The Last Caretaker's latest update embraces its inner Dr Evil by adding sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads

9 hours ago 7

A robot wearing an orange scarf stares out of the screen with wide blue and black eyes.

I've been intrigued by oceanic survival sim The Last Caretaker since it was announced, but I have also been a little confused by its tone. Is it a melancholy adventure about being the last sentient being on an abandoned Earth, an optimistic sci-fi story about ensuring the long-term survival of the human race by growing people in vats and launching them into space, or a knockabout crafting-explore-o-thon where you build a big daft base on your boat?

I was hoping the latest update would help answer this question. But if anything, it has only confounded me further. Curiosity Wakes strays fully into Austin Powers territory by adding sharks with laser beams on their heads.

Yes, The Last Caretaker's third update realises Dr Evil's dream by filling its oceans with cartilaginous fishes armed with cranial laser cannons. These laser sharks are joined by two other types of hostile shark, namely ram sharks and archangels. I think we can guess what the first shark type does. The second is a mystery, but I presume it will usher your automaton protagonist to robot heaven in some unpleasant manner.

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The Last Caretaker - Update 03: Curiosity Wakes Trailer - YouTube

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Extra hazardous sealife isn't the only eccentric feature added by Curiosity Wakes. For starters, you no longer need to fight those pesky laser sharks (and other enemies) alone. The update introduces two deployable NPC companions to the game. The first is the "Sweetheart", which is a mobile gun turret with a cute cat face. Alongside this, you can craft swarms of spiderbot-like creatures to overwhelm enemies with sheer numbers.

Elsewhere, the update adds customisation options for your robot, several new quests and locations to explore, and further performance optimisations. Oh, and those vatgrown humans you launched into space? You can now contact them remotely via the Council of Humanity, which lets them perform actions via a terminal. What are those actions? Developer Channel 37 doesn't specify, so I guess you'll have to play to find out.

With three major updates arriving since its alpha launch in November, The Last Caretaker is proving itself one of the more dependable early access projects currently in production. Only last month, the developers added a jetski and two new biomes to the game, while December 2025 brought a forklift truck and a compost system for creating biofuel.

If you want to check The Last Caretaker out for yourself, Channel37 recently added an upgraded demo to Steam, improving the starting area and expanding the number of areas you can explore before needing to fork out cash for the full game.

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Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.

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