Below the lair: four new depths, two research games, and the Foundry

The cavern update is live. You can now explore four connected underground areas in both eras, starting beneath the shelter and ending at the foundations of Liminal Corp. There are new missions, creatures, and two specimens to bring back to the Observation Station for analysis.

The lair has also been rebuilt around the Foundry, which brings all ten upgrade tracks into one machine. This update includes the P-04 pump mission, an export option for Liminal Protocol, and fixes to combat, navigation, controls and saves. Here's what's changed since Off Duty.

Four depths beneath the shelter

Look for H-02 / Lower Service in the shelter. The hatch leads to four underground areas, each with its own mission:

• Warm Pipe / Lower Shift: enter the upper cavern and service gallery, work through the pressure and power controls, release a return ladder, and recover the survey case.
• Unlisted Freight: descend into the freight cleft, restore the guide cable and lift, and recover a delivery record.
• Outside Containment: reach the exterior inspection gallery, work its pressure and carrier equipment, and recover measurements from outside the facility. An additional repair in Beyond Dawn can open a bypass in a selected Wasteland future.
• Bottom Entry: establish an exterior return anchor and enter the service section beneath Liminal Corp. The route reaches the foundations below its containment floors, with evidence to recover and a way back out.

The exterior return anchor and service entrance beneath Liminal Corp.

Filing the records from each mission opens the next depth. Repairs and shortcuts stay unlocked between trips, but you need to survive the return trip to file the records you're carrying. If supplies are running low, you can leave and come back through the ladders and lifts you've restored.

You'll visit the same areas in both eras, with different conditions, records and encounters. Beyond Dawn begins with Warm Pipe; Wasteland's Lower Shift becomes available after you bring home the Below the Waterline ledger. The descent has its own expedition resources, and the surface dawn countdown does not run underground.

New creatures and the Black Annex

Hostile staff occupy Wasteland's service galleries. Deeper down, you'll also encounter six creatures from Liminal Protocol: S-DRN, Red Static, Mourner, Specter, Banshee and Warden.

They react differently to cover, where you're looking, and where you aim your flashlight. You can't shoot your way past all of them. Notes along the route explain their behavior, and alternate paths let you avoid some encounters.

The Warden in the lower facility.

Contact with the Warden can take you into the Black Annex, where gates shift around you and your return signal gradually fades. The ECHO-07 figures there do not attack. Find the return node before the signal is lost to escape back to the exterior anchor. Your expedition's resources and encounter state carry through the escape.

The Black Annex return node.

Capillary Stone and Echo Glass

Two new specimens can be recovered in the caverns and analyzed at the Observation Station. Each has a 3D research game, and completing them unlocks further work underground.

Sample 10 — Capillary Stone starts with a mineral core beside the warm pipe. Bring it home and examine a rotatable 3D volume of mineral shells and internal channels. Strip away outer layers, choose an inlet, adjust pressure, and clamp leaking branches. Your task is to carry tracer through three chambers while keeping the central pocket dry.

The result reveals a Lattice trace in the freight cleft. Follow it and decode the disturbance to open a sealed maintenance alcove. Inside you'll find the next specimen and a ladder back toward the upper gallery.

Capillary Stone's internal channels and tracer controls.

Sample 11 — Echo Glass is a damaged service-recorder cartridge. Seat its glass fragments, adjust their depth and angles, then send a pulse through the volume. Test the reflections and scrub the recording to understand where the path breaks. Reconstructing the return pulse recovers a service command and opens a new work order.

Adjust the glass fragments to reconstruct the recorded pulse.

That work order sends you to repair the L-14 controller. Completing the repair unlocks The lit landing, a Wasteland future with a working lamp, emergency supplies and a powered return lift. Both analyses can be replayed, and the station keeps their results in its work list and archive.

Below the Waterline and new futures

Below the Waterline is also new since the Off Duty post. After Answer the Line, investigate the flooded lower stores near the viaduct receiver in Wasteland. Transmit the fault, return to Beyond Dawn, and repair the P-04 pump.

Then choose Dry stores at the Observation Station and depart again. The room will be drained and its gate open, giving you access to supplies and a ledger. Bring the ledger home to finish the mission and unlock Wasteland's cavern missions.

The lower stores after repairing P-04 and selecting Dry stores.

Alongside Dry stores, you can unlock the cavern's Exterior bypass and The lit landing. The lit landing also keeps the exterior bypass if you've earned it. Earlier futures remain available at the station, and the future you choose stays fixed for that expedition.

The Foundry and rebuilt lair

The separate upgrade stations have been replaced by the Foundry. It's a single machine with an animated press, welding arm, flywheel, copper coils and a lit science chamber.

The Foundry in the rebuilt main chamber.

All ten upgrade tracks are available from its catalogue, grouped into power and protection, mechanical systems, and field science. Before buying, you can compare your current upgrade with the next tier and see how much scrap you'll have left. You can also switch between your owned Winch and Vector Jets for free. Your existing upgrades carry over.

Compare upgrades and switch movement rigs from the Foundry catalogue.

The main chamber now has faceted rock walls, a sloping roof, new lighting and clearer paths between the terminal, practice entrance, lower hatch, contact and pump. Your Off Duty rooms and decorating space are still there, separate from the workshop.

Export discoveries to Liminal Protocol

The Observation Station archive now includes Export to Liminal Protocol. It creates a code you can import into Liminal Protocol with any of these discoveries you've saved: relay and pump repairs, Ruth's recovered survey, the C-12 repair, Sample 09's recorded response, and the returned dry-stores ledger.

The archive shows which discoveries are included. You can copy the code with the button or select it manually. Exporting doesn't change your Beyond Dawn save, and importing the discoveries doesn't complete Liminal Protocol assignments for you.

Smaller fixes and quality-of-life improvements

There are fixes throughout the game as well:

• Cavern navigation: return guidance names the next lift, ladder or anchor on your route. Known routes, field notes and recovered records are available in the station archive.
• Signs: signs have proper backing and supports and can be read from both approaches. Mission and pump markers have also been repositioned to make them easier to read.
• Field notes: work cards stay available after you read something else, and reopening a note now works correctly. You can read the latest radio signal in full from the journal. Filed cases no longer restart old cargo objectives.
• Combat feedback: added hit and kill readouts, empty-ammo responses, treatment progress, steady low-health cues, and persistent warnings for detected threats. You'll also get feedback when an attack has no effect on a Protocol creature.
• Enemy behavior: flashlight reactions now match the visible beam. After losing sight of you, enemies pursue your last known position. Damage interrupts treatment, reloading and charged actions consistently.
• Black Annex: floor cues warn you before gates shift, closing cells avoid trapping you, and escaping returns you to the exterior anchor you've activated.
• Controls: more interaction, journal, radio, route and movement prompts show your configured bindings. Controller shove, charge release and mute handling have been corrected in the caverns.
• Shelter menus and HUD: upgrade options and comparison rows fit better on shorter screens. Interaction prompts match the nearby activity, and decorating hints stay in the living areas. Gaps between cave walls have been closed.
• City entrances: doors have been resized, meet the floor and sit flush against their facades. Door and salvage interactions check for walls and which side you're approaching from.
• Radio: walls no longer cover the main-game radio panel. If danger hides a message, its reading timer pauses. Unchanged radio artwork is reused to reduce redraw work.
• City objectives: expired or completed service objectives stop appearing in guidance, and the opening HUD has fewer overlapping instructions.
• Saves: older cavern progress carries forward, including specimens, mission records, shortcuts, notes and routes. Existing saves should not need a reset for this update.
• Maintenance tools: testing controls use a separate profile, preserve normal saves, and keep test activity out of public counters. The service interlock stays unlocked for the testing session.

The full update is live. Play Beyond Dawn free in your browser. Head home to see the Foundry and find H-02. In Wasteland, finish Below the Waterline and bring the ledger home to begin the descent.

Let me know how you get on with the descent and the two lab games, especially if you get stuck or an instruction is unclear. I'd like to see your decorated lairs, too.