Progress Update 11/14/2026

Hello and welcome to your weekly Thrive Progress Update! We have entered feature freeze for the release of Thrive 1.9, expected exactly one week from now. That also means we have a release candidate build for that release, that you can play early and test right now. If you do, please report on that thread any bugs or other problems you encounter.

It's only been a short time since 1.7, but we still have some major new features for you. Cell Cavities let you add some 3D depth to your Multicellular species, by moving them into a lower layer than other cells. This creates open spaces that other cells and chunks can fit inside. Another addition, the Axon organelle boosts all movement effects produced by other organelles throughout the organism. To fit with its new bigger role, the Axon received a model update as well.

The Oxygen and UV resistance system received an overhaul to make interacting with it a more interesting and dynamic experience, rather than something you only touch once or twice in a playthrough.On the UI side, a button was added to automatically re-generate a working cell growth order, and you can now see auto-evo population predictions in the Multicellular editor.

Meanwhile, over on the Development Forums, things were more quiet this week, with some discussion on extinction events, shell design and the second Community Loading Screen artwork contest which will be ending relatively soon.

So look below for additional details and screenshots if you're interested, test our release candidate build if you can, and we'll see you next time for the release of Thrive 1.9!

Programming

• New Devbuild available to our Patreon Supporters:
  • Added cavity cells feature. Cavity cells in multicellular provide increased adjacency bonuses and don't collide with other cells offering new gameplay possibilities.
  • Reworked how UV tolerance works. It now starts at 100% and decreases as more organelles are added.
  • Oxygen and UV resistance sliders now increase osmoregulation cost the higher they are
  • Added the axon organelle to multicellular. It acts as an overall buff to other parts of the cell rather than being useful on its own.
  • Added the auto-evo prediction panel to the multicellular editor
  • Reworked the membrane stretch feature to leave smaller gaps between cells in colonies
  • Added a button to automatically calculate main multicellular growth order
  • Added shadow quality and resolution settings
  • Fixed the initial part of the credits disappearing too soon if playing in a very tall aspect ratio
  • Added some safety fixes for gallery cards resuming playing while hidden and rebuilding the gallery on language change
  • Added aliases to the load console command to be able to run any stage starter
  • Fixed some slight positioning and size differences between different editors
  • Made auto-evo capture the endosymbiosis target in one operation rather than a separate check and later read
  • Refactored various parts of the auto-evo prediction panel in the editor to make the code better organized and cleaner
  • Refactored a few other minor parts of the editor to use shared code methods and also the preview cell feature was moved to a new class
  • Made the editor cancel any prediction runs on exiting and waiting for them to end before swapping game scenes
  • Improved performance of the separate experimental cloud renderer
  • Updated AngleSharp from 1.9.1 to 1.10.2
  • Updated System.IO.Hashing from 10.0.14 to 11.0.0
  • Updated Sugiyama library from 0.15.2 to 0.17.0
  • Updated code analysis tools
  • Fixed various code style warnings from the updated checking tools
  • Updated our StyleCop ruleset
  • Updated gdUnit4 C# API
  • Removed languages that were added a long time ago but never started by the community translators: aeb and frm
  • Updated translations

Graphics

• Added shadow quality and resolution settings.
• New Axon organelle model. It's larger, and typically sticks out under cells, rather than sticking into them.

Gameplay

• New Multicellular feature: cell cavities. By setting cells to be cavities in the editor, you can set them to be placed on a lower level than other cells. This means normal cells and small chunks can move over them, they don't block toxin shots from cells behind them, etc. They also provide double the adjacency bonus to adjacent cells. Only cells which have other cells covering at least 4 of the 6 sides can be made into cavities.
• Environmental tolerance reworks intended to make it a more interesting system to interact with:
  • Oxygen and UV resistance sliders now moderately increase osmoregulation cost the higher they are. This means you only want as much as is necessary, and there is reason to reduce it when possible. It also makes organelles that improve resistance more valuable.
  • UV resistance:
    • Now starts at 100% and decreases with size of the cell.
    • The slider is limited to 20%, meaning you eventually have to resort to organelles to keep up your resistance.
• Added the Axon organelle representing Neurons to the Multicellular Stage.
  • Buffs Flagella, Cilia and Actomyosin across the whole organism.
  • Only one can be placed per cell, so specialization is important.
  • Individual Axons become weaker the more of them you have in your body plan.
• Reworked the membrane stretch feature to leave smaller gaps between cells in colonies.
• Game design discussions:
  • New discussion on extinction events.
  • A reference for designing shells.

UI

• Added an option in the right-click menu on cells to make them into cavities.
• Added the auto-evo prediction panel to the multicellular editor.
• Added a button to automatically calculate a working multicellular growth order.

Sound

• Nothing substantial.

Theory

• Nothing substantial.

Outreach

• The second loading screen art contest will be ending soon. Art submissions of any level of quality or experience are welcome!

Other

• Nothing substantial.