The third test build. The weather can turn on you now: whirlwinds, sandstorms, lightning and gales that bring trees down. Firefells wake on the islands, powder opens the rock, three new kinds of magic come out of their stones, and the Wealds have a summoned fight.

• Firefells. Lone fells with molten rock in their craters stand on the islands, and now and then one wakes. The ground shakes, ash and cinders fly, and lava runs down its side and cools into rock you can walk on.
  
• Whirlwinds in the strongest winds. They mow a track through the grass, tear up trees and throw creatures and you into the air. Open a glider inside one and it carries you up.
  
• Lightning comes down in a storm. It can set a tree alight, or split it and bring it down charred.
  
• In a gale the tall trees rock and creak until one goes over, torn out roots and all or snapped at the stump.
  
• Sandstorms in the Dry and the Redlands. A wall of dust rolls in, you can barely see, and the creatures can barely see you. Tumbleweeds blow across the sand in any wind.
  
• Powder. Dig Saltpetre and Brimstone, grind them with charcoal, and make Clay Bombs, Blasting Charges and Powder Kegs that open the ground. Five guns follow, from the Hand Cannon to the Long Rifle.
  
• Frostcalling. Hold a Froststone to throw shards and hail, breathe frost that slows a creature until it freezes solid, and ring yourself with hoarfrost.
  
• Stonecalling. An Earthstone throws stone and boulders, raises a wall of real ground in front of you and shakes the earth around you.
  
• Greencalling, magic that tends a field. A Seedstone waters your crops, makes them grow faster and puts fires out.
  
• The Sandmaw, a great worm under the Dry's sand. It feels your footsteps, so walk softly or keep off the sand, and when the ground trembles in a ring around you, get out of it.
  
• Coyotes hunt the Redlands in packs. By day they keep their distance. After dark they circle you and send one in at a time.
  
• Old Rootfast, the Wealds' summoned fight. Pour a Wassail Bowl at the roots of a Wassail Tree after dark and it stands up. An axe bites it hard, and fire tears it loose when it roots to drink.
  
• Steel. Set the Cairnwing's Rime Core into an anvil and you can forge steel there: tools, a sword, a shield, arrows and armour.
  
• Hard wood and hard ore. Oak, beech, maple and ash want a Bronze Axe, acacia and mesquite an iron one, and the better ores want a better pickaxe. The hard trees give Hardwood and Ironwood for the best hafts, boats and bows.
  
• Real clouds. Glide up into the cloud deck and through it, and your path leaves a wake in the fog. Their shadows drift over the ground, and a new world now starts above them.
  
• Weather on the body. Rain and swimming soak you, and the cold, the midday heat and the dust wear you down. Clothes, a fire, a roof and a hot meal help, and the Weathering skill makes you hardier.
  
• Weapons, tools, shields and armour wear with use. Mend them cheaply from the crafting menu's Repair tab. Broken gear is never lost.
  
• Roads. Tread a dirt path with the shovel, then lay a Stone Road on it. Walking and riding on stone is a quarter quicker.
  
• Tracking. Every creature leaves its own prints, and the scan (middle mouse) lights up the trails around you, which way they went and how fresh they are.
  
• The desert grows its own plants, cacti, century plants and brush. Pick prickly pears and barrel fruit and cook them into jam and candy.
  
• Music that follows where you are. Every biome has its own by day and by night, and the caves, the Underhalls, the sea and every fight have theirs.
  
• Keep several characters and pick which one you play.
  
• Kept animals have a sex, a tally of their work and a name you give them. Hens can be kept too.

• Your screens share one tab bar. Tab opens them, and the bar switches between the pack, Technology, Magic, Skills, the map, the Wingbook and the Fieldbook.
  
• Magic has a tree of its own (P), every school under its element.
  
• Equipping takes an item out of your pack, and taking it off puts it back where it was.
  
• Every buff and debuff on you is listed under the backpack, with a card saying what it does and how it ends.
  
• An ingredient's tooltip in the crafting menu says where to get it, and the Bench tab lists the hand recipes too.
  
• A harder wood stands in for a softer one in anything you make.
  
• Swing trails follow the blade smoothly and keep their arc on a running cut.
  
• Creatures go round what stands between them and you.
  
• Birds keep clear of trees, buildings and the ground.
  
• Every tree sheds its own leaves, in the wind and when it comes down.
  
• Seaweed grows in lawns and tall stands, corals in colonies, and the reefs show from the air.
  
• Longer strides at speed, and quieter footsteps.
  
• Swimming puts away what's in your hands and puts out a torch.
  
• An uprooted stump lies in its torn root plate.
  
• An animated health bar that turns green while you're poisoned.
  
• Smoother frames when you move fast, glide or sprint, and less work for the graphics card in grass and on the ground.
  
• The quickbar sits in the top-left corner. Bottom centre is a choice in Settings.
  
• The loading screen says which step it's on.

• An Underhall below the sea's level is dry inside, with no sea showing through it.
  
• Dry caves under the sea stay dry, and rain stops at a roof.
  
• A new world no longer drops you through the ground while it loads.
  
• The wyvern's frost on the screen no longer breaks into blocks.
  
• Wind streaks and leaves no longer blow inside caves and Underhalls.
  
• A caught squid is its real size.

• Worlds started before 0.4.0 can get a firefell where nothing was dug or built. Start a new world for the best experience.
  
• The download is large, about 11 GB. Trimming the assets the game doesn't use is planned.
  
• Starting a new world can take about a minute.
  
• Busy places like big fights, storms and thick forest can drop the frame rate on the High preset. Medium or Low helps on older machines.
  
• Some of the newest text is still in English when the game is set to another language.
  
• Achievements and Steam Cloud saves only work when you start the game through Steam.
  
• If something goes wrong, the log is in %APPDATA%\Windreach\logs. Please send it along with what you were doing at the time.

The second test build. The world is an archipelago now, a new world opens in the sky on a glider, and a lot of what you do with your hands feels better. Worlds started in 0.2.0 get new ground, so start a fresh world for this one.

• The world is islands now, big and small, with straits of sea between them. Every sea joins up, so a boat can reach anywhere. The ground rolls in low hummocks and reefs lie under the warm shallows.
  
• A new world starts high in the air on a leaf glider. The landing tears it, and your first task leads you to a Stone Axe, a Stone Pickaxe and then mending the glider.
  
• Gliding now needs a glider in its own slot. There are four of them, from the leaf glider up to the Featherwing, each one faster and steadier in the air.
  
• First Steps, a short controls tutorial the first time you come down in a world. Skip it from the pause menu or turn it off in Settings.
  
• Deer. Stags, does and fawns live in the forests and on the plains. They are the wariest animals in the Reach, so stay low and downwind.
  
• Rivers carry what is in them. Swimmers, empty boats, felled logs and flotsam all drift downstream, and the water heaps up and parts around posts, legs and hulls.
  
• Special catches. Any fish can come up Uncommon to Legendary, bigger and gleaming in its colour. Eat a Legendary one for a boon that lasts half an hour.
  
• Auto-pickup. Walk over something you already carry and it goes in your pack. Every pickup sounds like what it is made of. Switch it off in the backpack.
  
• A rebuilt map. It fills the screen and zooms toward the cursor, with one set of icons for every marker, a legend that filters, and your boats, carts and horses on it.
  
• Every axe bite leaves a notch in the wood, and chips and sawdust fly off it.
  
• A tree dug out from under its roots falls toward the hole, roots and all. A felled tree comes to rest on its big limbs.
  
• A new title screen. The menu sits over a quiet stretch of coast with its own changing weather.
  

• Crafting lives in the Tab screen again. Tab opens it beside your pack and C opens it wide, with a tab for each kind of making, a search box, Type and Tier filters and batches.
  
• Axe and pick swings go where the crosshair is, so a log at your feet gets hit. Chopping is quicker too.
  
• The pickaxe is swung in both hands with a full overhead blow.
  
• A faster run-up jumps farther, and you can steer a jump in the air.
  
• Food heals while it lasts. More meals heal faster and raise your max health further. The food bar shows the time each meal has left.
  
• Escape closes whatever is open, one layer at a time, and only pauses when nothing is.
  
• Quickslot keys always equip, and gear or food you pick up goes on a free key.
  
• Research in the tech tree no longer asks for a skill level.
  
• Trunks sway with their crowns, the slender ones most.
  
• Climbing keeps your hands and feet on the real rock, on every body build.
  
• A smaller, cleaner crosshair and look-at card.
  
• The handcart leaves wheel tracks in snow, sand and dirt, and you pull it with straight arms.
  
• A dropped item presses down the grass and snow around it, so you can still see it.

• Tall grass no longer grows back up through building floors.
  
• A torch held while crouching no longer sinks into the body.
  
• A carried hen no longer sinks into the body.
  
• The pickaxe's strike no longer stops halfway through the swing.
  
• No stepped band of water beside waterfalls after a long trip.
  
• Leaves on willows no longer reach into the ground.

• Worlds started in 0.2.0 get new ground where nothing was dug or built. Start a new world for the best experience.
  
• The download is large, about 11 GB. Trimming the assets the game doesn't use is planned.
  
• Starting a new world can take about a minute.
  
• Busy places like big fights, storms and thick forest can drop the frame rate on the High preset. Medium or Low helps on older machines.
  
• Some of the newest text is still in English when the game is set to another language.
  
• Achievements and Steam Cloud saves only work when you start the game through Steam.
  
• If something goes wrong, the log is in %APPDATA%\Windreach\logs. Please send it along with what you were doing at the time.