More RimWorld is coming with version 1.3, which will add some major, free features to the game. The expansion was announced on July 4, and the beta is currently playable now by changing your game settings on Steam to allow of beta updates. Along with the free update, the paid expansion “Ideology” will also be coming out with the full release of 1.3.

VERSION 1.3

The next free update to RimWorld will, like previous updates, contain a lot of stuff that was previously available through mods. One big one is that you can drag paths for people to move, rather than the “best path” method of before. With the current vanilla pathing system, pawns will try to get to places in the easiest way possible, which sometimes means walking right through the firing line of enemies. To get them somewhere safely, you’d have to tell them to go to multiple different points in the map in a row, which involved a lot of clicking. Not only with the path drawing system help protect pawns from being wounded, it can help protect wounded pawns as well. Pawns can be told to carry downed enemies to any safe spot to get patched up, rather than directly to the hospital. Currently, pawns will often bleed out while being carried to safety, especially when far away from the base. In addition to that, pawns will now be able to carry medicine with them, allowing them to do better medical work away from your hospital. All of this is something that will allow for a lot fewer sarcophagi in your base.

Another big update is the faction goodwill system. RimWorld has always had a goodwill system with other factions, but it was always pretty basic. Do something good for a faction and they’ll like you more, do something bad and they’ll like you less. A natural goodwill range was later added, which your goodwill would slowly creep towards based on whether the faction were either good guys or bad guys, but there still wasn’t much more to it. Now, neighbors will keep a record of what you’ve done, and why they like or dislike you. Since factions are spread around the world and share the same goodwill regardless of what community they live in, this likely means that the weight of goodwill actions will be heavier with people you often interact with than with the people who you don’t know very well.

There are some more pretty big additions, like an animal pen system and a new type of enemy wall breachers. And beards. But let’s get away from the free stuff and get into…

IDEOLOGY

The pawns in RimWorld have always have beliefs–of their own. When RimWorld: Ideology releases alongside 1.3, you’ll be able to to create create an ideology for the entire base. Want to wear human hats and eat yummy people, as the RimWorld community says your should do? Create a cannibal faction. Want to tell the prosthetic-haters–who I personally think are some of the worst people on the rim–that they can suck it? Create a society of trans-humanists who long for as many super-duper mega-awesome powerlegs as they can get on their bodies. There’s not a whole lot of information about how this will work so far. It sounds like a factions ideology choices might override a pawns beliefs, which may turn all of your people into bland copies of each other. However it appears from screenshots that ideologies can only have three beliefs (plus any structural beliefs that make up the more bigger ones, like cannibals not being allowed to be vegetarians), so there may still be some difference to your pawns. We’ll just have to wait and see when more information is released.

In addition to the main ideology system, the paid expansion comes with more stuff, like new creatures, new quests, and a new ending. The ideology system also has a lot more to it than just changing traits, such as beliefs about what kinds of clothing to wear, what kinds of rituals to perform, and what kinds of buildings to construct. We still don’t know a lot about it (more information will be getting released in the future), but to read everything for yourself, you can check out Tynan Sylvester’s announcement on Steam.

Are you a RimWorld fan? Will you be purchasing Ideology when it’s released? Be sure to tell us in the comments below, or on Facebook and Twitter!