Instead of water poisoning, you now have to manage magic radiation. Prolonged exposure to the Dark Sea is quite lethal for those not fit enough to adapt, after all. This is indicated as a bar at the bottom of the screen, similar to Thermo Fist. As it increases, your max health will slowly be reduced with a similar effect to injuries appearing on the health bar (instead of red, it’s purple).
Magic radiation also inflicts several negative effects the further it progresses, such as cutting maximum energy in half, reducing regen, or slowing movement speed. Insanity is also now directly tied to the bar. When the bar is full, the player immediately dies.
Magic radiation can be managed in a number of ways. While it builds up passively at a slow rate, exposure to magical hazards (tornados, waves, hail) or certain “impossible phenomena” (more on those later) massively increases the rate at which it increases for a short time. The more vanity items you have equipped that cover your body, the less is built up (having a chest piece, waist attachment, leg piece, and 2 head/face accessories is recommended). The deeper into the Dark Sea you go, the faster the magic radiation builds up.
To reduce magic radiation once it is built up, you will need to find specific islands. Every 3-4 islands found will be “survivor” islands, featuring inhabitants that have avoided insanity and mutation through various means and have established a primitive community (with shelter and water purification). These islands are devoid of animals or Atlanteans, while also not being affected by weather hazards. With them, you can barter for goods with previously obtained Dark Sea loot (be it exchanging one for another or buying accessories that further boost your passive protection from radiation) and can rest alongside them. When sheltered alongside them, the bar slowly reduces.
Some survivor islands have established groups that span across multiple islands and have camps that can offer the player quests. These quests improve an invisible reputation bar, which gives the player more options for bartering with these specific faction traders. Some quests will also involve harming other groups, which reduces reputation with them. If reputation is lowered too much, they will become hostile to the player.
To compensate for the inability to tell what range in the Dark Sea you are in, what were originally I2 and I4 have been removed. Golden cooking pots/cauldrons have been folded into I1 and the Epicenter has been folded into I3. Survivor islands become more scarce the deeper into the Dark Sea you go, with ones in the far reaches of the Dark Sea instead being inhabited by cultists who have began to worship the Dark Sea itself. You can only interact with these cultists while wearing their attire, which is gained by killing them. Otherwise, they attack you on sight.
Right, the impossible phenomena. On many islands throughout the Dark Sea, many random effects will occur. Be it the player being sucked into an invisible whirlpool they must rapidly dash out from, being pursued by a ball of fire that deals percentage damage when touched, or being forced to avoid pools of acid that stretch across the island. Being in proximity to one of these phenomena massively increases magic radiation gain, however, they can occasionally contain rare artifacts near them. These artifacts can be used on gear to apply a modifier separate from normal modifiers, giving the piece of gear a minor buff to a specific stat. The stat depends entirely on the artifact, which is also dependent on the phenomena that it spawned next to. In general, the more desirable the stat, the more dangerous the phenomena.