Biome Walkthrough

By Scot·Published June 17, 2026·Updated September 21, 2026·Checked against Patch 2.4.C on September 20, 2026

Tactical Quick Answer

Ten biomes exist in PEAK, but any single run uses six of them in fixed slots: Shore, then Tropics or Roots, then Alpine or Mesa, then two volcanic slots, then the Peak. The Final Biome Update added the variant biomes GLOOM and THE CITADEL on August 11, 2026, and they cycle out with CALDERA and THE KILN. The map rotates daily at 17:00 UTC, drawn from a pool of maps the developers pre-bake and ship in the build.

PEAK's mountain runs in fixed slots. Ten biomes exist, but a single expedition contains six:

1. Shore
2. Tropics or Roots
3. Alpine or Mesa
4. Caldera or a variant
5. The Kiln or a variant
6. The Peak

The variants in slots four and five are GLOOM and THE CITADEL, added by the Final Biome Update on August 11, 2026.

GLOOM and THE CITADEL arrive as a pair. Patch v2.0.a added them "randomly replacing CALDERA and THE KILN on some maps", so a run hands you the Caldera and the Kiln together or GLOOM and THE CITADEL together. You never get one from each set. GLOOM sits below THE CITADEL with a staircase running between them, so GLOOM fills slot four and THE CITADEL fills slot five. Patch 2.01.a confirmed that link when it capped how far forward the Big Ghost can spawn in GLOOM, to stop it appearing inside the stairs up to the Citadel.

Five of those are climbing biomes. The Peak is the hazard-free finish line. Roots and Mesa are alternates, not additions: Roots stands in for the Tropics and Mesa stands in for the Alpine, so you never see both halves of a pair in one run. GLOOM and THE CITADEL cycle out with the Caldera and the Kiln on the same principle, so a run still contains six biomes.

How the Daily Rotation Works

The map changes every day at 17:00 UTC. What changes is which map you are given, not the terrain being invented on the spot. Maps are randomly generated by the developers, baked, and shipped inside the game build, because generating one requires lightmap baking that cannot run on your machine. The daily rotation picks from that finite pool, which patch 1.65.a raised from 21 to 42.

The pairs rotate differently. Alpine and Mesa alternate every other day, deterministically, ever since patch 1.27.a fixed a bug that had pinned the Alpine for a week straight. Tropics and Roots rotate randomly by map seed. Caldera/Kiln and GLOOM/CITADEL normally roll at random per daily map, though that roll has been interrupted twice since launch. Patch v2.0.a forced GLOOM and THE CITADEL onto every map for the first two weeks after August 11, 2026, before handing the slot back to the random roll. Patch 2.03.a then added a fresh batch of GLOOM/CITADEL maps to the daily rotation to keep it varied, and patch 2.04.a on September 2, 2026 re-added the Caldera and the Kiln to the map rotation.

Each biome also rolls a weighted variant, and this is the real source of run-to-run variety. The Shore has variants like Jelly Hell, Black Sand and Snake Beach. The Mesa and Roots pools carry known weights:

Mesa variant	Weight
No Variant	10
Cactus Forest	5
Cactus Hell	5
Dynamite Hell	5
Scorpions Hell	5
Tumbler Hell	3

Roots variant	Weight
Default	100
Cave Mania	10
Clearcut	25
Deep Water	25
Deep Woods	25

Patch 1.64.a on June 24, 2026 pulled the BombBeetle and TornadoHell variants out of the Roots and Mesa pools, and thinned the spore clouds on some of the harder Roots variants. The developers called that spore change temporary, made while they looked at Roots balance more broadly. Beta patch 0.65.a put both variants back on the beta branch only, and both remain disabled on the live build.

Patch v2.0.a on August 11, 2026 delivered the broader Roots pass those notes promised. The stated goal was making Roots less of an outlier in difficulty next to the Tropics, and it reworked spore mushrooms, windstorm timing and beetle behavior across the whole biome instead of a handful of variants.

Roots also has a mushroom hell variant. Patch 2.04.a on September 2, 2026 fixed its evil bounce mushrooms having the same coloring as normal ones.

info

The pool is finite and pre-baked, so community trackers that document today's capybara, tomb and beehive locations genuinely work. Volunteers walk the maps and record what is where. That is only possible because the geometry is fixed per map and never generated fresh for each player.

Shore

The starting zone. You wash up on a beach surrounded by plane wreckage and scattered luggage.

Terrain: Sandy beaches, low rocky outcrops and shallow cliffs. Forgiving angles and plenty of ground.

Hazards:

• Jellyfish. Inflict Poison 5 and ragdoll you for about two seconds. They are scattered across the whole biome, not just the shallows, and on the flat Backshore they are the only hazard there is.
• Giant Urchins. Inflict Poison 10 for every second of contact. These appear on the Cliff section and not at the waterline.
• Bridges. Breakable, with weight limits of one to five scouts. Cross one at a time if your team is heavy.

What to do here:

1. Loot everything. The crash site has a fixed spawn list, so a Backpack, Lantern, Flare, Bugle, Compass, Guidebook, Binoculars, Flying Disc and Bing Bong are all guaranteed to be there somewhere.
2. Take the Backpack first. Four extra slots for no weight is the best trade in the game.
3. Read the Guidebook.
4. Cook what you find at the crash-site fire.

tip

Coconuts are excellent food but weigh 12.5, the heaviest food in the game. Break one open into two Half-Coconuts and eat or share them instead of hauling the whole thing up the mountain.

Tropics

A dense, humid jungle. The terrain steepens and rain introduces the first real mechanical challenge.

Terrain: Thick vegetation, vine-covered walls, tall trees and narrow ledges. Vines are pure traversal aids, grabbed like ropes, and nothing about them is a trap.

Hazards:

• Rain. Wet surfaces slow your climbing, cost more stamina, and make you slide even while holding still. Storm duration is not documented, so read the weather instead of trusting a timer.
• Poison Ivy. Inflicts Poison 2.5 on contact. Visually distinct from safe growth.
• Thorny Giant Ivy. Inflicts poison and knockback, but it is also solid, so it doubles as a stepping stone once you know to expect the damage.

Strategy: Rain is the biome's real threat because it affects every surface at once. Between storms, climb aggressively. During them, hold a ledge.

This is also where Big Trees live, the thick-trunked ones you can climb to the top of for the Arborist badge. Luggage sometimes spawns up there.

Roots

Added in patch 1.40.a on November 5, 2025. A shrouded redwood forest that replaces the Tropics.

Terrain: Massive redwood trunks, static Giant Shelf Fungi that work as platforms, hanging vines and dense canopy.

Hazards:

• Wind. The biome's defining hazard and the one players most often overlook. Harsh gusts threaten to knock you off the cliffside. Patch v2.0.a increased the average time between windstorms a fair amount, so the clear windows between them run longer than they used to.
• Spores. Fungal clouds build up the Spores status. This is what the Tread Lightly badge asks you to keep under 25%. Patch v2.0.a shrank the radius of Roots spore mushrooms significantly and cut their spore affliction slightly. It also flattened the falloff at distance, so the edge of a cloud now costs you more spores than it used to. Wind disables the mushrooms, and since v2.0.a they stay disabled for an extra two seconds after the gust ends.
• Spiders. When a scout walks below one, it descends straight down and grabs, inflicting Web 25 and then Poison every second while it hauls you up. Mash jump to break free, since each press removes 5 Web, and expect a long fall afterward.
• Beetles. They chase and throw scouts. They deal no damage themselves, so the danger is entirely where you land. Patch v2.0.a made them slightly less aggressive and stopped them from ganging up to pin a scout in place.
• Zombies. Only present on Peak difficulty and above, never on Tenderfoot. A bite gives Injury 10 and Spores 10, plus an infection worth 0.5 spores per second that self-cures after 60 seconds. It does not spread from player to player. What does matter: dying with 50 or more spores turns you into one.

Strategy: Zombies are far less catastrophic than their reputation, and patch 1.42.a nerfed them further. Treat spores as the real resource to manage and keep an Antidote or Cure-All handy. Watch above you for spiders, not ahead of you.

Alpine

Cold, exposed and unforgiving.

Terrain: Snow-covered slopes, icy rock faces and exposed ridgelines.

Hazards:

• Blizzards. These arrive at random and last several seconds, not minutes. They inflict Cold. Sheltering in darker or covered ground reduces their intensity.
• Ice Rocks. These inflict Cold, at 2.5 per 1.75 seconds standing and 2.5 per 0.525 seconds climbing. They do not reduce your grip, which is a common misconception.
• Icicles and Flash Bulbs. Additional Alpine hazards worth watching for.
• Geysers. These inflict Heat and remove Cold, which makes them useful and not purely dangerous. They do not cook anything.

Strategy: Cold decays on its own once you are out of the cold, so you do not need to burn an item every time it ticks up. The cheapest cure is huddling: standing within about three meters of a teammate removes 1.5 Cold per second for free. Carry a Lantern for the gaps, remembering it goes out when you stow it.

The Hot Spring is here, home to three capybaras and a guaranteed Yellow Winterberry on one of their heads.

Mesa

Added in patch 1.20.a on August 11, 2025. Arid desert that replaces the Alpine.

Terrain: Sandstone formations, arches and open plateaus, with more horizontal traversal than other biomes.

Hazards:

• The Blazing Sun. Inflicts Heat 5 per second on anyone in direct line of sight. This is the biome's defining hazard, not a mild drain. Counter it with shade, a Parasol, Sunscreen or Aloe Vera.
• Tornadoes. The Mesa's area hazard.
• Antlions. Sand traps baited with fake Explorer's Luggage. Approaching within about 19 meters triggers the attack.
• Cacti. Inflict Thorns and stick you in place. Five stuck to you at once earns the Needlepoint badge, and will also knock you out.
• Scorpions, Dynamite and Tumbleweeds round out the list.

Landmarks: The Oasis is a cold water pool with two capybaras that removes Heat. The Mesa also produces mirages, of luggage and even of whole oases, which are unique to this biome. And the Tomb is a secret location whose entrance is open on roughly half of Mesa maps, containing a torch-lit hall, a blocked maze, a Challenge Chamber, and the Ancient Idol.

Caldera

The volcanic zone.

Terrain: Dark volcanic rock, obsidian and lava flows.

Hazards:

• Lava. It inflicts Injury on contact without killing you outright, and it rises and falls periodically, uncovering hot ground as it recedes. Crossing burning ground deliberately is a real tactic, not a mistake.
• Hot Rocks. Glowing surfaces that inflict significant Heat.
• Eruptions. Rocks glow, then burst into a vertical inferno inflicting Heat. This is the hazard to watch for, and the one that catches people who are scanning for lava instead.
• Condors. Added in patch 2.04.a on September 2, 2026. They fly around the Caldera and kidnap you. Patch 2.4.C on September 14, 2026 fixed a bug where starting to climb while a Condor carried you teleported you back to the wall once it let go.

Strategy: Route planning matters most here. Scan with binoculars, identify the cool rock, and plan a path that connects it. Carry something for Heat.

info

There are no thermal updrafts in PEAK, and no steam vents in the Caldera. If you have read advice about riding rising hot air for free height, it describes a mechanic the game does not have. Geysers are an Alpine feature.

The Kiln

Inside the volcano. Tight walls, long climbs, and a clock.

Terrain: Narrow volcanic shafts and vertical chimneys. Rest spots are harder to see and not absent: most embedded rocks are climbable and standable, they just do not read as ledges from below.

Hazards:

• Rising lava. This is on a timer, not a trigger. It begins three minutes after you light the Caldera campfire and takes about twenty minutes to reach the top, whether you climb or not. Standing in it costs roughly 25 Injury and 30 Heat per second. It applies on every difficulty except Tenderfoot.
• Lava Rivers. A separate hazard from the rising pool. Patch 1.65.a fixed an issue where they never showed up inside the Kiln at all, so they are a hazard you will only have met on a run from July 23, 2026 onward.
• Hot Rocks. The ambient heat here is significant, not mild.

Patch 2.04.a on September 2, 2026 added petrifying rocks and hot rock bridges to the Kiln.

Strategy: Twenty minutes is generous if you keep moving and brutal if you sightsee. Eat before you enter so your bar is full, and do not stop to reorganize your pack. Look harder for standable rock than you would elsewhere, because it is there.

warning

The Kiln has no campfire and no Ancient Statue at its end, and the Caldera fire you light on your way in is one of only two campfires with no guaranteed Backpack beside it. The other stands at the end of GLOOM. Anyone dead when you enter stays dead for the rest of the run, so revive before you commit.

GLOOM and THE CITADEL

Two variant biomes added by the Final Biome Update on August 11, 2026. They cycle out with the Caldera and The Kiln, so a run that draws one climbs it in place of the biome it stands in for.

GLOOM

GLOOM takes the Caldera's slot. You reach it through ruined staircases that feed into an entrance hallway, and a set of stairs leads up to the Citadel.

Terrain: Fog-covered ground broken up by small islands and giant trees. A campfire sits in the middle of the entrance hallway, with an Ancient Statue room to its left. There is no rising timer.

Hazards:

• Sleepy Gloom. The fog covering the ground. It inflicts 2.5 Drowsy every 2.75 seconds.
• The Big Ghost. Prolonged fog exposure spawns one, and it inflicts 35 Cold plus blindness. Patch 2.01.a capped how far forward it can spawn, to stop it appearing inside the stairs to the Citadel and ambushing you from below. Patch 2.02.a tightened the spawn rules twice more: Big Ghosts now avoid spawning directly underneath players, and they no longer spawn slightly too high underground, which had been cutting the time you get to react after one appeared.
• Gloom Water. Slows your movement.
• Flytraps. Inflict 30 Flytrap plus 5 Poison per second.
• Frogs. Unkillable, cookable, and armed with a tongue that damages and ragdolls you. Numbers below.
• Tricky Ravens. They mimic voices.
• An arrow trap right of the entrance.
• Fencing. 2.5 Injury per second.

Loot: Egg, Cooked Bird, The Early Worm and Hot Dog, plus three Small Eggs in raven nests.

The Frogs carry hard numbers. A Frog grabs you with its tongue, and patch 2.02.a cut all three numbers behind that grab. The developers nerfed the Frogs yet again there, in their own words, and said they hope it is the last pass.

Property	Before 2.02.a	After 2.02.a
Max tongue distance	22m	18m
Max tongue angle	16 degrees	14 degrees
Cooldown	10s	12s

You cannot kill a Frog, but you can cook one into Frog Legs. Patch 2.04.a on September 2, 2026 fixed Frogs not turning into Frog Legs when cooked by environmental situations such as explosions.

THE CITADEL

THE CITADEL takes the Kiln's slot: the inside of a tall tower filled with traps and ruined structures. The climb ends on a platform leading to the Peak, ringed by golden Scout statues. Patch 2.01.a improved its level generation to prevent floating obstacles.

Hazards:

• Arrow Traps, which also appear in GLOOM.
• Spike Traps. Since patch 2.04.a on September 2, 2026, a spike trap with terrain generated on top of it will not trigger.
• Swinging Maces.
• Luggage Traps.
• Petrifying Stones.
• Vertical and Horizontal Spike Rollers.
• Rising Sleepy Gloom. On Peak difficulty and above, Sleepy Gloom rises from the bottom of the tower.

The tower's campfire and Ancient Statue placement, whether a Backpack spawns, and its loot are still unverified.

Campfires

Campfires sit at the top of every biome except the Kiln and the Peak. They gate progression, and lighting one dissipates the fog wall.

They arrive unlit. Every player must be within about 25 meters before one can be lit, and that makes campfires a natural regroup point instead of a place you pass through.

A lit campfire grants a Morale Boost (+25 bonus stamina and 20 healing each), halts hunger and the fog entirely while it burns, and autosaves your expedition. The boost once needed two or more scouts nearby, and patch v2.0.a extends it to solo players.

warning

Patch 1.20.a quietly moved the Caldera campfire forward, into the volcano just before the Kiln. The change was logged as undocumented. The Ancient Statue and the luggage stayed behind at the top of the Caldera temple, and a bridge and tunnel now separate them from the fire. Revive and loot at the temple before you walk through. Patch 2.04.a on September 2, 2026 removed one luggage from that statue area and made it guaranteed to spawn better luggage.

Biome Difficulty Summary

Biome	Difficulty	Primary Challenge	Recommended Items
Shore	Easy	Learning the controls	Backpack, food
Tropics	Moderate	Rain and slick surfaces	Pitons, Antidote, food
Roots	Hard	Wind, spores and spiders	Antidote, Cure-All, food
Alpine	Hard	Cold from blizzards and ice	A heat source, food, pitons
Mesa	Moderate-Hard	The Blazing Sun	Sunscreen or Parasol, Aloe Vera, food
Caldera	Hard	Heat and eruptions	Bandages, Cure-All, food
The Kiln	Very Hard	A twenty-minute lava timer	Food, pitons

GLOOM and THE CITADEL are still missing from that table. Their hazard lists are in their sections above, and neither biome has a difficulty rating or a recommended item list yet.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many biomes are in PEAK?

Ten exist, but a single run uses six: Shore, then Tropics or Roots, then Alpine or Mesa, then two volcanic slots, then the Peak. Roots and Mesa are alternates that replace Tropics and Alpine, and the Final Biome Update added GLOOM and THE CITADEL on August 11, 2026, which cycle out with CALDERA and THE KILN. Five of the six are climbing biomes.

What are GLOOM and THE CITADEL in PEAK?

Two variant biomes added by the Final Biome Update on August 11, 2026. They cycle out with CALDERA and THE KILN, so a run draws one of them in place of the biome it stands in for and still contains six biomes. GLOOM is fog-covered ground with small islands and giant trees, where the Sleepy Gloom fog inflicts Drowsy and prolonged exposure spawns a Big Ghost. THE CITADEL is the inside of a tall tower filled with traps, ending on a platform to the Peak ringed by golden Scout statues.

Does the PEAK map really regenerate every day?

The map you get changes daily at 17:00 UTC, but it is not generated on your machine. The developers pre-bake maps and ship them in the build, and the rotation picks from that pool, which patch 1.65.a raised from 21 to 42. That is why community daily-location trackers can exist at all.

Which biomes do Roots and Mesa replace?

Roots replaces the Tropics and Mesa replaces the Alpine. Alpine and Mesa alternate every other day deterministically, while Tropics and Roots rotate randomly by map seed.

How does the rising lava in The Kiln work?

It is on a timer, not a trigger. It starts three minutes after you light the Caldera campfire and takes about twenty minutes to reach the top whether you climb or not. Standing in it costs roughly 25 Injury and 30 Heat per second, and it applies on every difficulty except Tenderfoot.

How do you deal with Cold in the Alpine?

Cold decays on its own once you are out of the cold, so you do not need an item every time it ticks up. The cheapest cure is huddling within about three meters of a teammate, which removes 1.5 Cold per second for free. Shelter in darker ground during blizzards, which last only a few seconds.

What to Read Next

• Climbing and Survival Mechanics. Stamina and cooking per biome.
• Co-op and Ascent Guide. Running these biomes as a team.
• 100% Badge Guide. Zone badges tied to each biome.
• Lore and Secrets. Scrolls, statues and the Tomb.
• Tips and Tricks. The lava timer, the pre-baked map pool, and what blizzards really cost.

Did you know?

Frostbite, Sunburn, and Slippery are not PEAK status effects

Cold and Heat cover the first two. Slippery is a separate mechanic entirely, caused by Berrynana peels and jellyfish and never by rain or ice. Chasing a cure for a status the game does not have is a good way to waste an item you needed later.

All PEAK tips and tricks