biomes are new: jungle, desert, savanna and arctic. The world is now laid out in broad climate bands, and biomes blend into one another at their borders. The desert has dunes, salt flats, dry riverbeds, oases and sandstone mesas, and the jungle has palms and kapok trees.

Weather is also new. Clouds, rain, thunderstorms and fog move across the map, and players in the same area see the same conditions. It is cosmetic for now, but it was built so it can affect gameplay later.

Other Changes

• Farming has its own branch of the tech tree. Milling turns wheat into flour, making bread the colony's staple. Wells and irrigation channels water fields on their own, greenhouses allow year-round crops and pawns can take cuttings from wild plants. The top of the branch is a tractor that sows and harvests whole strips.
• Pawns now want a varied diet, which improves their mood and work speed. Bread spoils when it is stockpiled, so a large harvest no longer lasts indefinitely.
• Starving pawns now weaken before they collapse, and other pawns can carry food to them.
• Sixteen new pieces of bedroom furniture range from candle stands and wardrobes to chandeliers and a four-poster bed. Bedrooms are now scored, and a better room means better sleep. Clicking a pawn's bed shows the available upgrades.
• Each pawn has its own skin, hair and clothing, and worn equipment shows on the pawn. Idle pawns warm their hands at the fire, stretch, lean on walls and wave at travelers.
• With no pawn selected, right-clicking a tree, rock or berry bush marks it for the colony. A new Gathering job collects clay, herbs, fiber and other loose materials.
• Pawns drink healing draughts when seriously wounded and throw them to injured allies without being told, picking the weakest potion that will do the job.
• Predators now keep away from new camps, even before a Home Flag is planted.
• The main menu plays live scenes from the game.
• New versions now come with an in-game countdown, and the game reloads on its own once the update is live.
• Encamp is now available in French and German.