Posted in: Funcom, Games, Video Games | Tagged: Aloft, Astrolabe Interactive

Aloft Announces Bloom & Blight Update For November

Aloft has already annoucned its first major update, as the Bloom & Blight update will add several changes and upgrades this November

Funcom and developer Astrolabe Interactive have revealed new details for the first major update for Aloft, as the Bloom & Blight update arrives next month. The reason this is so big is because it will give almost every single aspect of the game a revamp or an improvement. Including world generation, tech progression, exploration and travel, ecosystem restoration, combat, planning, saves, and more. As well as streamlining a number of items and adding the new corruption strains and higher-tier tools and weapons. We have a snippet of their developer blog below, as the update goes live on November 4, 2025.

Aloft – Bloom & Blight

Progression in Aloft has been one of the biggest points of frustration for players, so we are overhauling the way you advance and unlock knowledge in the game through tech trees. And fret not: Knowledge Stones & Lost Anchors (along with the lore they brought) will remain part of the progression loop. Interacting with them will grant you the opportunity to learn technology from their corresponding tech tree. If you prefer, you will be able to save that knowledge and unlock a technology at your own pace later on. There will be a total of 3 types of tech trees, divided by type: a Knowledge tree for basic machinery, a Sailing tree for sailing equipment, and a Research tree for cure-related technologies. All 3 trees will feature thresholds, requiring Insight to continue purchasing further technologies. There are many reasons for and benefits to these changes:

• The current system forces a specific order for unlocking technologies. However, a lot of technologies unlock optional systems, like cooking, farming, and animal husbandry. A tech tree, by nature, lets us create optional technological branches that aren't mandatory to unlock. We want to give you the agency to decide which systems you are most interested in and want to unlock first.
• There was a lot of confusion about how to obtain certain resources and how to interact with game systems. Stumbling upon stones and learning things you didn't know existed doesn't contribute much to the gameplay loop. By letting you visualise the upcoming technologies, you can now see the answers to your questions coming up in the tech tree and make it a goal to unlock those items.

Sketching a technology will unlock it normally and will allow a player to start learning further technologies from that point on the tree, even if some technologies below remain locked. Additionally, this system encourages exploration to find building pieces & decor, while also allowing you to catch up to your friends who may have progressed further into their technological unlocks. Fresco technologies will appear on the tree, but cannot be unlocked through knowledge points. Once learned through the corresponding frescoes, they allow further technologies connected to them to be purchased.

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