The Chimney - Seasonal Update

Happy Holidays everyone! This year, we thought you should have a little limited-time holiday event as a treat.

It's getting cold this time of year, and nowhere in the Superstructure is colder nor more festive than Substructure 12!

Unfortunately, that wintery temperature is the result of questionable weather manipulation research, and for the past [REDACTED] the entire Substructure has been frozen to it's core.

Oops.

Well, grab some milk, a cookie, and get climbing!

Welcome to the Chimney!

Update Features

• The Return of the Chimney! A challenging wintry endless mode, with specialized tools, new mechanics, and six unique subregions (for now!)

• Hand & Hammer Cosmetics! Unlock new cosmetics as you progress through the Campaign, find secrets, and complete challenges! More to come over the rest of Early Access.

• New polish! Ready your rebar to throw, sprint and crouch with new animations and poses, and many more minor tweaks across multiple systems.

Climb through six unique subregions in the seasonal endless mode, stay warm, and survive the blizzards that have wrecked Substructure 12.

For decades the abandoned facility has become increasingly turbulent, and it's effects on the superstructure have grown more chaotic. From the remnants of humanity, many have tried to shut it's climate control core down. All attempts have ended in failure.

• Survive the elements.

• Climb slippery, icy holds.

• Make your own path with the Cryo-gun.

• Defend against invasive lambda-life.

• Don't freeze. Stay warm, stay near the heat-lamps of the facility.

The Chimney event will last until January 8th, but after it concludes the mode will remain available in it's own tab on the main menu!

Change up your style with an all new list of hand and hammer cosmetics!!

As you progress through the campaign, complete achievements, and find secrets, you will unlock new and varied cosmetics, with more to be added throughout early access!

Steam post imageSteam post image

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for all the support you've given us in 2025. From the launch of Early Access, through every update since, this has been one of the best communities around. To think a little over a year ago we launched the original demo with expectations of maybe a few hundred players at most.

The game wouldn't be where it is today, without you. Working on this game has been a dream for all of us. Seeing your reactions to all the wild and crazy stuff we do, seeing the fan art, the stories, the videos and much much more has been a true gift and beyond any expectations we ever had.

As we head into 2026, and with it the Nest and beyond, the future of White Knuckle is brighter than ever.

So, again, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and we hope you all have a wonderful New Year!

• Dark Machine Games

(Holly, Jack, Quinn)

❤️

New Gamemode - The Chimney

• The Endless mode from last year returns, with more than double the content!

• Subregions

  • Frigid Facility

  • Glacial Breach

  • Crystal Throat

  • Interlude: Solstice

  • Bitter Icebox

  • Gelid Spire

  • Arctic Shelf

• New Mechanics

  • Freezing Cold

    • You get cold over time, affecting your stamina and slightly affecting your climb speed.

    • You can warm back up near heat lamps, or through items.

  • Blizzards

    • Temporary storms that significantly increase how quickly you freeze.

    • Strong winds change direction and can blow you off of platforms if you aren't careful.

  • Icy Surfaces

    • The chimney has many icy surfaces that you slip around on.

  • Icy Handholds

    • Icy handholds allow you to temporarily hold on before you slip off. Move quickly, or keep re-grabbing before you slip!

• New Items

  • Cookies

  • Hot Cocoa

    • Keeps you warm for 40 seconds, and provides a number of other minor buffs.

  • Holiday Reskins

    • Candy Cane Rebar and Rebar Rope

    • Ornament Pitons

    • Grubs in the Chimney can spawn with cute little Santa hats. You wouldn't hurt them, would you?

  • Cryo-Gun

    • A tool that can shoot handholds at a distance.

    • Can be overcharged to shoot a platform that can be stood on.

    • Needs to be recharged at coolant stations.

    • When out, can recharge a single shot through ambient temperature by holding for a few seconds.

    • When shot at a surface the player is touching, provides a significant boost.

• Winterized Denizens

  • Bloodbugs and Barnacles return with new holiday flare!

Cosmetics

• A brand new cosmetics system for hands and hammers, with more cosmetics to be added over time.

  • 12 Hand Cosmetics

    • Can be applied to each hand individually, mix and match however you'd like!

    • Supports palette swapping on some cosmetics for even more customization.

  • 6 Hammer Cosmetics

  • Supports user made mods for hands. Item reskin mod support will come in a later patch!

Other Changes

• Polish & Animation

  • New running, crouching, falling, and landing animations.

    • The new run animation can be toggled in your settings menu!

  • Rebar Readying

    • Rebar types have new animations.

    • You can now hold your use button with rebar to 'ready' them to be thrown, releasing your hold to throw them instantly! Extremely useful for precise aiming, or to line up a boost for the perfect moment without worrying about timing.

• Saving & Backups

  • The game now keeps a day-old backup of your save file around instead of a backup every launch, in case a crash corrupts your save file.

Bug Fixes

• Floppy Disk Save System & Revives

  • Fixed a bug where reviving in certain conditions would eat your hammer.

  • Fixed a bug which would prevent you from reviving with an artifact when using anomalous bonds.

  • Fixed a bug where your inventory capacity would still be affected after losing your items in a revive.

• Waste Heap menu background no longer has multiple water audio sources playing at once.

• Fixed a few potential crash-causers on certain systems. If you still experience a crash (especially on super long runs) please submit a bug report!

• Fixed a bug during world recentering at 10k meters which could cause the player to be placed under the mass without dying in the Abyss.

• The experimental cosmetics menu now is both not experimental, and more importantly fully supports controllers!

• Fixed a few surfaces causing the player to get stuck, in Pipe Organ, Deadman's Handle, and more.

• Lots of other tweaks and fixes!