Wild West Pioneers

Howdy Pioneers,

first of all, thank you for playing, for reporting issues, and for your patience during these first hours after release.

We’ve been going through your reports since launch and have prepared our first hotfix. This update focuses on crashes, controls, UI issues, and a number of problems that could affect longer play sessions.

Content

• Fixed several crashes related to residents movement.

• Fixed several graphics-related crashes that could occur during longer play sessions.

• Fixed memory usage increasing over time, especially after changing resolution, opening certain UI elements, or switching between applications.

• Fixed possible crashes caused by particles casting shadows

• Fixed FAQ and popup panels occasionally appearing blank after returning to the game.

• Fixed controls no longer responding after returning to the main menu and starting a new session.

• ESC, cutscene skipping, and other inputs sometimes stopping working.

• Fixed mouse hover and click interactions triggering while the game was running in the background.

• Fixed an issue that could cause the in-game clock to stop permanently.

• Fixed missing fonts on the quest timer and FAQ buttons.

• Fixed an error that could occur when changing resolution after character creation.

• Fixed unusually large bird swarms appearing when placing many buildings while the game was paused.

• Fixed an error that could occur when placing buildings in areas with very few or no trees.

• Improved overall stability during longer sessions, resolution changes, and frequent switching between game and other applications.

Thank You!

This is our first hotfix shortly after release, and we’ll continue working through the reports and feedback you’re sending us.

Please keep reporting any crashes, bugs, or strange behavior you encounter. Even small details about what happened before an issue appeared can help us track it down.

Thank you for all your feedback, support, and patience. We really appreciate everyone helping us improve Wild West Pioneers during these first days after launch.

– The Wild West Pioneers Team

0.1.0_19478 20260925

Getting Started

• "Residents' Needs" now includes a clear "unlock tents" objective and points you there first.

• Rebalanced Journey Points so tents can be unlocked right away.

• Your starting settlement now provides enough gold to complete the 50 Gold quest.

• Whims no longer start generating until "Residents' Needs" is complete.

• Journey quests now correctly track tier quests that aren't unlocked yet.

• Adjusted the Tutorial Assistant layout so the available text and video guides are easier to spot.

• Declining the Tutorial Assistant no longer shuts it away until the next quest — you can head back to it whenever you're ready.

• Added info bubbles for the guides and settlement-change buttons, hinting when they're worth a click.

• Added Journey and Whims entries to the FAQ, tied into the quest chain.

Roads & Building

• Roads can now be trimmed anywhere along their length, not just at the first or last segment.

• Roads are now removed automatically when you move or destroy a building.

• Building snapping and road snapping can no longer both be enabled at once, which could lead to unwanted placement.

• Roads placed automatically by buildings are no longer snapping targets.

• Buildings now show a highlight in building view when they're connected to a road that has no link to the wider network.

• Cleaner texturing and highlight shading on main road turns.

Quests & Story

• Fixed several issues in the Band of Ghosts questline.

• Updated the Officials questline (parts 1 and 2).

• Fixed the "crisis refugees" event being removed before it could play out.

• "Blocked Passage" now asks you to gather 20 settlers instead of a randomised objective.

• Bandit Camp now only becomes available after you've explored Maple Hollow Junction.

• Fixed "End of Bandits" (#12) taking resources from Sand Storm instead of Dust Creek after sending off armed people.

• Fixed dynamite not leaving your inventory after blowing up rocks in Deaf Canyon.

• Fixed Discover Location objectives so an unspecified target correctly counts as any location.

• Quest items no longer stay highlighted as interactable in a diorama once their quest is done.

• Side quest choices now lock when you don't have the resources for them.

Dioramas

• Leaving a diorama now takes you straight back to the settlement.

• Leaving a diorama after its cutscene correctly restores the World Map button.

• Fixed diorama dialogue popups overlapping and not clearing properly.

• Fixed audio being muted when a diorama voice line closed or another one played over it.

• Fixed missing voice lines in both "death of bandits" cutscenes.

• Updated the characters in the Native Americans diorama.

Production & Economy

• Fixed capacity bonuses being duplicated when loading a save.

• Fixed resource counts going wrong after loading and placing buildings over resources.

• Fixed the workshop UI showing no resources when a building couldn't produce for another reason, or was already producing.

• Fixed miners incorrectly reporting no available resources.

• Fixed the circular production indicator only filling to a third.

• Fixed the production fill jumping by odd amounts on the hour change.

• Fixed the missing overlay on the miners popup when production starts in an hour, and the overlay hiding elements like the background and infinity symbol.

• The gold debt objective now tracks total production rather than what's currently in your warehouse.

• Rebuilt the Miners Project popup and fixed the Scouts Lvl. 2 popup.

UI & Menus

• Fixed the missing-rations popup appearing inside a settlement, which was blocking caravans on expeditions.

• Fixed black icons in the Buildings section of the bottom bar.

• Fixed buildings sometimes not appearing in the bottom bar after being unlocked.

• The "Now available" decoration popup no longer blocks clicks outside its own buttons.

• Improved the dialogue panel's handling of actor changes and swaps, and adjusted the order characters appear in.

• The settler creation cost tooltip now shows the number of residents required.

• Fixed a happiness-related error when switching between views.

• Fixed the Ideas Board showing blanks after unlocking certain ideas.

• Added usage info to several dialogue nodes, plus visual updates.

• Updated various icons, settlement select visuals and idea tree backgrounds.

• Clarified what wells and water tanks are for in the FAQ, and added building-unlock info to the Hunger and Homelessness articles.

• Removed the "work in progress" text from the intro.

World & Environment

• Settlement 2: added rocks and blockers between the gold miner's point and the river to stop building on steep slopes, plus a pass on bounding boxes.

• Fixed the Blackbark Ridge blocker.

• Turned off smoke on World Map points of interest that was showing above the paper map layer.

• Wider rotation bounds for the World Map camera, and a new starting angle so the map sits centred.

• Fixed various animation issues.

General

• Several fixes for errors on loading a save and reopening the game.

• Further stability and crash fixes based on your automatic crash reports.

• Added the first two batches of Early Access achievements, including "Own Luck".

• New "Animal Lover" whim (tiers 1 and 2) — lets you place any decoration from the animal category.

• New art for the Gold Workshop Lvl. 3.

• Rebalanced starting resources.

• Reworked the placement of destructible rocks, mushrooms and wild game in both settlements.

• Improvements to the first tier of the idea tree.