Soulmask Patch #21 landed on October 22, 2026, and it is the biggest seasonal drop the game has had: a free Día de Muertos storyline, reworked controller support, a search bar in Building Mode, and the paid Bone Bash DLC packed with Carved Stone and Marigold building pieces. The official Soulmask patch notes call it a client update, so every player has to update, and if you run your own server that means you update too. Here is what changed, what is free versus paid, and the settings worth copying from the official festival servers.
When Did the Soulmask Bone Bash Update Release?
Patch #21 and the Bone Bash DLC both went live on October 22, 2026, after a short devlog countdown from the developers. Because it ships a new client, players on the new build and a server on the old one will not mix. Update the server first, then tell your players to update, and do it in a quiet hour rather than at peak.
The Free Festival Storyline: You Log In as a Skeleton
The first thing everyone sees after the update is their own character reduced to bones. Awareness X explains that you have to travel into a Barbarian camp in the rainforest (or the River Delta if you play on Shifting Sands) and pay your respects at the Marigold Altar to get your body back. The lazy alternative also works: die once properly.
Paying respects at the altar permanently unlocks the skeleton look, so it doesn't vanish when the festival ends. The beginner-area camps in Misty Forest and Golden Sands now carry Marigold decorations and altars, and their elites and bosses picked up special Day of the Dead skills, so fresh characters will notice the change in their first hour.
What Else Is in the Soulmask Patch Notes?
Away from the festival, Patch #21 carries several changes that matter more in the long run:
- Controller support, reworked. The developers rebuilt it and opened a dedicated controller feedback channel on their Discord. They openly say it is not finished, so expect follow-up patches.
- Building Mode search plus better categorization rules. On a server with a lot of DLC and community pieces, this is the quality of life change your builders will actually use.
- Training Grounds can now be told which Talents and Specializations to teach.
- Optimized beginner tutorial, nicer lighting on wall torches and oil lamps, and a tuned Red Crystal embedding system.
- Fixes: paintings no longer misbehave, and Water Vapor Collectors work in the areas where they used to collect nothing.
- Mine components are now crafted at the Workshop, with more Wood and Stone proficiency.
- New characters can see map markers for wild alpacas in the Rainforest.
There is also a free Marigolds furniture set made by community mod author leesiontoo. The developers were explicit that it is a free update for everyone and is not tied to the DLC.
Bone Bash DLC: What You Pay For
Bone Bash is cosmetic only. The developers state it grants no stat or combat advantage, which keeps PvP servers fair. It contains:
- Joyous Return, a new recreational Mask, unlocked when you activate the Mysterious Stone Platform. Its Constraint Module is crafted there with Green Crystal.
- 3 Tribesman skins (Catrina, Longevity and Blessings, Chieftain's Secret), the Deathbringer mount skin and 2 mask accessories.
- 43 decorations and 56 building pieces, including the full Carved Stone set with an Aztec look and the Marigolds festival set, both unlocked from the Tech Tree.
Bone Factory Blueprints and Unlimited Build Mode
The showpiece of the trailer, a community-built Bone Factory, has been split into several structures and added to the Blueprint library, so anyone can place one with a single click. The catch: some of those structures are so large and expensive that Unlimited Build Mode must be enabled to build them.
On your own server that is an admin decision, not a player one. Before you switch it on, think about what a one-click factory does to a server. Every placed piece and decoration is something the server tracks, and a few players each dropping a full factory adds up fast. If your server already feels heavy, our Soulmask server lag guide covers where the load really comes from.
The Official Festival Server Settings (and How to Copy Them)
The developers opened Bone Bash Festival Servers on October 22 with rates that make a great template for a relaxed private server:
- 5x XP, gathering and crop yield
- 3x Barbarian taming speed, animal growth and crop growth
- 2x carry weight and inventory capacity
- 10 bonfires per player
- Tribe sizes of 4 or 10 players
- Peaceful mode: no raids and no decay
The official servers wipe after 30 days. Yours doesn't have to. On a dedicated server these multipliers live in GameXishu.json under WS/Saved/GameplaySettings/. Three things we see go wrong on customer servers:
- Stop the server before editing. A running server can overwrite your changes.
- Change every copy. Values such as
ExpRatioappear in more than one block in the file, and changing only the first one does nothing. - Validate the JSON. One missing comma and the server ignores the file or fails to boot.
Peaceful mode with no decay is the setting most likely to cause arguments later, because abandoned bases never disappear. On a public server, consider keeping decay on and only boosting the rates.
What This Means for Your Server
- Back up first. Take a backup in the Backups tab before you update, the same as for every client and server patch.
- Update the server, then the players. Mixed builds cannot connect.
- Decide on Unlimited Build Mode before your players ask, and tell them why if the answer is no.
- Check your RAM if you plan on blueprint factories and boosted rates. Our Soulmask RAM calculator gives you a number in seconds.
Worth Coming Back For?
If your tribe went quiet after the summer patches, yes. The skeleton storyline is short but charming, Building Mode search fixes a real annoyance, and festival rates are a low-effort way to restart a server without a wipe. The DLC is pure decoration, so buy it for the Carved Stone set if your group loves building.
Host Your Soulmask Server with DoomHosting
Want festival rates without a 30-day wipe? DoomHosting's Soulmask servers come with full file access to GameXishu.json, one-click backups, scheduled restarts and 24/7 support, so you can run Bone Bash on your own terms.
Death is not the end in Soulmask this month. A missed backup before the update might be.
