Soulmask's Bone Bash update lands on 22 October. It's CampFire Studio's first festival DLC, themed on Día de Muertos, and it comes in three parts: a free festival storyline for everyone, a paid cosmetic DLC, and new themed Official Servers. The free part changes existing characters, so the first thing a lot of your players will see after the update is their Chieftain as a walking skeleton. That's intended, and the save isn't broken.
What's in the update
The free storyline: you come back as a skeleton
CampFire's devlog says: "When you log back in after the update, you'll find yourself as a walking skeleton", as if you'd died exactly once. Awareness X then tells you how to get your body back. Head into a Barbarian camp in the rainforest, or in the River Delta if you play on Shifting Sands, and pay your respects at the Marigold Altar there. The devlog offers a shortcut too: "you could just go die properly once".
The camps sit in the starter areas, so they're quick to reach. Under the Altar's influence they've become a Land of the Dead, with marigolds everywhere, towering painted skulls and skeletal Barbarians still hard at work. Paying your respects also permanently unlocks the skeleton look, so anyone who likes it can keep it, and dress the rest of the tribe up to match.
Carved Stone building set
The paid Bone Bash DLC is what CampFire calls "the heart of this festival", and its store page says every item in it is cosmetic: "No gameplay advantage is granted." Its headline is Carved Stone, a new Aztec-style building set with 56 building pieces, per the store page. CampFire's own pitch: "Always wanted a proper Aztec pyramid? Now you can build exactly that in your own territory."
Marigold decorations
The Marigold Set is 43 Día de Muertos decorations. The devlog names a few of them: the Marigold Altar that "summons your ancestors to dance after revival", flower beds that spread into a sea of marigolds, and war drums that get your Tribesmen partying.
Skeleton skins and a panther saddle
The devlog describes:
- several skeleton skins
- a Día de Muertos Black Panther saddle
- a different headpiece for each type of Tribesman, so you can still tell who's who once the whole tribe is bones
The store page counts it as 4 Tribesman skins, 2 character accessories and 1 mount skin.
Homecoming Revelry: a Mask that doesn't fight
Homecoming Revelry is the DLC's Mask (the store page lists it as a Mask appearance called Joyous Return), and CampFire calls it "a purely recreational Mask". It pulls everyone around you into the celebration. Every so often a new Tribesman drawn in by the festivities comes to join your tribe, though the devlog admits "none of them are powerhouses". Its Mimicry Mode opens a portal made of flowers that teleports your Tribesmen out in the wild back home to join the party.
The studio is firm about balance: "Homecoming Revelry's abilities provide no combat or stat advantages whatsoever."
Controller overhaul and a new tutorial
Two base-game changes are coming too:
- Controller support: a new radial menu and UI adjustments, scheduled to ship alongside Bone Bash. CampFire warns that it "may still have rough edges", and says it will keep adjusting from feedback.
- New player tutorial: reworked from the ground up for what CampFire calls "the upcoming version", with the focus on deploying Tribesmen as followers and on how to assign and use Assignments.
The devlog also says the studio is collecting videos and save files of Tribesman AI problems so it can rework their behaviour. There's no date on it, though the devlog says "I believe this won't take long."
What your server needs to do
- Take a backup before 22 October. The storyline changes every character on the world the first time they log in, so a copy from before the update is your way back if anything goes wrong. Keep a copy of your server settings with it.
- Update the server on the day. CampFire hasn't said anything about dedicated servers for Bone Bash yet. For Patch #21 on 15 October, the dedicated server builds went live on Steam within about a minute of the game's, and a server left on the old build can't take players on the new one.
- Tell your players about the skeletons. One line in your Discord before the update saves a lot of "my character is broken" messages.
- Bring a modded server up vanilla first. A big update is when mods are most likely to break. Re-add them once their authors confirm they work, and keep the backup from step 1 until they're back.
Self-hosting? The dedicated server is Steam app 3017310 on Windows and 3017300 on Linux:
steamcmd +login anonymous +app_update 3017310 validate +quit
steamcmd +login anonymous +app_update 3017300 validate +quit
If players still can't join after updating, our troubleshooting guide covers the usual causes. To run your own Soulmask server with us, see Soulmask server hosting.
What's coming next
- Over the next few days: CampFire says it will "gradually reveal everything we've prepared for this celebration". That includes what the devlog calls a "massive" community festival for Bone Bash, teased as the "24/7 Factory of the Dead".
- 22 October: Bone Bash and the controller overhaul go live, and the themed Official Servers open. The reworked tutorial is due in "the upcoming version", which CampFire hasn't dated.
FAQ
Do my players need to buy Bone Bash to play on my server?
Not for the festival itself: the storyline is free for everyone. Carved Stone, the Marigold decorations, the skins and Homecoming Revelry are in the paid DLC, and CampFire hasn't said yet how DLC pieces look to players who don't own it.
Does Bone Bash wipe my server?
No wipe is mentioned. The devlog describes existing characters logging back in as skeletons, which only happens on a world that carries over.
Can I turn the skeleton storyline off?
CampFire hasn't said. The devlog doesn't mention a server setting for it, so expect every character to start as a skeleton until the patch notes say otherwise.
Does the dedicated server need to own the DLC?
The devlog doesn't cover it. The dedicated server downloads through an anonymous SteamCMD login, so there's no account on it to buy anything with.
What time does the update go live?
CampFire hadn't posted a time when this was written. For reference, Patch #21's notes went up at 7:50 AM UTC on 15 October, and the build itself went live at about 9:06 AM UTC (10:06 AM UK).
Sources: CampFire Studio's devlog Our Festival DLC Is Almost Here!, Soulmask 1.0 Patch #21 and the Bone Bash store page.