Dev Diary: New Village Features

In our last Dev Diary, we covered the upcoming changes your feedback on the Alpha testing inspired us to make. With your help, we are shaping Nested Lands into an incredible, unique take on the survival genre.

Today, we’d like to take a deeper dive into the new Village Features that are currently in development… Without further ado, let’s get started!

New Art

We’re giving our NPCs a complete visual overhaul in Nested Lands — from new animations and body models, to updated clothing. As you might’ve seen in our recent posts, we are adding nudity to the game — and these changes are designed to support that shift while making our Villagers more detailed and lifelike than ever. Alongside that, we’re enhancing environmental elements like ruined buildings, rock formations, and fire effects to deepen the grim, immersive feel of the world. Some structures now bear strange, cryptic markings… What do you think they might mean?

Villagers Rework

One of the most requested improvements has been around village life, specifically how villagers manage their jobs and free time. We’ve made various important changes to the system that will make management more intuitive, easier, and streamlined:

• Now Villagers will help you build new structures,

• The default profession of the Villagers is now Worker, meaning they will gather resources and help you build things around the base,

• Villagers have become more social! They have more interactions between each other, like chitchat, eating at a shared table, working together, and so on,

• We’ve vastly improved the storage system, allowing villagers to handle their tasks more efficiently, instead of taking items one by one. And all storage chests in the village are now shared, meaning that your workers will know where to find each item,

• And finally, don’t be surprised if a villager triggers a new quest or an unexpected event. NPCs are more involved than ever!

Building Updates

Buildings are another game feature that we have improved upon with your feedback. We know how important it is for players to shape their village into something that feels personal and alive. That’s why each structure will come with three upgrade tiers — Basic, Advanced, and Complete. The basic level is what you’ve already seen in the Alpha — the original building with its essential functions. As you upgrade to Advanced and then Complete, not only will new crafting recipes and interactive features (like the repair anvil in the Blacksmith) become available, but the buildings will also receive visual upgrades to reflect their improved status.

The village will also have its own level, which increases with your building progress. For example, you’d need a Builder’s Hut, Carpenter, and Blacksmith, plus 4 villager houses, to level up your village to level 2. Leveling up your village will also increase the building area, and the building radius will be moved automatically to the new edge of your village. Your village will also have stats, like Protection, Happiness, Warmness, Radius, and others. We’ll dive deeper into how these work in upcoming posts.

Also, we are introducing a new building to serve as the Player’s Home, with a private bed and chest, offering more comfort to the true leader of the village.

Lastly, we’re excited to share that decorative items are on the way! From torches and warning signs to various thematic objects, these additions are still in early development — but they’ll help make your village feel truly lived-in when the full game launches.

Crafting Changes

You asked — we delivered! Crafting queues are now live for both players and workbenches, streamlining the entire process. No more micromanaging one item at a time — queue up your tasks and let the system handle the rest.

This update also extends to Village Management: each building now has its own crafting queue, giving you greater control and customization over your settlement’s production. It’s all about making your workflow smoother, more efficient, and a lot more satisfying.

That’s it for now! We are actively working on implementing your feedback into the game and expanding the systems to make playing Nested Lands a more immersive and enjoyable experience. What would you like us to dive into next — perhaps a closer look at the upcoming Plague updates? There’s a lot we’re excited to share about this major feature.

Drop your questions and suggestions in the comments — we read everything and love hearing from you. Don’t forget to wishlist and follow Nested Lands to stay updated. See you in the next one!

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