Bathysia has been a silent film until this week. Now the drone has a motor — a propeller churn that's quiet at a drift, builds as you push, and runs hard and fast under Boost Surge. The water answers it: every zone carries its own ambience, crossfading as you sink — the Sunlit Reef's shimmer thins into the Twilight hush, the Midnight pulse, and the Lower Dark's pressure — with the Kelp Forest, the Grotto and the Berth each keeping their own character, and a quiet motif riding under it all while you cruise. Near a surfaced Leviathan's hunt ground, something low starts beating that you will not mistake for music.
The fights got their sound the same week. The Beastkeeper's pit runs a combat bed under every fight, the amber telegraph arc ticks before each attack lands, all eight beasts roar with their own voices, and hits land both ways — including the gold ping of a lucky rocket. Out in open water, breaking a rock finally sounds like breaking a rock: a deep, muffled blast with the rubble crackling after, and rockets leave the tubes with a pressurized thump instead of silence.
All of it answers to you. Press N — or open the Console's Setup and pick the Sound tab next to Keyboard — for the AV-1 Mixer: Master plus three channels (Music & Ambience, Effects, Interface), each with a fader, a live preview as you drag, and its own Off switch, so "music off, effects on" is one press. Volume lives on your device, like your key bindings — it never travels with your save.
One more instrument shipped alongside: the Field Manual, on O. It's the "what can I actually do here" book — how to earn crystals and trade them for Nauts, buy nets, break rocks, fill journal pages, stun runners, face the Trial Grounds, find the timed Leviathans — every number in it read straight from the game. And where the manual teaches a place you already know, its Show me button doesn't point: it flies you there. Places you haven't discovered stay yours to find — the manual hints, and the water keeps its secrets.
Also in this update: a lassoed catch in open water now shivers inside the same violet hold ring the arena uses, so one stun reads the same everywhere; a skill press the game refuses now says why — sealed socket, recharging, or not enough charge — instead of doing nothing; and a rare stuck warning card that could quietly eat your clicks after a deep-water scare has been fixed.