Mining and base-building sandbox Hydroneer has a sprawling new expansion of volcanos and glaciers

The new island is six times as large as the original one.

The new island is six times as large as the original one.

Released in 2020, crafting, base-building, and mining sandbox Hydroneer has been an indie success story that sold upwards of 500,000 copies as of 2022. Now it has a full expansion, Journey to Volcalidus, that dumps a huge new environment to mine and profit from: The island of Volcalidus, which is “over 6 times the size of the original island” and comes complete with a town to rebuild.

The expansion also has a huge new crane truck, a slew of new deep-underground resources to mine, and a bunch of lava-powered machinery that harnesses the island’s volcano to get work done a bit easier. There are also new systems around augmenting your tools and machines for extra effect while crafting them.

The expansion comes alongside a big patch of free quality of life updates and fixes for anyone who owns Hydroneer. The biggest feature there is building snapping and a lighting rework, but upgrades to how well vehicles handle and a bunch of performance optimizations don’t go amiss.

Hydroneer first got PC Gamer’s attention back in 2020 because of one questionable innovation: It has no inventory system. That turned out to be great in the eyes of players, and since then hydroneer has gone on to huge success and a pretty polished modern state, getting power and logic systems as well as local multiplayer and vehicles in a big 2.0 update back in 2022.

You can find Hydroneer on Steam alongside expansion Journey to Volcalidus. Hydroneer is currently 50% off—$7.50—until April 12.

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