Once Human: you have until 6 p.m. tonight to get a refund on the Summer Echoes bundle — or keep it and pocket 150 badges

If you purchased the Summer Echoes furniture bundle in Once Human, you have until 6 p.m. Paris time this Wednesday, August 19 to request a full refund. After that deadline, the window closes.

This is a rare situation: Starry Studio openly admits that a paid piece of content "did not meet the expected standard," apologizes twice for it, and offers a full refund in premium currency. You still need to take action, though — it's not automatic.

The deadline, converted to French time

The studio works in Pacific Time. Here are the two dates that matter, converted to Paris time:

A nine-hour gap: that's the time difference between the American West Coast and France at this time of year. The direct consequence for us: the window closes in the late afternoon, not at midnight. A player who only opens the game after dinner will arrive too late.

What you're being told you bought wrong

The Summer Echoes bundle launched on August 12 (Pacific Time) and included the Golden Shore Pool furniture recipe. Starry Studio sums up the negative feedback in three acknowledged complaints:

• You can't swim in it. The pool water is "special furniture water": the studio had planned floating interactions with a pool ring, but admits this "did not fully meet expectations."
• The water disappears. In heavily loaded scenes, the body of water can be culled by the engine and display incorrectly, or not at all.
• Placement and finishing are flawed. The studio mentions "shortcomings" in the positioning and presentation of details, and concludes that "the overall result does not meet the expected standard."

The two options, and which one to choose

Starry Studio leaves the choice up to players, but the two options are not equivalent:

The math comes down entirely to one thing: do you actually plan to decorate with this pool?

If yes, keep it. Option 2 costs nothing and adds a Lightforge Ingot — a high-tier crafting resource that's not insignificant — plus 150 badges. You're being paid to do nothing, and the studio has also committed to fixing the pool (see below).

If no, refund yourself now. The refund is issued in Rock-Crystal, the game's premium currency, so it can be reused on any other purchase. Do pay attention to the fine print, though: "we will simultaneously reclaim the associated unlocked recipes." If you've already placed the pool on your territory, it will disappear.

How to request a refund, step by step

The process goes through the returns platform, not the standard customer service:

1. Log in to the returns platform with the account that purchased the bundle — that's the condition the studio checks before processing.
2. Submit a return with the subject being the refund request for Summer Echoes.
3. If the site doesn't open or if the login fails, go through the game instead: Esc key or menu, then Feedback & Customer Service, then Feedback Platform, then Suggestion.

The in-game path is the workaround recommended by the studio itself: it's the one to use if you have any doubt about your login to the site, because it automatically authenticates the correct account.

A note on names: they don't exist in French

A methodological point, because it shapes all the vocabulary in this article. Since 2025, the French version has disappeared from the game's official patch notes: only four languages remain in the publisher's website selector, and French is not one of them.

Summer Echoes, Golden Shore Pool, and Colorful Badge therefore have no published French label. We are keeping them in English, as they appear in the announcement. However, two terms do have an attested French name in the client, and these are the ones that matter for your wallet: Crystgin is called « Cristal de roche » and Lightforge Ingot is called « Lingot de Forgelumière ».

What the studio promises to fix, and by when

The correction plan is dated, which is rare enough to be worth noting:

• Swimming in the pool: the studio estimates it can deliver the optimization "within a maximum of three months". Once done, Metas will be able to swim in the Golden Shore Pool.
• Pool shape poorly connected to buildings and foundations: fix expected "in September".
• Missing water effects on certain mobile devices: prioritized fix, but no date, as the issue involves rendering adaptation across devices.
• Visual misalignment of the character entering the pool: the cause has been identified — the display of the semi-transparent effects structure at the bottom of the pool on certain devices. Solutions are "under discussion", with no commitment.
• Foundation too high: explicit refusal. The adjustment would affect terrain destruction and furniture adaptation to the terrain, "which the system cannot currently support". No change in the short term.

This last point is the one that should weigh on your decision. If your main complaint about this pool is its seating height on the terrain, the studio has just told you it won't be touching that. In that case, the refund is the only way out — and it closes at 6 p.m.

What to do within the hour

Open the game, check your decoration inventory to see if Summer Echoes is there, and decide. If you're still hesitating, keep the asymmetry in mind: option 2 gets you something at no cost and gives the studio three months to make the pool swimmable. Option 1 gives you back your currency but erases the item.

Either way, don't put off the decision until tonight: at 6 p.m., only option 2 will remain — by default, and without you having to click anything.