Beautiful Light's skill tree is the last core feature before Early Access
Deep Worlds calls progression with skill abilities the last core feature of Beautiful Light. What it said, what it showed, what is missing.
Every extraction shooter needs a reason to keep going back in. For Beautiful Light, that reason is a skill tree, and Deep Worlds has been clear about how much weight it carries: it is the last core feature on the road to Early Access.
"The final core feature"
On 2 July 2026, closing his report on the summer playtests, Deep Worlds' CEO Aherys named the next milestone: anomaly and human progression, built around skill abilities. He called it the final core feature, and said that once it is done, development is a straight line of polishing, balancing and adding content until release.
Six weeks later it was on screen.
12 August: the whole tree
On 12 August, Aherys posted a single screenshot, with a warning that it is heavily work in progress and the interface barely done. He described it as the last core feature of the project for Early Access, said he felt a bit emotional about it, and left the community to guess what it was.
The image is a huge radial tree. Hundreds of nodes spread out from a centre point in rings, most of them still locked. A path of unlocked nodes runs from the centre, and at this size only a few labels are legible, among them Technician, Laptop, PDA, War Lord, Support, Anomaly Hunter and Survival.
8 September: a closer look
Aherys came back to it on 8 September, listing the skill tree among the team's priorities and sharing a closer, very early view. He said the team was still exploring a lot of ideas and that this would not be the final version.
The closer view makes the structure readable. A ring of starting nodes sits around the centre, and lines lead out from them to more specific skills. The table groups the legible names by the starting node they sit closest to in the screenshot. That grouping is ours: in a crop this early, which line leads where is not always clear.
| Near | Nodes visible around it |
|---|---|
| War Lord | Commando, Quick Aim, Hold Breath, Snap |
| Ordnance | Throw Distance, Throw Distance II, Cook Grenades, Low Throw |
| Support | Medical, Field Medic, Healer, Healer II and III, Transmission, Marker, Wingman |
| Technician | Laptop, PDA, Objectives, Handling, Lockpick, Mag Check, Mag Dump, Tactical Reload |
| Anomaly Hunter | Kill, Hunt |
| Endurance | Stamina, Conditioned, Deep Breath, Fast Recovery |
Survival is another starting node, cut off at the bottom of the crop. Names further out include Revive, Easy to Revive, Trap Sense, Marked Ground, Anchor, Cauterize, Broken Bones and Sharp Eye.
Our reading
This is our interpretation of two early screenshots, not something Deep Worlds has explained:
- Roles, not classes. The branches map onto ways of playing a squad: gunfighter, grenadier, medic, objective runner, monster hunter. A tree this wide suggests you pick a direction rather than unlock everything.
- Skills tied to real mechanics. Several nodes match systems Deep Worlds has already shown, such as the laptop objective on Ground Zero, the PDA, lockpicking, the magazine check and grenade cooking.
- An answer to anomaly players. In July, Aherys said operators lack tools against anomaly players. A branch called Anomaly Hunter, with nodes named Kill and Hunt, looks like part of that answer.
What is still unknown
- Whether the human and anomaly trees are separate screens. The Steam page describes a skill tree for anomalies, and Aherys spoke of both anomaly and human progression.
- How skill points are earned by operators. For anomalies, the Steam page says experience comes from killing and eating players.
- Whether progress is kept through wipes, and how often Early Access will wipe.
- Which of these node names survive to launch.
For the wider picture of the launch, see the release date page and the anomalies guide.
Sources
- Deep Worlds' official Discord (discord.gg/project-bl), #leaks-wip: posts by Aherys, CEO, on 2 July, 12 August and 8 September 2026
- Beautiful Light on Steam: anomaly progression
BL Guide, unofficial community coverage of Beautiful Light: how we check what we publish.