Aug: Halloween Jam, Based Sync & Website++!
Announcing the Halloween Playtest & Game Jam, new Network Based Sync & Packets Bundle, new Buoyancy customization, new website Badges & new features and much more!
Welcome to our roundup of the latest updates from the last month!
🎃 Halloween Playtest & Game Jam
SAVE THE DATE!! Halloween Playtest is coming! And bigger than ever! 👇
Halloween Game Jam 2026 Teaser
This year we're turning Halloween into a proper Game Jam, with a dedicated area on the website, a clear submission process, and community voting to decide the winners!
Halloween Game Jam 2026 Banner
From September 24 to October 23, all testers will be able to submit their own spooky game-modes, or register a server to host one during the event.
After that, we'll run a short internal warm-up test with Testers, and then open the Playtest to everyone over the Halloween weekend from October 30 to November 1.
The community will be able to vote respecting several categories, and the winners will be announced shortly after the event!
Public Playtest
The public Playtest will be open to all Steam users, allowing them to download nanos world and jump in to play every submitted game-mode over the Halloween weekend.
We already have thousands players registered for the Playtest, and we expect a lot of new players to join in for the event! This is a great opportunity to showcase your team's (or solo's) work and game-modes to a large audience, and get feedback from the community!
Integrated Game Jam System
The Gam Jam will be completely integrated into the website and game, making it easy to submit your game-mode, register a server, and vote for your favorites.
Managing a Game Jam Entry
Rating a Game Jam Entry
In the next weeks, all the details and rules will be shared on the new Halloween 2026 Game Jam page, so make sure to check it out and keep an eye on it for updates!
Of course there will be special badges rewarded to the winners, and a Halloween 2026 Game Jam badge for all participants! 🏆
Get ready for a spooky month of fun, and start thinking about what kind of game-mode you want to submit! We can't wait to see what you all come up with. 💙
See the Game Jam page preview 👇👇👇
Halloween 2026 Game Jamhttps://nanos-world.com/game-jams/halloween-2026Network Based Sync
We implemented a new experimental Based Sync system, which mitigates the issues where Characters were moving desynced/delayed when standing on moving platforms.
Before:
Character standing on a moving platform before the Based Sync system
After:
Character standing on a moving platform after the Based Sync system
Please let us know any feedback or issue you notice with this new system!
Network Packet Bundling
We introduced experimental network packet bundling: network packets are now merged together before flushing, reducing the amount of packets being sent over the network.
In our tests, this has reduced the number of packets sent by up to ~95% in a server with hundreds of players, which dramatically helps the server performance and mitigate some connection issues.
Website & Community
Automatic Badges
Community Badges
We added several new automatic Badges, granted as you complete your profile, review a resource, create a Team, or release a Resource, on top of new veteran Badges for account age, like the One Year badge.
We'll keep expanding this list of automated badges gradually! If you have any suggestions for new badges, please let us know in our Feedback Hub!
Resource Favoriting
Favoriting Heart Button
We added a new feature to favorite resources, to show your support for the creators and help them get more visibility on the Store. You can favorite a resource by clicking the heart icon on the resource page!
New Profile Buttons
New Profile Buttons
We added a few new buttons to your profile page (when you are in your page), to make it easier to create new resources and teams.
Image Cropper
New Image Cropper
New Image Cropper uploader, which allows you to crop your images directly on the website when uploading a new image to a resource or team, to make sure they fit the required aspect ratio.
Improved Upload Progress
Improved Upload Progress
We improved the versions upload section, with a better upload progress UI, now it displays the upload speed, estimated time remaining, and total uploaded size. This should help you better understand how long the upload will take, especially for larger files.
Meta Tags
Proper Meta Tags for social medias
We implemented several meta tags, so any Store or Community page now looks much prettier when shared on Discord or social media, fetching the proper title, description and image for the page.
Other Improvements
- Added an Unreal version warning on resource pages, so you can quickly see whether an asset pack is incompatible with the latest nanos world Unreal Version.
- Team and Resource sorting now takes total ratings and downloads into account.
- Improved the overall navigation: standardized navbar buttons and colors.
- Also fixed several bugs.
Scripting Improvements
Water Enter/Leave Events
We added new EnterWater and LeaveWater events, triggered whenever an Actor enters or leaves a body of water. Only Actors that simulate physics trigger these, such as Character, Prop, all Base Vehicle and all Base Pickable.
Prop.Subscribe("EnterWater", function(prop)
Console.Log(prop:GetID() .. " entered the water!")
end)
Buoyancy Customization
Prop, Base Pickable and Base Vehicle got two new methods to tweak how they float:
SetBuoyancySettings lets you enable/disable buoyancy forces entirely, or tweak the buoyancy coefficient, while SetBuoyancyPontoons lets you override the spherical pontoons used for the Water simulation, instead of the ones automatically calculated from the mesh bounds and mass.
Pontoons and Buoyancy Settings only have an effect on Maps with enable_water_buoyancy enabled.
HTTP Response Headers
HTTP.Request() and HTTP.RequestAsync() now also return the response headers.
File.Rename
We added a new method File.Rename(), to rename or move a file or folder.
Unsafe Libs Check
We also added Server.IsUnsafeLibsEnabled(), which returns whether the server was started with --enable_unsafe_libs.
Vault/Store API Caching
We are implementing several caching systems in the API, to speed up Vault and Store loading times.
Some operations like updating a resource or your profile may now take a few seconds to be fully pushed to everyone and to the main lists. Let us know if something seems broken!
Dependencies Updated
- Enabled the NiagaraFluids and Mutable Plugins content.
- Updated Discord SDK to v1.10.
- Updated CEF to v151.
- Updated httplib to v0.53.0.
- Updated DLSS to v8.7.2.
- Updated Sentry to v1.19.0.
Conclusion
August was all about getting ready for what's coming next. On the community side, we're really excited about turning Halloween into a proper Game Jam, with its own website area, a real submission and voting process, and a shot at being recognized as a winner. This is the biggest community event we've put together, and I can't wait to see what everyone builds!
On the scripting side, the based-sync network system and new Water features and Buoyancy customization open the door for a lot of water-related game-modes and mechanics!
I hope you enjoy all the new features and improvements! I'm always looking for feedback, so if you have any suggestions or ideas, please let us know in our Discord or Feedback Hub.
A special thanks also goes to everyone contributing translations through Crowdin, helping make the game and the docs more accessible to players around the world, and to those supporting development through Ko-fi!
Your support is what allows me to continue working on nanos world full-time and keep pushing the project forward. 💙
See you in the Jam! 🎃
