Unturned Limestone Update (2025): Explore the New Curated Map and Coastal Adventure

The waves crash against pale coastal cliffs as sunlight filters through drifting fog. Somewhere beyond the horizon, a new world waits for survivors brave enough to explore it. Unturned’s Limestone Update brings that world to life. A sprawling, Mediterranean-inspired map filled with rugged quarries, quiet fishing villages, and fortresses weathered by time.

Released with patch 3.25.9.0, Limestone continues the tradition of Unturned’s Curated Map Program, where community creators collaborate with Smartly Dressed Games to introduce officially supported worlds. This release doesn’t just expand the game’s geography. It refines its mechanics. Updated fog and ambience systems, smoother performance, and new lighting controls make every sunrise and storm feel more immersive than ever.

For veterans and newcomers alike, Limestone offers a fresh challenge: tighter resource clusters, more vertical terrain, and a sense of discovery that recalls Unturned’s earliest survival days. Whether you’re searching for loot in the quarries or defending a seaside fortress with friends, this update invites you to carve your legend into the stone of a brand-new landscape.

Let’s dive into everything Unturned’s Limestone Update brings, from its handcrafted world design to the technical upgrades that make it shine on game servers.

What Is the Limestone Update?

The Limestone Update is the newest milestone in Unturned’s long-running evolution. Officially released as patch 3.25.9.0, it introduces a community-curated map built in collaboration between Smartly Dressed Games (SDG) and a talented team of creators from the Curated Map Program. These projects begin as community efforts and, once refined and approved by SDG, become part of the official Unturned experience, offering players polished new environments that rival the game’s original maps in depth and quality.

Limestone’s design draws heavy inspiration from the Mediterranean coast, trading dense urban ruins for sun-bleached villages, rocky quarries, and sweeping sea cliffs. It’s a deliberate shift in tone, a blend of calm seaside exploration and tactical survival encounters, that broadens Unturned’s environmental palette.

But this update goes beyond a new map. Patch 3.25.9.0 arrives with a suite of technical and gameplay improvements:

• Fog & Ambience Systems Reworked: customizable light diffusion and region-based fog volumes create more atmospheric lighting.
• NPC Event Hook Additions: opens the door for more dynamic missions and scripted encounters.
• Performance Upgrades: an updated Unity engine pipeline and improved world streaming mean smoother framerates across large biomes.
• Cosmetic Content: a new Limestone Mystery Box adds themed outfits and gear for collectors.

Together, these changes refresh both the visual identity and the mechanical backbone of Unturned, setting a new benchmark for future curated releases. Limestone is more than another survival zone. It’s proof of how far community creativity can push the boundaries of SDG’s decade-old sandbox.

Exploring Limestone: Map Overview

From its first loading screen, Limestone feels different. The map opens on a stretch of Mediterranean coastline, framed by chalk-white cliffs and the soft hum of sea wind. Instead of the dense urban decay found in Russia or Washington, this world leans into natural elevation, coastal ruins, and open sunlight, a refreshing contrast that instantly sets the mood for exploration and survival.

A World of Contrasts

Limestone’s geography is built around vertical layers. At sea level, narrow beaches lead into fishing villages and rusted harbors, where scavengers trade fish for scrap. Move inland and you’ll find terraced farms and steep quarries, their walls carved from the pale rock that gives the map its name. High above, fortified hilltop keeps overlook the coastline, prime real estate for ambitious base builders or PvE defenders.

Each region feels distinct, with visual cues that help players orient themselves without a compass:

• Limestone Quarry: a massive excavation site and the map’s resource heart; ideal for mining and vehicle storage.
• Harbor District: the main spawn and trading hub, rich with fishing loot and NPC interactions.
• Hilltop Fortress: an end-game challenge area perfect for cooperative raids.
• Cave Networks: interconnected tunnels that double as shortcuts or ambush zones.

Atmosphere and Ambience

Patch 3.25.9.0’s new fog-volume system truly shines here. Inland valleys fill with morning haze, while coastal cliffs remain bright and wind-swept. Dynamic ambient soundscapes, waves, gulls, dripping caverns add layers of realism rarely seen in earlier maps.

These subtle details make Limestone both picturesque and unpredictable. Visibility shifts with time and weather, forcing survivors to adapt their strategies, whether hunting for loot at dawn or sneaking through fog-drenched ruins at dusk.

Scale and Flow

Sized between Arid and Elver, Limestone hits a balance between exploration and manageability. It’s large enough to feel like a continent but compact enough to traverse in a single session. Players can follow coastal roads for quick travel or venture off-path into forests where danger, and better loot, awaits.

In short, Limestone isn’t just a map; it’s a living landscape designed for stories. Every quarry wall, every fog bank, every sun-washed ruin invites you to explore, rebuild, and survive.

Gameplay and Loot Changes

While Limestone’s coastline may appear calm, its survival loop is anything but. The update reshapes Unturned’s familiar rhythm introducing new progression pacing, loot logic, and combat dynamics that feel finely tuned for both solo players and multiplayer crews.

A More Tactical Survival Flow

Gone are the wide-open flatlands of older maps. Limestone’s layered terrain forces players to think vertically. Cliffs, ridges, and tunnels add both opportunity and risk. Snipers gain vantage points but must manage visibility through fog, while melee-focused players find narrow choke points perfect for ambushes.

Exploration feels deliberately slower and more methodical. Food, fuel, and ammunition spawn in smaller, more concentrated clusters, encouraging movement and cooperation rather than base-camping one area indefinitely.

Refined Loot Tables

Patch 3.25.9.0 rebalances loot pools around Limestone’s geography:

• Quarry Zones favor industrial tools, explosives, and mid-tier armor.
• Harbor Districts contain civilian supplies, fish, and mechanical parts.
• Hilltop Fortresses reward high-risk raids with advanced firearms and vehicle gear.
• Rural Farms and Villages hold renewable food, wood, and crafting materials.

This distribution encourages natural player progression. Each biome gently nudging survivors toward higher stakes and better rewards.

Resource Extraction and Crafting

Limestone’s quarry system introduces new crafting hooks. Quarry debris yields construction materials that can fortify bases against raids or environmental damage. Resource points regenerate slowly, adding a sense of permanence and realism to the survival economy. Players who specialize in resource management will find Limestone rewarding over the long term.

Combat and Cooperative Play

The update’s subtle AI behavior tweaks make PvE encounters more dynamic. Enemies take better advantage of cover and elevation, and new fog-based visibility mechanics add tension to ranged fights.
In multiplayer, Limestone’s open routes and defensible strongholds create natural points of conflict, perfect for roleplay, clan battles, or community events.

Performance and Balance

Even with its verticality and detailed assets, Limestone runs smoother than most curated maps thanks to optimized terrain meshes and lighting systems. Server performance scales efficiently across large player counts, keeping firefights and raids fluid.

Whether you’re scavenging for scrap in the quarry or staging a raid from a seaside base, Limestone’s design encourages teamwork, adaptability, and experimentation making every encounter feel earned.

Technical & Server Improvements

Behind Limestone’s scenic cliffs lies one of Unturned’s most significant under-the-hood updates in years. Patch 3.25.9.0 doesn’t just deliver a new map. It rebuilds the foundation that keeps every world running smoothly, especially for server owners and players.

Upgraded Engine & Lighting

Smartly Dressed Games has migrated Unturned to a new Unity engine branch, refining how light interacts with fog, shadows, and reflective surfaces. The result is a world that feels warmer, clearer, and more consistent across biomes. Dynamic light diffusion now blends seamlessly with the update’s reworked fog volumes, allowing server admins to fine-tune ambience without mods.

Fog & Ambience Customization

The new region-based ambience system gives hosts granular control over visual atmosphere. Each zone can use independent fog density, color, and light scattering perfect for community servers that want distinct “weather moods.” Builders can create mist-covered harbors at dawn or sun-bleached quarries at noon, all without affecting performance.

Performance Enhancements

Optimization was a major focus for this patch:

• Streamlined world-streaming reduces hitching when moving between zones.
• GPU occlusion and terrain mesh compression cut draw calls by nearly 20 %.
• AI pathfinding logic now caches node data, improving NPC responsiveness in multiplayer.

The outcome: higher and steadier framerates even on populated servers.

Improved Item Placement & Interaction

Players can now rotate and orient certain items on stands and displays with greater precision, a subtle but welcome quality-of-life tweak that builders will immediately appreciate. This also reduces sync errors between clients, ensuring that what one player places appears identically for everyone else.

Server Configuration Upgrades

For administrators, Limestone arrives ready for seamless deployment:

• WorkshopDownloadConfig.json - allows automatic downloading of the Limestone Workshop files on startup.
• Commands.dat - supports direct map-load commands such as Map Limestone.
• PlayFab matchmaking integration - faster server-list updates and reduced refresh latency.

Combined, these tools streamline setup on premium platforms like Host Havoc, cutting configuration time from hours to minutes.

Stability & Networking

Networking fixes in this patch resolve long-standing issues with item replication and matchmaking across clients. The result is fewer disconnects, smoother co-op transitions, and more reliable world persistence for modded and curated environments alike.

Hosting Limestone Worlds with Host Havoc

Limestone isn’t just a beautiful new frontier. It’s a map built to be shared. The narrow valleys, open quarries, and towering fortresses come alive when dozens of players are fighting, trading, or building together. That’s where a reliable server transforms the experience from survival into something truly memorable.

Running your Limestone world on a Host Havoc server gives you every advantage this update was designed for:

• Seamless Workshop integration: Limestone downloads and updates automatically, so your server always runs the latest version.
• Optimized mod and curated-map performance: bandwidth, CPU, and memory tuned for Unturned’s Unity pipeline.
• Global low-latency network: Host Havoc data centers positioned for smooth connections whether your crew is in North America, Europe, or beyond.
• 24/7 uptime and expert support: real people who understand Unturned and can help configure your Commands.dat or Workshop settings in minutes.

Together, these features turn technical setup into a one-click operation, letting you focus on exploring and hosting events instead of debugging configs.

FAQ – Unturned Limestone Update Questions

1. What is the Unturned Limestone Update?

The Limestone Update, released in patch 3.25.9.0, adds a new community-curated map to Unturned. Built in partnership with Smartly Dressed Games, it introduces a Mediterranean-style coastline, updated fog and ambience systems, and major engine performance upgrades.

2. How large is the Limestone map compared to Arid or Elver?

Limestone sits comfortably between Arid and Elver in scale. It’s large enough for deep exploration and vehicle travel, but compact enough to cross in a single play session making it ideal for cooperative and role-play servers.

3. Is the Limestone update available for multiplayer servers?

Yes. Limestone is fully multiplayer-compatible and optimized for hosting. It supports all standard server commands, Workshop downloads, and PlayFab matchmaking right out of the box.

4. Do I need extra mods to play Limestone?

No additional mods are required. Once the update is installed through Steam, the map becomes available in your single-player and server map lists. Optional visual-enhancement or role-play mods can be added for customization.

5. How can I host a Limestone server with friends?

You can launch a multiplayer Limestone world instantly using Host Havoc’s Unturned servers. Their control panel auto-downloads the Workshop files, applies the correct Commands.dat settings, and keeps the map updated with each patch, so you can skip configuration and start surviving together.