Progress Update 11/07/2026

Welcome to your weekly Thrive Progress Update! Time flies, and next week will already be the last one to add new features for the 1.9 release. This week saw work being done on some of those features that are not yet finished, but did also have some finished additions to UI and gameplay, as well as one major supporting change:

Following many problems with Weblate, we have finally switched over to a new system for handling Thrive translations. This new system is a custom-built one that we hope will eliminate the regular time spent fixing the Weblate version. As the system is new, we are very hoping for people to help us test the new translations system.

There were also three more directly visible changes made this week. Firstly, the precise layout tab in the Multicellular Editor now shows a white outline for each cell, so you can actually tell where each starts and ends. Secondly, the sexual reproduction option was improved by allowing gametes to be spawned into the game individually, instead of only being produced by organisms existing on/near what you can view. Finally, auto-evo can now add additional copies of organelles to existing cell types, instead of only placing more cells (or creating new cell types for organelles it does not have yet).

Meanwhile, over on the Development Forums, the absolute number of different topics was lower than some other weeks. But we did se more discussion on handling player species extinction, mass extinction events and better marketing Thrive on Steam.

Look below for some additional details and screenshots if you're interested, and we'll see you next week for the last big additions to 1.9!

Programming

• New Devbuild available to our Patreon Supporters:
  • Added workarounds around object lifetimes in the engine. We were able to fix a few cases which should improve long play session game stability, but we still need to wait for a full fix from the engine.
  • Added cell borders to the manual layout view
  • Added randomly spawning gamete cells in the environment for species using sexual reproduction
  • Auto-evo task seeds are now derived from an overall seed
  • Auto-evo species names now also use the overall run seed
  • Auto-evo can now add more organelles to existing cell types
  • Fixed a race condition in auto-evo that sometimes lost mutation candidates that were generated
  • Optimized random organelle placement order generation in auto-evo
  • Fixed custom cursor shapes leaking always on exit (while we wait for a fixed engine version)
  • Updated code checking tools
  • Updated native code dependencies and their build options to keep them working
  • Updated the GDExtension version we compile with from 4.3 to 4.5
  • Thrive build scripts now set a user agent when fetching precompiled libraries
  • Updated Jolt physics engine version
  • Updated AngleSharp from 1.8.6 to 1.9.1
  • Updated translations

Graphics

• Nothing substantial.

Gameplay

• For sexually reproducing species, gametes can now be spawned into the game on their own. This should make the feature easier to use, particularly for larger species (which are spawned in less often) and species that are less mobile.
• Multicellular auto-evo, when trying to add more of an organelle, will now try adding more of it to a cell type that already has the highest amount, instead of only adding more cells of that type.
• Game design discussions:
  • More discussion on the handling player species extinction.
  • Comments on significant environmental changes in the Macroscopic Stage.

UI

• The precise layout tab of the Multicellular Editor now shows outlines for each cell. This makes it much easier to see what you can move as one block without trying individually and makes it more clear what is causing overlaps.

Sound

• Nothing substantial.

Theory

• Nothing substantial.

Outreach

• Development Forum discussion on better marketing Thrive on Steam, particularly the idea of adding a demo.
• The second loading screen art contest is still ongoing, but will likely be ending within about a month. Art submissions of any level of quality or experience are welcome!

Other

• Please help us test our new community translations system by taking a look at the following community forums thread: https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/new-thrive-translations-website/9282