For anyone who has played Coral Island at launch, the “Work in Progress” signs appearing at major story points left a poor impression. But with July 22’s update—titled “1.1 Finale Land and Sea”—Stairway Games might just have started the redemption arc for the tropical farming sim.
The headliner feature of the Coral Island update is the addition of the missing story bits at launch. You can now venture into the region of Savannah, wrapping up the Giant storyline. On the Merfolk front, you can now finally strike up a conversation with them, befriend them with heart events, and better yet, rebuild the Merfolk Kingdom.
For romance enthusiasts, the hangout mechanic is now fully baked into Coral Island’s dating system. Twice a week, you can “now ask your favorite dateable NPC to hang out with them at a place you choose to get some relationship points.”
Starlet Town is also getting a ton of makeovers—depending on your progression with the town rank, of course—with new buildable attractions. The patch adds Rank S unlockables for Town, Attraction, Heritage, and Museum. One of the highlighted new attractions is the Recreation Center—much like Stardew Valley’s Community Center—which will have Townies change their schedules and hang out there once built.
The new Starlet Expedition is also mentioned in the 1.1 patch notes, which potentially means the Starlet Town diving cleanup runs got a little spruced up, too.
But these are only scratching the surface. You may want to check out the detailed patch notes before heading into the cute farm life sim.
As for what’s ahead, the latest Coral Island roadmap aims to add multiplayer, Spooky Festival NPC outfits, and Merfolk Festival in Update 1.2. Further out, the dev will add fully-fledged Children mechanics and revise the Hangout/Dating mechanic and Slice of Life scenes via Update 1.3.
