Once Human RaidZone Overhaul: A Sharper Apocalyptic PvP Survival Experience

In 2026, Once Human’s RaidZone scenario is receiving a major experience update that reshapes the apocalyptic PvP wilderness for Metas. The development team has observed that RaidZone’s progression has been overly rigid, lacking variability and surprise, while survival mechanics have not been deep enough. The new overhaul is designed to create a more focused, purer, and more immersive PvP stage—one that truly reflects the harsh realities of post-apocalyptic survival combat. It covers technological advancement, wilderness resource acquisition, crafting formulas and production costs, item naming, and Memetic systems. The goal is to refine overall pacing, enhance survival-oriented gameplay, improve wilderness PvP and territory battles, and ensure competitive fairness and strategic tension. Ultimately, RaidZone is meant to return the focus to the battle of wits between players and their environment.

🧠 Memetic System: Clearer Tech Paths

The current Memetic system has suffered from unclear tech paths, ambiguous categorization, and redundant nodes. This update significantly optimizes RaidZone’s Memetic system so players can better understand what they can craft or build at different tech levels while gaining clearer progression visibility.

• Memetic tabs are reclassified into three categories: Construction, Combat, and Survival. These align with RaidZone’s core experience and make comprehension easier for Metas.

• The Memetic screen now displays tier indicators for formula levels, showing which items can be crafted at corresponding tier supplies workbenches or gear workbenches. This makes tech progression more intuitive.

• The nail gun, bronze pickaxe, steel ingot, tungsten ingot, sulfur crystal, all stone structures, and synthesis benches are now unlocked by default. Their associated Memetics have been removed, so they no longer require data chips to learn.

• The ore detector Memetic has been removed.

• The mining operation platform Memetic and all material-type Memetics have been removed. For batch production or construction abilities, players must first collect the corresponding facility or item in the wilderness, then reverse-engineer and learn its formula through the synthesis bench.

• Memetic pins now display the icon of the primary formula item within that Memetic node. Their names are also updated to match the unlocked formula item.

🔧 Reverse-Engineering: From Wilderness Drops to Formulas

The update aims to provide richer, more diverse progression paths and avoid rigid growth tied solely to Memetic unlocks. Memetic learning is no longer the only way to gain survival skills in RaidZone. Player ability progression and formula acquisition are now linked to random wilderness drops, offering more survival possibilities through randomly generated items.

• A reverse-engineering feature has been added. Most crafting materials, weapons, armor, and building facilities can now be reverse-engineered by consuming one finished product plus RaidZone chips to unlock their crafting ability early.

• Reverse-engineering requires at least three steps. First, build a synthesis bench facility, which is unlocked by default; any team member or interactable synthesis bench from a Meta can enable the feature. Second, acquire the finished item or building item whose formula the player wishes to learn. Finally, gather enough chips to initiate reverse-engineering.

• Once all materials are ready, deposit the finished or building item into the synthesis bench and consume the required chips. After a set duration, the item’s formula is learned, allowing batch production or construction.

• Reverse-engineering consumes the deposited item and chips permanently. These items are not returned, so the operation should be performed in a safe environment.

• Not all items can be reverse-engineered. Attempting to reverse-engineer an already learned formula does not grant the item’s formula again but instead consumes the item and chips to yield a small amount of basic materials.

⚔️ Combat and Base-Raiding Balance

The current offense-defense dynamics in RaidZone have room for optimization. To ensure Metas can fully enjoy the journey from survival construction to strategic confrontation, the development team has implemented a major balance adjustment to the combat system. The goal is to provide a more profound and rewarding experience for all players.

The update redesigns and standardizes the cost ratio between flammable items and player-built structures. It also optimizes expenses for territory construction and flammable production, ensuring more players can level up their walls to resist damage from explosives. The following adjustments preserve the core gameplay of base raiding while allowing attackers and defenders to engage in more strategic play.

• A new item, Sulfur Crystal, is smelted from sulfur. The production of flammable items and bullets now requires sulfur crystal instead of sulfur.

• Copper and copper ingot have been removed. Recipes that originally required copper ore or copper ingot now use iron ore and steel ingot.

• The amount of ore required to smelt steel ingot and tungsten ingot has been reduced. Previously, 5 ores were needed to produce 1 ingot. Now, smelting 1 steel ingot requires 2 iron ore, and smelting 1 tungsten ingot requires 1 tungsten.

• Tungsten ingot is no longer exclusive to the electric furnace and can now also be smelted in a furnace.

• Rubber, scraps, detoxident, and adhesive have been removed. A new material, Waterproof Plastic, has been added. It is a waterproof material widely used in hydraulic engineering gameplay and consumed in structures like rainwater collection systems and water pumps. Waterproof plastic can only be obtained through exploration in the wilderness.

• The stack size of all materials has been adjusted, reducing the quantity players can carry in their backpacks. This limits the number of items attackers can loot, giving defenders more opportunities to protect their bases and preserve resources.

🧪 Crafting Formulas and Item Naming

Many crafting recipes in RaidZone have been overly complex and require excessive materials—often five or more—significantly increasing learning and acquisition costs. To address this, all crafting formulas have been comprehensively revised to be more concise, intuitive, and user-friendly.

This change embodies the core spirit of the RaidZone scenario: in an environment where every bush might hide a threat, survival efficiency is paramount. Redundant embellishments have been eliminated, allowing item names and crafting formulas to return to the most direct expressions. A clearer and more intuitive material value system is established, ensuring that every crafting decision made by Metas is precise and efficient.

• Material names have been revised and item synthesis formulas reworked to better align with operational intuition, enhance crafting logic, and fit the realism of apocalyptic survival. For example, Crystal has been renamed to Worn Blade, optimizing its role as a crafting material for items with distinct blade attributes, such as axe and weapon-type tools, logging chainsaws, and gathering pickaxes. Advanced Crystal Diamond has been renamed to Weapon Spring and is now primarily used for crafting firearm weapons.

• The crafting costs for most equipment items have been reduced, and the difficulty of directly acquiring equipment in the wilderness has been balanced. The gameplay experience now shifts more toward crafting equipment rather than obtaining it directly in the wild.

• Rocket Launcher has been downgraded to intermediate tech. It previously required an advanced gear workbench for crafting, but now it can be crafted with an intermediate gear workbench. Rocket Launcher warheads have been upgraded to advanced tech, requiring an advanced supplies workbench for crafting. Molotov Cocktail has been downgraded to intermediate tech, requiring an intermediate supplies workbench for crafting.

• Adrenaline Shot has been downgraded to intermediate tech. It previously required an advanced supplies workbench for crafting, but now it can be crafted with an intermediate supplies workbench.

⛏️ Resource and Wilderness Simplification

The three types of ores in RaidZone not only increased player comprehension burden but also caused copper ore’s positioning to be easily overlooked. This update focuses more on simplifying comprehension costs and optimizing resource types. It allows RaidZone newcomers to quickly adapt to survival gameplay while enabling veterans to find simpler and more efficient resource acquisition routes.

• Copper ore has been removed from the wilderness. At the same time, the quantity of stone and iron ore has been significantly increased while maintaining distinct mineral characteristics across different regions.

• Some gathering item names have been optimized. For example, Realm Crate has been renamed to Supply Crate.

• The overall resource accumulation pace has been optimized to encourage players to explore a more balanced variety of survival methods. Resource rewards obtained from killing basic monsters have been rebalanced to better reflect their actual value in the post-apocalyptic world, making other survival approaches like exploration and crafting more significant.

• Explosives mix has been removed from weapon crate, basic lv. equip crate, intermediate lv. equip crate, advanced lv. equip crate, and echoite signal flare drops.

• The crafting costs for all equipment have been optimized while balancing the drop rates of equipment and weapons in gathering material crates.

🏁 A More Strategic Apocalyptic Wilderness

The RaidZone optimization preview represents a broad recalibration of Once Human’s survival PvP experience. From Memetic clarity and reverse-engineering to resource simplification, crafting economy, and base-raiding balance, the update pushes Metas toward smarter decisions, riskier wilderness exploration, and more meaningful territory confrontations. In a world where every supply run can become a firefight, the update aims to keep the focus on player ingenuity, adaptation, and the relentless pressure of apocalyptic survival. The development team invites feedback and suggestions through the official co-development feedback platform, ensuring that the RaidZone community can help shape the next stage of its evolution.