Once Human’s Isles of Abyss free expansion hits PS5 October 22

PlayStation.Blog announced October 21, 2026 that Once Human’s free Isles of Abyss expansion launches on PlayStation 5 on October 22, 2026.

PlayStation.Blog said the expansion requires no separate purchase or download through the PlayStation Store. timesaver.gg said Once Human is free to play on every platform, and Starry Studio said the update arrives free the same day on PC, mobile and Xbox Series X/S alongside PS5 with full cross-play and cross-progression. The guide said the build goes live during scheduled server maintenance, arriving October 21 PT and October 22 in EU and Asia depending on region.

PlayStation.Blog said DualSense haptic feedback lets players feel the Sunken Lord’s heartbeat beneath the hull along with crashing waves, sea storms and hull-creaking impact during naval combat. The blog also said adaptive triggers provide realistic resistance when firing heavy naval cannons or launching grappling lines into enemy vessels. It said the PS5’s lightning-fast SSD enables seamless transitions from land exploration to captaining a ship or diving into underwater trenches without interrupting survival flow.

Tech Times said Quality Mode delivers 4K at 60 frames per second, while Performance Mode targets 120 frames per second. A new first-person perspective option lets players switch seamlessly between classic third-person view and close-quarters first-person vantage at any time. These features are available on the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions.

The entire ocean in Isles of Abyss is a massive, conscious entity known as The Sunken Lord, and the water surface is its physical body. Staring lighthouses called Towers and spectral ghost ships called Voyagers act as The Sunken Lord’s organs and manifestations of its dark will. The sea constantly watches players, reacts to their presence, and feeds on their fear. Dynamic regional threats include suffocating mysterious fogs, violent black tides and skies raining temporal fire.

Regional bosses anchored in colossal towers stand between players and the final confrontation with The Sunken Lord. Malla, an enigmatic navigator who has drowned a thousand times, left logbook entries warning of six critical survival rules for the ocean. The six critical rules expose ocean lethal traps including predatory lighthouses and disguised living islands.

Players begin Isles of Abyss on a starter island and can choose the order in which they explore the remaining four oceanic regions, creating unique growth paths. They start with a basic wooden raft that will not last long against a sea that wants to devour them, then build, customize and upgrade their vessel into a fully functional mobile Sea Fortress that serves as forward base, workshop, heavy artillery platform and primary survival tool. Ship designs range from classic wooden pirate ships with broadside cannons to industrial drilling rigs, sleek sci-fi aircraft carriers and completely wild abstract floating fortresses. Players can team up with friends to form player fleets and coordinate ship designs to tackle different oceanic hazards together.

Tech Times said ship capability directly determines which content players can engage, with better-equipped vessels able to pursue higher-tier Voyager vessels and sustain combat against simultaneous threats. The Ship-Controlled Artillery system lets players open a weapon-selection interface via the ship’s wheel while moving and designate artillery pieces for targeting, enabling the ship to fire while in motion. Players may shoot a drifting Voyager vessel from afar or pull up alongside it and take the high-tier loot after boarding.

PlayStation.Blog said Isles of Abyss introduces a seamless, mutually feeding progression loop between land and sea across three layers: sea surface navigation, island exploration and deep underwater diving. Resources gathered from mysterious islands fuel naval tech and heavy weaponry needed for open-water encounters. Venturing into the deep sea unlocks specialized materials that enhance terrestrial gear and base progression. Under the waves, a dedicated exploration layer lets crews dive into sunken ruins to recover lost treasure, harvest rare aquatic resources and hunt deep-sea prey to sustain the crew and gain special materials.

Tech Times said Haywire Zones are enclosed areas overriding standard game rules with distinct environmental conditions, and Tech Times has confirmed four: Mist of Deceit, Skyfire, Time Rain and Black Tide. Mist of Deceit ties a player’s visible range to current health, reducing sight as health drops. In Skyfire, meteors strike constantly while players try to extract resources. Time Rain speeds up plant and animal growth but wears gear down faster, while Black Tide piles up successive Pollution Zones that stack compounding survival demands.

Tech Times said Calamity Towers appear on the open sea when the server’s shared World Progress advances, and clearing one for the first time sends rewards to every player on that server all at once. After the server transitions to Phase II, Calamity Zones appear with randomized internal layouts, and clearing them contributes to a server-wide Purification Progress meter. When the meter reaches 100 percent, the Sunken Lord dungeon unlocks for all players on the server. The Sunken Lord challenge is an 8-player Legion Dungeon and the first endgame raid the game has produced at this scale.

Timesaver.gg said players sign up for a server running Isles of Abyss through Scenario Selection rather than entering the scenario from the map, and new-scenario servers open in waves by region. They pick a server in their region among NA, EU, SEA, SA, HK-MO-TW or JP-KR, and the region locks once a character is created there. Each Isles of Abyss server caps at roughly 6,000 to 8,000 players. Players can enter a full server only using a Special Invitation Code generated from a friend’s profile, and the code is server- and region-specific while the server remains genuinely full with a join slot open.

Timesaver.gg said two server pools exist: untagged cross-platform servers where PS5, Xbox, PC and mobile players mix, and Console-tagged servers that are console-exclusive and cannot cross-play with PC or mobile. To squad with PC friends on Isles of Abyss, all players must sign up for the same untagged cross-platform server in the same region.

Timesaver.gg said joining Isles of Abyss starts a new character at level 1 on a new server, but account progress is safe and the existing character remains on its own server. Players can keep a character on another scenario such as Manibus and switch to Isles of Abyss using the mode-switch button in the upper-left corner without deleting anything. Account-wide items carried into Isles of Abyss include weapon and armor blueprints with star ratings, blueprint fragments, accessories, Mods, cosmetics, appearance and house blueprints. Account-wide items also include learned furniture formulas, Starchrom, Crystgin, Mitsuko’s Marks, Silver Keys, main and side story progress and Battle Pass progress.

Timesaver.gg said character level, Memetics, map discovery, territory and base placement, and scenario-specific items reset to zero in the fresh scenario. Crafted items, materials and captured Deviations move into Eternaland, a persistent personal hub, and players spend Supply Points to pull a capped amount of gear into the new scenario. Reserving Isles of Abyss is a free in-game event granting launch-day and milestone rewards but is not required to play, and the scenario is open to everyone at launch.

The official scenario description reads as a PvE maritime survival experience involving gathering resources, building facilities and confronting threats, though Starry Studio has not stamped a definitive PvE-or-PvP label on an official scenario page. Timesaver.gg said players should treat it as PvE-leaning survival until the studio confirms the label at launch.

HappyGamer said Once Human reached Steam on July 9, 2024, and Steam lists user reviews as Mostly Positive across 191,603 reviews as of October 21, 2026. Tech Times said Once Human is a post-apocalyptic survival game developed by Starry Studio and published by NetEase, set in a world warped by Stardust after the Starfall event. It said publisher NetEase self-reports that Once Human has accumulated more than 30 million players across PC and mobile.

Tech Times said Once Human landed on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro and Xbox Series X|S on August 25, 2026, bringing the game to the living-room market for the first time. At console launch, Once Human includes six scenarios, a PvP mode and more than 300 hours of content. Every prior Once Human scenario since the July 2024 PC launch took place on a continuous landmass navigated on foot or by vehicle, but Isles of Abyss replaces that with a scattered island-cluster ocean map.

Tech Times said Isles of Abyss received two rounds of confidential Pioneer Testing between June 17 and July 8, 2026, with roughly 2,000 selected players under non-disclosure agreement, and feedback fed into the final build. Cross-progression is fully supported, so progress carries between platforms with no restart required. PS4 and Xbox One are not supported, and the console release is current-generation only.

Tech Times said paid content in Once Human is limited to cosmetics, Battle Passes and convenience items only, with no pay-to-win mechanics affecting PvP balance or combat capability. Tech Times said NetEase has planned Vision Wheel Season 5 for November 2026, described as built around sound as its central gameplay mechanic.