Dexter
The developers published DevBlog #74 on 31 October 2026. There is no big reveal this month. What there is instead is a long list of repairs, a release order, and the first real description of how Spinosaurus is meant to feel. On top of that comes an AI nesting system that goes further than most people expected.
Oviraptor is fully implemented
Lead Programmer Filipe writes that apart from finishing the last of the Oviraptor, the entire month went into fixing issues found in HordeTest. Programmer Ariel implemented the Oviraptor dodge and reworked its speed calculations so they behave correctly across every growth stage.
Eggs can now only be eaten by species that are egg eaters. For the moment that means Oviraptor and nothing else. Hatchling interaction problems were fixed, as was a bug that let male dinosaurs inherit female-only mutations.
QA Lead hypno names client and server performance as the month's priority. One example: a rare Pterodactylus spawn was freezing the game for several seconds for some users.
Baryonyx takes the HordeTest slot next
Animation Supervisor KissenKitten confirms the order. Once Oviraptor leaves HordeTesting, Baryonyx moves in. A prototype for clawing trees has already been handed to programming for testing.
Spinosaurus: tortured strength, not natural elegance
The most interesting passage in the whole blog is about an animal that is still far from playable. KissenKitten describes the direction like this:
"We're going to explore a sort of tortured strength for the spinosaurus. This animal is by no means a 'natural' specimen."
The in-game Spinosaurus was created from several proprietary genetic sources that, according to the team, sometimes work against one another. That conflict is meant to show up in how it moves. The animations should feel brutal, and the animal should be capable on land when it picks favourable territory and well beyond capable in water. The plan is for its visual characterisation to change between land and water, so you can tell at a glance when it is in its element.
Parasaurolophus and Shantungosaurus
Roughly 40 animations are left on Parasaurolophus before it is animation complete, and part of the team has already moved on to Spinosaurus. Shantungosaurus has been rigged, poses and test animations are underway, and rigging issues turned out to be minimal. KissenKitten calls it "the giant cow".
AI dinosaurs now build their own nests
Programmer Amarok continued building the AI nesting system, and the scope is worth reading twice. AI pairs construct nests, lay eggs, raise their young, and actively defend their mate, nest and hatchlings from threats. The hatchlings have their own hunger and thirst, beg their parents for food, and get guided towards nearby water.
There is also a chance for abandoned nests to spawn that still contain eggs. Once Oviraptor goes live, that turns into a genuine food source for egg thieves.
Water, fish, and a revoked pilot licence
Amarok built a new tiling system for lakes and oceans that makes them easier to work with and cuts rendering cost. Inclusion and exclusion volumes stop water inside caves or structures from being ignored. Sounds now change correctly when the camera moves above or below the surface, and blends between adjoining water volumes were updated for a natural transition.
Picking up schooling and elite fish now registers on the first try. And the best line in the entire blog: schooling fish had occasionally decided they could fly. Their pilot licence has been revoked.
Migration zones become shareable
Individual and species migration zones caused trouble in HordeTest. Zones broke when toggling between modes, icons for migration area types displayed incorrectly, and nutrient rewards were not always applied. hypno expects the causes will take several more HordeTests to track down.
One new feature will matter to herd players. After a group has been together for 15 minutes, group leaders can share their individual migration zone with the other members through the character menu. A cooldown then kicks in to prevent exploits. Herbivores can finally travel and migrate as a unit instead of being pulled towards separate destinations.
Audio: louder when you fight, quiet when you breathe
Sound Designer Wedge went through the entire suite of dinosaur vocal sounds and moved the older ones from sound cues to metasounds. That is the foundation for a new attenuation system with more control over how attenuation scales across growth, plus improved listener focus, which makes it easier to tell whether a sound comes from behind, below or above you.
The gameplay consequence is concrete. Idles, breaths and passive vocals keep a very tight attenuation, so they still barely give your position away. Sounds made while attacking, while being attacked, and while courting will now carry much further. If your playstyle relied on fighting unnoticed, rethink it.
The audio stutter comes with an oddity. Wedge reports the cause identified and fixed, while hypno describes it in the same blog as one of the highest priorities. The Director adds two comments to clear it up, explaining that hypno wrote his section before the fix was patched in. In his words: "my paranoia reigns supreme".
Other fixes and groundwork
- Entomb character saving now holds on to skins and prime growth scales properly.
- Plants were spawning inside one another, and food occasionally respawned when it should not. Both are fixed, and both were tied to coconuts never respawning at all.
- The Tenontosaurus hillslide worked in the editor but always broke in builds. The cause has been found and resolved.
- Scent for migrations and other locations now updates live on the compass, so you no longer have to keep scenting for updates.
- Footstep sounds and VFX transition seamlessly based on size and weight. The same tech is moving into slides and hillslides next, including a snow surface type.
- Server owners can switch tree destruction on and off per server.
- The interaction assist lets you cycle between targets. In future it should prioritise gastroliths over nearby food, and hypno explicitly calls it groundwork for body dismemberment and for items humans can loot.
A truck that will never be driven
Environment Artist VisualTech48 spent nearly the whole month on one object: the largest transit truck and its trailer. It is meant to be the hallmark of how everything on the island was transported, up to and including the largest cages. It will not be drivable, although the team has other vehicles coming for that. It was still built to make mechanical sense, from suspension to gearbox to differential. A parachute came out of the same month.
2D Artist Tapwing is back on skin concepts and is designing a themed version of the Isle skull logo for every playable creature. The difficulty is practical: Kentrosaurus and Stegosaurus have arguably the same skull.
Community reactions
The most detailed public breakdown came from UCJ Gaming, whose video The Isle's Next Dinosaurs Are Getting Closer | DevBlog 74 has gathered roughly 38,600 views and 113 comments since 31 October 2026. The mood in that comment section is split.
Spinosaurus carries the hype. The highest-voted comment by a wide margin comes from @dallasjonpaulgrove547: "Spinosaurus has been the whole reason I've been this patient for so long." Another viewer simply calls the model beautiful, and @Ragnarok6664 hopes to see all three spinosaurids, meaning Baryonyx, Suchomimus and Spinosaurus.
AI nesting lands well, especially with PvE players. @flashgordon6510 writes that more AI dinosaurs wandering and existing will help immersion, and calls it "everything we've been hoping for". @redcerato1439 set up a single player server specifically for it.
The missing Quetzalcoatlus causes frustration. Several comments note the absence of any news on the pterosaur. @Dizzy-FX sums it up in four words: "damn no news on quetz".
Criticism of the game's current state is blunt. @martinsomething304 came back after a break and describes lag, bugs and very long growth times, closing with "does not matter if they add 499 dinos". @Vaz26 names the most common complaint directly: "The devs do all this but I still cant eat the food I catch". Several commenters ask for an optimisation roadmap rather than more species.
Deinosuchus balance is already being argued over. The video raises the question of whether Deinosuchus needs a buff once Spinosaurus arrives. @johnnilsson8199 disagrees: Spinosaurus will need to eat a lot, growing Spinos become prey for Deinosuchus and Baryonyx, and a new rival on its own is not a reason for a buff.
Gallows humour is present as usual. @Matthew9877_Zeppelinskies announces Spinosaurus as the new "King of Unemployment" with a 50 hour grow time, and @kareemzeineddin89 writes that these dinosaurs will not arrive before 2029.
Our take
DevBlog #74 is a workshop report rather than a shop window. That is unsatisfying at first glance, because it comes with no date and no reveal. The substance is heavier than the presentation suggests. An AI nesting system with begging hatchlings and abandoned clutches changes the world more than one extra playable species, and the new attenuation system reaches directly into how fights and hiding work.
What stays open is exactly what the comments shout loudest about. Optimisation gets one paragraph from hypno, and a release date for Oviraptor gets none. As long as eating food still misbehaves in HordeTest, no roadmap will convince the people writing those comments. By the next DevBlog in early December, Oviraptor should be live. That is the test of how solid the current schedule really is.
Sources
- The Isle DevBlog #74 on Steam, published 31 October 2026
- UCJ Gaming: The Isle's Next Dinosaurs Are Getting Closer | DevBlog 74, including the comment section, retrieved 4 November 2026
- Our article on DevBlog #73: Spinosaurus vs. Rex
