PlayerUnknown Productions pushed the first proper Early Access update for Prologue: Go Wayback!, releasing patch 0.23409 with new survival systems and a full set of fixes and quality-of-life improvements. The change mattered because it moved Prologue away from a pure walking-sim experiment and toward a systems-driven survival test – batteries add item power management, the pedometer and thermometer give players basic tools for planning, rolling weather makes storms legible before they hit, and DeepLinks let you reproduce the exact world and weather for friends or races.
Battery and electrical systems arrived as an early power-management layer. Flashlights, the radio, and the music player now used small, medium, or large batteries, and items spawned with swappable batteries by default, so players had to think about what to carry and how much power they could spare.
New survival tools included a step counter and a thermometer. The Step Counter tracked total steps and current steps so explorers could measure specific distances, while the Thermometer reported ambient temperature separate from body temperature, giving clearer information for clothing and shelter choices.
Shareable seeds and DeepLinks let players copy an exact world and its weather with one URL, so you could challenge a friend to finish the same run or replay a particular terrain and forecast. The update warned that starting a new game from a DeepLink would overwrite the existing save, and the developer published a guide to creating and using DeepLinks on GitHub via Steam’s linkfilter for the instructions.
You can read the developer’s DeepLinks guide on GitHub here: DeepLinks guide (GitHub). The rollout matched what the team outlined in the early access roadmap, which signaled that electrical systems and tooling for navigation were priorities for early development.
Weather, traversal, and polish included a new rolling weather front system so players could visually spot storms approaching, and the update tied weather randomization to the world seed so shared seeds produced consistent forecasts. Forest traversal and rock collisions were smoothed to reduce snagging, river audio now reacted to river width, and cloud, light, and atmosphere effects were improved across multiple weather types.
The patch also added localization for Ukrainian and Spanish (Latin American), a Fahrenheit option in settings, new audio sliders for environment, movement, voice, SFX, and UI, and a raft of fixes from calorie and temperature save issues to several item-spawn and visual bugs.
Patch Notes – 0.23409
New Features
- Rolling Weather:
- A new dynamic weather front system adds moving cloud walls and shifting atmospheric effects, letting you see storms coming before they arrive.
- New Items: Pedometer & Thermometer
- Track your steps and monitor the external temperature with two new survival tools.
- Battery System Expansion
- Flashlights, the radio, and the music player now run on batteries (small/medium/large). Items spawn with swappable batteries by default.
- Share Seed / Custom Map DeepLinks
- You can now share your world seed and/or custom map directly through DeepLinks.
Improvements
Forest Traversal Overhaul
- Walking over rocks in spruce and beech forests is now much smoother.
- Reduced cases of getting stuck or snagged on uneven terrain.
Audio & Atmosphere
- River audio now varies depending on river width.
- Improved cloud, light, and atmosphere effects across multiple weather types (Thunderstorm, Overcast, Clear Sky, Wet Haze).
World & Environment
- Updated tree canopies, forest tiles, and ground materials.
- Improved moss, foliage collision, and rock sinking to prevent getting caught on surfaces.
- Weather randomization is now based on seed and similar for all playing that map.
Localization
- Added Ukrainian, Spanish (Latin American), and updates to several other languages.
- General localization pass and updated credits.
Fixes & Quality of Life
- Better feedback when generating custom maps or river schematics.
- Fixed calories, water, and temperature values not saving/loading correctly.
- Fixed cooked food ignoring ingredient calories.
- Fixed several inventory and UI issues.
- Updated first-person mesh shadows and item handling.
- Fixed several shelter-related item spawn issues.
- Improved vaulting logic for smoother traversal.
- Fixed various visual glitches on snow, billboards, doors, shutters, and furniture.
- Added feature to switch to Fahrenheit instead of Celsius for temperature in settings.
- Fixed a bug that caused the character to collide with hanging lights.
- Fixed teddy bear and other items not spawning correctly in starter cabin.
- Fixed a bug where custom settings could be lost when loading the game.
- Added crash location data and stability fixes throughout.
- New audio settings volume sliders for:
- Environment
- Character’s movement
- Character’s Voice (for misophonia)
- SFX
- UI
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Prologue: Go Wayback!
Developed by PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions
Prologue: Go Wayback! is a single-player open-world emergent survival roguelike where every journey is unique. Traverse a new wilderness that is generated for you every time you play. Chart your path, overcome the elements, and write your own story of exploration.
- Genre: Simulator, Adventure, Indie
- Platforms: PC (Microsoft Windows)
- Modes: Single player
- Release: 2025-11-20
- Publisher: PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions
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Age Rating:
ESRB E / PEGI 3 / USK 0
