Patch 06 for Sons of the Forest, the indie horror follow-up to 2018's The Forest, has been released, with this latest update coming with some new features and a hard survival mode. Not just a creepy title set in a dense woodland area inhabited by cannibals and mutants, Endnight's sequel is also a game known for its base building mechanics, affording players the opportunity to set up camp in order to survive for as long as possible.
Since releasing in early access back in February, the developer has been keeping Sons of the Forest in good condition with frequent updates, many of which tweak some of the more obvious bugs in the game. These patches also provide additional content for the game's full release, whenever that may be. As such, fans will notice more features and mechanics being implemented, and the latest update brings with it a new challenge.
According to the Sons of the Forest Steam page, Patch 06 has now been sent out, adding a new hard survival difficulty mode, some custom effigies, an advanced log sled, and more. Given the early access state of the game, the update also implements a number of improvements and tweaks to balancing, which includes optimizations for the water sounds and visuals, making it so that sleeping outdoors is less rewarding than sleeping inside, plus some other changes. The new hard mode reduces food spawns in crates, decreases stamina regeneration speeds while in the cold, and increases the penalty for consuming raw or rotten meats.
As such, this hard survival difficulty setting could be the developer's way of turning Sons of the Forest into a brutal survival game, perhaps not too far removed from such notorious names as Rust or 7 Days to Die. As with previous updates, Patch 06 also tweaks a few things with Kelvin, the NPC who helps players survive the titular forest, such as making it so that he can now pick up stones and fixing an issue in which the mute helper was unable to collect dropped arrows.
When it launched, Sons of the Forest smashed records on Steam, becoming one of the most celebrated indie releases on the storefront and more than living up to the hype that had been built up. It was a short-lived fame, but the latest update shows Endnight is putting a lot of effort into its horror game to make sure it's ready for the full release.
Sons of the Forest Update 06 Patch Notes:
Features
- Hard survival difficulty mode added
- Stone pickups added to world
- Buildable stone fireplace, stone walls, stone beams, and stone columns
- Custom effigies
- Advanced log sled can now hold logs, rocks, stones, sticks and bones
Improvements
- Countdown clocks added to dining area of food and dining
- Blown apart limbs added to exploded bathroom in bunker luxury
- The cooking pot and flask can now be dumped out with right mouse button
- Cooking pot will now be placed on the fire immediately if the player is holding the pot while interacting with the fire
- If a fire is broken while the pot is cooking, the pots contents is reset back to water. The recipe is retained if the pot was done cooking when the fire is destroyed
- Added some water movement to the pot when not boiling
- Visual and audio improvements to steady water drip FX in caves
- Improvements and fixes to Lava sound and visuals
- Adding thunder sounds to lightning strikes in space city view of gold room cutscene
- Rain catcher will no longer show the refill icon until there is at least enough water for one drink
- The pot can now be re-added to the fire even if it has a completed recipe in it
- The hotkey UI will no longer show up in quick select and grab bag menus and only be visible when in the inventory
- Added loading hints for Comfort rating and Sleeping indoors vs outdoors
- Added a loading hint for cooking bonuses
- Fish traps now run in game time instead of real time to work better with pausing and sleeping
- Fish caught in traps will no longer go rotten
- Added UI for current cooking bonuses
- Improved UI for cooking recipes
- Added a new equip/unequip animation for shotgun that is simpler and matches the idle held pose, so blending feels smoother and less awkward
- Cannibals will sometimes drag their dying friends away from the player
- General optimizations to reduce AI update cost
- Kelvin can now pickup stones
- Kelvin can now fill the log sled with sticks, rocks, and stones
- Reduced some oversaturated animal spawn areas and spread them out more
- Fixed dead bodies in beach cave floating in multiplayer games when host player is not in the cave
- Player effigies cause fear to cannibals based on number of body parts
- Spearing multiple fish will visually stack on spear instead of all overlapping
- AI are no longer blocked by defensive stick spikes, but still take damage
Balance
- Sleeping outdoors will now give less rest than sleeping indoors
- The amount of rest gained by the player is now modified by their current comfort rating (certain soups and clothing can affect comfort rating)
- Lowered chance of meds in crates
- Large Demons can now sometimes appear above ground after end game
- Lumberjack juice recipe has been reworked so that it's easier to make in peaceful games
- Added hard survival to start difficulty settings
- Cooking buff durations changed from 8 hours to 4 hours in game time.
- Hard survival; Reduced food spawns in crates. No Item storage crate respawn on load in this game mode. Lowered fish and animal spawns. Decreased target health and stamina regen speeds while cold. Increased penalty for raw/rotten meats
Fixes
- Added some missing translations for cooking
- Fix for player not getting any effects from drinking the last bit of liquid from their pot or flask
- GPS locators placed on standing sticks now show the selected icon and retain it after saving and loading and improved positioning of 3d model on stick
- Fix for being able to interact with the cooking pot when refilling a container from the pot
- Fix for the grab bag opening rather than the player eating from the pot if the player was looking at the pot the entire time it was cooking
- Fixed utility page button color
- Changed the stick amounts needed in book from 48 to 60 for advanced log sled
- Fixed skinning on gold armor pickup
- Fix for some lake volumes poking out through terrain
- Fixed spelling of Protein Shake recipe
- Fixed lens flare occlusion not working if blood or cold post processing was active
- Fixed player getting stuck when quickly closing the grab bag after opening it on things such as storage, fires, and Virginia
- Fix for perishables getting desynced on shelves when a multiplayer client removes and fake drops them
- Fix for player getting into an unrecoverable state if they eat something in the inventory immediately after loading a save game
- Fixed issue with screen space reflection not always disabling correctly
- Various memory improvements
- Fixed issues with doors and hatches getting into a desynced state for multiplayer clients in some cases
- Fixed stumps not appearing outside after loading a save game inside a bunker or cave
- Fixed female cannibal broken neck and head gimbal flipping in hit with Molotov cocktail reaction animation
- Fixed a bug where equipping the lighter with the rope gun held looked odd
- Fixed some popping on crossbow animations
- Fixed Kelvin unable to pickup and drop arrows
- Fix for Muddy Cannibals stay near trees action only staying near the trees by player, and sometimes triggering too often
- Fixed case where audio on knight V could get stuck on
- Fixed audio when cutting tree with chainsaw
- Fixed navigation cutting when placing walls in ground that slopes up
- The players grab bag is now closed when interacting with a fire that has gone out
- After loading a save game, when drinking from a pot on a fire, the player will now receive the correct recipe stats instead of water
Audio
- Added audio for the pot lid bumping around when boiling
- Tuned some high max instances on ambient events and mutant footsteps
- Made water splatters max distance a lot shorter and edited volume curve
- New audio for Demon Boss sequence; more synced impacts and grappling sounds, and Demon Boss jump and vocals
- Better pot fill with water audio
- Added sound for hug in chopper leave sequence
- Made Knight V on mud and water not play water splash when stopped
- Added sounds of emptying cooking pot and flask
- Altered gold room vista lightning audio
- Fixed guitar playing audio stuck on when interrupted by crash or knockdown
Sons of the Forest is available in early access on PC.
Source: Steam