Frosthaven: Into the Abyss Preview - Life is better, down where it's wetter

With the other major Frosthaven content updates, we've explored the lands surrounding our outpost, bundling ourselves up for more snow, ice, and tundra, or delving deep into the hidden caves and dungeons full of secrets. Now, for Into the Abyss, we unfurl our sails and ready our breathing masks, as we head across and into the depths of the ocean.

As you might expect from the name of this final content update, most of the story is to do with water. This also includes gameplay mechanic changes for fights on the water and under it, as well as two new characters that feel very much suited to splashing about among the tides. As we were told the player base isn't very keen on spoilers (who is?) we'll use the non-spoiler names for these two characters. They're called Kelp and Coral by the development team, and have unique abilities as well as designs that separate them from the rest of the Frosthaven heroes you can bring on your adventures.

The new fellas might be the most adapted to an underwater environment, but there are some nice little details for the pre-established heroes you can bring with you. We were shown the Blinkblade wearing a snazzy little mask which allows them to breathe underwater, for example, and were told that there are plenty of mechanics that'll mean underwater combat is more than just a change of scenery with the odd bubble effect here and there. Our enemies and potential allies in Into the Abyss are the Lurkers, a crustacean race of people that are wonderfully alien in their design, as well as being quite diverse. There are leaner lobsters and bulkier crab-looking dudes, again showing Frosthaven's great character design. You see it a lot with the playable heroes, but it's also nice to see you're not just fighting different coloured crabs for the new missions.

Outside of the content that's specific to the underwater missions, heroes, and story, Into the Abyss also brings a lot of welcome visual and UI changes to the game. We're not quite at the stage where every hero has their own tutorial yet, but we do have plenty of other fan-requested features implemented. There are new animations, gauges for each character, clearer information about obstacles, traps, and terrain. There's new options, too, which allow you to customise how you play, such as the ability to give you a reminder of all your played cards before you end your turn, and more camera options that mean it won't fly all over the place, only focusing on your character when you take damage. These things might only be noticed by a select portion of Frosthaven's player base, but when you add minor details like that, fans are sure to appreciate it and the effort that it takes.

Outside of the new options and visual improvements you'll see on the map in combat, Into the Abyss prepares the non-combat aspects of Frosthaven for 1.0 as well. At your camp, you'll now have a calendar, just like in the board game, something that fans have been requesting for a long time. You'll also have new reminders thrown at you when taking a look at your outpost, making sure you're aware of any upgrades and things like that, akin to a strategy game like Civ where you can't press next turn until you've at least acknowledged all the things you can do prior. Adding to the sense that players can now take the game at the pace they please, and look at content when they want, story events can now be minimised until later, meaning you don't have to ignore a hero's retirement if you've got another priority in the moment they decide to hang up their hat, for example.

A lot of Frosthaven's Into the Abyss changes feel like they've brought the initial vision of the game to life. It feels like only yesterday I was checking the Early Access release out for the first time, a bit unsure of its barebones appearance. Now, the game looks like a brilliant recreation of the popular board game, as well as a great dungeon crawler in its own right. The underwater content is a welcome addition, but after exploring that, players will likely be most impressed by how improved the overall experience is now. There are still nice-to-haves that are missing, like the aforementioned character tutorials, but this latest batch of content for Frosthaven feels like it best encompasses the feedback Snapshot Games has had since day one from fans.