Soulmask's next big update has a name, and it is not a subtle one. "Beyond Gravity" is what the team is calling the build that landed on the Public Test Branch on 18 August, and the first slice of it is playable right now. A new Shifting Sands region, three new Masks, a stack of fresh ruins and dungeons, and one new survival ability that quietly changes how a bad fight ends.
This is a test build and the announcement is refreshingly honest about it: you may still clip through the world into a bottomless void. Here is what actually changed, and how to go and look at it without putting your tribe's main server at risk.
Burning Highland is the headline
Burning Highland is a new area inside Shifting Sands, and it did not arrive empty. The PTB drop adds an Ancient Dungeon, the Holy Ruins, and a full Pyramid Ruins site with its own Pyramid Ruins Dungeon. A second Pyramid Ruins Dungeon has gone into Starfall Fields as well, and there are Floating Island Ruins in the mix, which is roughly where the "Beyond Gravity" name starts to make sense.
The team also mentions a new boss arriving with this content, so budget for at least one wipe before you work out the mechanics.
For a tribe server the practical effect is more high-value ground to fight over. Shifting Sands already pulled groups apart across the map, and Burning Highland adds another cluster of dungeon runs worth organising a proper party for. The update also adds exploration point tracking per map region, which gives the completionists in your tribe a checklist to grind through.
Three new Masks, and the drop table has moved
The three additions are Enforcer, Shadow Hunter, and Desert Overlord. Where they drop matters more than what they are called:
- Desert Overlord Mask: the pyramid in Starfall Fields
- Shadow Hunter Mask: the pyramid in Burning Highland
- Enforcer Mask and its Restrictive Module: the Holy Ruins in Burning Highland
- Shadow Hunter Mask Restrictive Module: also the Holy Ruins in Burning Highland
- Desert Overlord Mask Restrictive Module: Blackstone Cliff Ruins Dungeon
There is one relocation worth flagging. The Glorious Battle Hymn Mask Restrictive Module has been moved out of the Blackstone Cliff Ruins Dungeon and now drops at the Red Dunes Ruins instead. If your server has a farming route built around that dungeon, it needs rewriting before anyone wastes an evening on it.
Gene Recovery changes how a bad fight ends
The new Gene Recovery ability, on X by default, restores all of your HP when your character is Severely Injured or in Feign Death. It runs on a 60 second cooldown, and it is the single change here most likely to alter how you play.
Solo players get a real safety net for the first time. Dungeon groups get a way to salvage a run that has gone sideways instead of eating the corpse walk. The catch is deliberate: Gene Recovery is unavailable in War Mode. The team clearly weighed what a free full heal would do to raid fights and fenced it off, so PvE tribes get the cushion and PvP servers keep the stakes. If you run a War Mode server, nothing about your raid math changes.
The quality of life pile is bigger than it looks
Several of these matter far more on a shared server than in a single player world:
- The Tribesman Work Assignment UI has been overhauled and there is a new Job Status interface. Anyone managing a base full of tribesmen already knows why that is the best line in the changelog.
- The Training Ground now has a Mastery learning feature.
- There is a power-free variant of the Floating Foundation, which takes the energy budget out of floating builds.
- A Water Vapor Collector has been added, which is exactly the sort of thing a desert region needs.
- The Uncrafting Table now has an irreparable equipment category, so ruined gear is worth something again.
- Hammer basic attacks now run as a combo sequence, and two Spear Mastery animations have been replaced.
- The main menu has been redesigned into a cleaner two-tier layout, and there is finally a text size scaling option.
How to test the PTB without breaking your main server
Opting in is a client-side switch. Right-click Soulmask in your Steam library, open Properties, go to Betas, and pick "publictest" from the dropdown. Steam then downloads the test build over your existing install.
Here is the part people get wrong. A PTB client and a default branch server are different builds, and they will not talk to each other. Switching your client does not switch your tribe's server, and switching your server drags every single member onto the test build whether they wanted to go or not.
So if your tribe wants to poke at Burning Highland this week, the clean approach is a second server kept on the test build, with your main world left alone on the default branch. Back up both saves before you touch anything. This is a build whose own patch notes joke about falling through the world.
Should you move the tribe over?
Your main world, no. "Beyond Gravity" is an early drop, the changelog is light on balance tuning, and the feedback the team is asking for on Discord is the kind you only generate by breaking things.
A scouting trip, absolutely. This is a meaty slice for a test branch, and Burning Highland plus three Masks is more content than some games ship in a full patch. Spin up a throwaway Soulmask server for the week, take a few tribemates, and go and find out what the new boss does to you. Size it first with the Soulmask RAM calculator, and if anyone reports they cannot connect, the server status checker will tell you whether it is the server or the branch mismatch.
