Hey, Survivors! ❄️
We are incredibly excited to announce that ACT II of Winter Survival is now live, along with our brand-new game mode, Cold Wave! Apart from that there are a plethora of bug fixes, improvements, and changes to the game, so in other words – a lot of stuff to delve into. We've been working hard to bring you these updates, and we can't wait for you to dive in and experience all the new content and improvements. What say you if we kick the things off with a spicy teaser that showcases some of the changes that we’ve introduced?
ACT II for Story Mode is here 👀
In ACT II, you'll continue Danny's journey through the unforgiving winter landscape. This chapter is packed with new challenges, side quests, and storylines that deepen the mystery surrounding Danny's missing friends. Furthermore, we’ve made some significant improvements to ACT I as well, so even if you’ve experienced it before, we highly encourage you to jump back to it.
Test your limits in Cold Wave mode 📈
Cold Wave mode is our new survival challenge designed for those who seek an even tougher test of their skills. In this mode, you'll face extreme weather conditions that push your survival strategies to the limit. The longer you survive, the higher your score – but beware, the cold is relentless and unforgiving. The ultimate question is – Will you risk your life in order to achieve a higher score? Dive in to check it out for yourself.
Patch Notes for ACT II Update⚒️
Keep in mind that the game is still in the Early Access, so the Update may affect your old saves. We recommend starting with a fresh save, but if you decide otherwise please remember to share with us any issues you may have.
New & Improvements
Act 2 - next chapter of our Story, this time action revolves around Danny’s way to the Harbor, being stalked by foes and using some ingenious ways to make the trip easier for himself.
Cold Wave - New Game Mode - a new competitive game mode that allows you to test your survival skills against other players trying to climb the Leaderboards with each new run.
New Side Quests:
- "Missing In Action" - Available in Story and Survival Game Modes.
- "Survivalist Instinct" - Only available in Story mode (Act I).
- "In Distress" - Only available in Story mode (Act II).
- "Truffle Pasta" - Only available in Story mode (Act II).
- "Upgrade Your Shelter" - Only available in Story mode (Act II).
Trolley Taking Damage Mechanic - It’s active in Survival Game Mode from the start and after you complete the main quest line in the Story Game Mode. The Trolley gets damaged over time and you need to look for the spare parts to keep it running.
Axe Rework - Axe was reworked in the same new system as the Spear in the past update, it includes new animations, and the ability to block among other minor changes. It’s still a tool, not a weapon, so don’t get too eager to hunt Wolves with it but it can be used in an emergency.
Trauma Rework - right now Trauma is more manageable without compromising its effects on the gameplay. Each effect is now timed and will deactivate after some time, which you can further decrease using various methods such as Comfort Foods etc.
New Symptom: Panic Attack - Occasionally triggered while the symptom is active it requires you to return to a safe space to calm yourself down. Ignoring it will lead to bad consequences.
New Symptom: Hypochondria - Makes you super attentive to your health and body functions. You start noticing some problems that aren’t really there.
A new type of Bait for Large Prey- now you can craft specialized types of bait for larger animals like Deer.
New Hardened Leather Clothing Set - a new set of clothes that will help you deal with harsh climate and animals - made from Wolf and Boar Skins.
Compass Update - we added a couple of new features to the Compass, now you can name your markers, change their color and icon, and hide/destroy them at will.
Different bleed values for various types of spears - there’s another reason to upgrade your spear, the better spear the better bleed value, which should make your combat and hunting easier.
Tooltip rework - on Weapons and Tools now there should be more information about what you can do with each tool to make it clearer what is the purpose of each one of them.
Knife Rework - Stone knife is now only used for Butchering, Bone Knife and above can be used for Skinning also.
Rework Active and Passive Hunting - traps can break, and can return some resources when broken, fix that animals get freed instantly, etc. When placing items in the traps you should now be able to see if that item will work as a bait for any of the animals.
Wolf Den Changes - almost all Wolves now are associated with a specific Wolf Den (before they weren't necessarily so), which means you can stop them from spawning by blocking the Den with a Blockade. The change also includes a completely new setup for Wolf Dens and Wolf Paths.
Reworked Boar Truffle Hunting Mechanic - now it is easier to find and dig up truffles, also now it’s explained in the Story mode as a side-quest.
Day/Night Cycle for Wolves and Weather - Night and Day are now differentiated with different amount of animals and different lifecycles during day/night. It should be more natural and nights should be more dangerous.
Durability Damage on Clothes - Animals hitting you / biting you will now caused durability damage to clothes, meaning you might need to repair there a bit more often.
Trolley - You can unmount trolley now also with the primary interaction. (E) by default. Trolley Upgrade: Big Storage. You can only have one storage upgrade on the trolley.
Walkie Talkie - extra channel was added to the Story mode, to Walkie Talkie, to access the "Missing in Action" quest with it when it activates.
Quest Tracking Rework - you can now only track one quest at a time, to make the UI less congested. When new quest pops up you can switch to the new quest by pressing X, or if there is nothing happening at the moment you can switch active tracking quest in Journal or by holding and releasing X for at least 1.5 seconds.
- Minor text updates to tutorials in the journal
- Stench can now be removed with Herbal Ointment.
- Added a recipe for fries.
- New Rabbit set up on the whole map.
- We completely reworked all stats related to the clothing Armour, Cold Protection, Wetness and Durability.
- Added 7 new misc items - a little bit more stuff to play with.
- More delusion animals were added across the map.
- Rearranged items in the Woodcutter’s Shelter in Act 1.
- We improved interactions with various items.
- In Story Mode, we added an axe-fighting tutorial in a cave under a Fallen Bridge and a spear-fighting tutorial near the start of Act II.
- A variety of resources placed throughout the world
Balance
- Cooked Wolf Meat now restores 22 hunger instead of 17 and has a description change to explain it's not supposed to be very edible.
- New set up of Wolves both in Story and Endless
- Detection distances were altered on Deer and Wolf to make it a bit more predictable.
- Respawn time of Berry Bushes increased by 30%.
- Fiber now needs 4 Tall Grass to craft instead of 1.
- Tree stumps can now be removed with a shovel to allow for more building space.
- The durability of the Bone Knife was reduced from 250 to 100
- Changed lockpick recipe [2x Metal Scrap, 2x Metal Wire] to [1x Metal Parts], now it creates 4 instead of 1 for the items.
- Adjusted cargo loot tables to drop useful items and also trolley repair items + metal scraps
- Rabbits now respawn 10x faster when not killed but running away into a hole. [~20 in-game minutes]
- Wolf Den Blockade lasts 3 days instead of 2.
- It takes a shorter time for Boar to switch to searching after you hide in bushes.
- Now, you get branches from hitting the tree with an axe and log after you cut it.
- Armor calculations were changed to make different equipped clothes more valuable.
- Boar Light Attack damage reduced to 15 from 20.
- Boar Charge Attack damage increased to 30 from 20.
- Knockdown Attack of Wolf damage increased to 25 from 20.
- Removed boar and rabbit skin requirements from the Leather set, as a separate Hard Leather set now covers that requirement.
- Changed the number of branches dropped by trees, to provide more large branches more regularly.
- Deer will now wait until it is fully alerted to run away instead of at 50%.
- Thatch Bed now requires 2 ropes instead of 4.
- Thatch Windows and Slopes now require branches instead of large branches.
- Limited the energy-restoring qualities of food and drink.
- Switched the chance for Bear Attacking Shelter event on Survival Difficulty from 10% to 8%.
- Removed the speed reduction while the fever is active.
- Tweaked the amount of herbs required for Herbal Ointment. From 6 to 4.
- Set up the weight limit of the Tourist Pouch to 45.
- Changed the amount of Rabbit Skins needed to craft gloves from 6 to 2.
- Lowered nutritional values of wolf meat.
- Tweaked the progression of durability and its loss on knives.
- Tweaked loot tables for all animals.
- Now you can build a Stat Board from the start in Act 1. Using charcoal you can update it.
- New resources in the Fallen Bridge Cave.
- Decreased the amount of available resources on the Rabbit Glade.
- Adjusted the Bear senses to improve his functionality to be more responsive.
- We reworked the puzzle at the the Large Cave area near the larger Hot Springs in Act II.
- Home Craving removed. (Sleeping outside the shelter is now the only way to get homesickness, we no longer get it when sleeping generally).
- Less XP awarded from making straps [10 instead of 400-500].
- New schematics for straps from pieces [leather, hard leather, fur].
Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue where Jaw Traps had a passive hunting range set to 0, allowing it to catch animals passively while you were looking at the trap and the animal teleported into it.
- Fixed floating foliage in all areas.
- Fixed problem with a falling rock near the Paratrooper Area not killing you.
- Fixed issue with too short culling distances in all areas.
- Fixed rotation problem on hanging Fur Pants.
- Fixed collision on the Trolley Platform.
- Fixed floating cave near demo area rail tunnel.
- Fixed bug with collision in Cargo Event.
- Various fixes related to Deer AI.
- Multiple fixes related to Wolf AI.
- Fix the bug with campfire resources in the prologue.
- Fixed bug with cutting the rope with the ax.
- Fixed bug with showing used sockets when building.
- Fixed bug with mandatory lockpick for cipher padlocks.
- Fix crash when spawning game event manually from save.
- Fixed bug with rabbit going to bait in a trap.
- Fixing animal being able to die from direct trap damage hit.
- Dialogue Fix (every line spoken through walkie now has a walkie talkie icon), since we often interchange between regular and walkie-talkie lines.
- Fixed issue with Bear not eating meat pile properly.
- Added missing description for Stench in Journal.
- Fixed bug with Trap attaching to the point 0,0,0 object.
- Fixed bug with player skipping some objectives in False Dawn mission and still reaching the hut.
- Fixed bug with finishing the main quest “In the Footsteps of Friends II” without completing the objectives.
- Fixed bug with leaving the wolves' cave during the torch tutorial, which could leave the player in slo-mo.
- Fixed an issue where a Campfire would turn off whenever you would break an axe.
- Dead trees (near hot springs) can now again be cut down, and large branches can be dropped on hit.
- Wolves and other animals should be less likely to attack through the doors.
- Fixed an issue with the "First Come First Served" event, which would sometimes not trigger properly.
- Minor fixes to the "Wolf Aftermath" event and animals in the event will now save properly.
- Fixed crash with storage inventory slot.
- Fixed crash on extinguishing the campfire.
- Fixed an issue with compass markers being shown after Save/Load, when they were previously hidden.
- Fixed issue with disappearing drink button instead of wash button.
- Fixed bug with disappearing key bind for dismounting the Trolley.
- Fixed the problem with an uncraftable wooden jaw trap.
- Fixed the problem with the hunter stand ladder not displaying the tooltip.
- Fixed bug with the Natalie letter having the wrong author.
- Fix for a bug that makes fur straps from rabbit fur craftable only at the improvised loom.
- Fix the wrong icons in the drying schematics.
- Fixed descriptions for drying racks cause they mentioned the wrong items.
- Fixed the bug with the wrong setup of jaw traps related to passive hunting.
- Fixed bug with falling stone not loading properly with saves.
- Fixed bug when a player could block himself on Rabbit Hole.
- Fixed various holes in the landscape around the map.
- Fixed bug with falling rock killing you after loading certain checkpoints.
- Right Clicking on Nails in inventory will no longer create extra nails.
- Fixed a bug with Cargo Sites not saving and loading properly. (The fix will most likely work only on the new saves.)
- Walkie-talkie now displays proper names for each channel.
Visuals
- Added special weather visuals for the Human Area on top of the mountain with the Large Cave.
- Slowed down transitions to Blizzard [20 seconds]
- Rabbit Holes are now extra visible in instinct mode.
- The nicer transition of particles with weather events (removing instant particle reset).
- Renamed "Endless" mode to "Survival" game mode and reordered them in the menu so that Survival is first.
- Animal bleeding now leaves decals.
- Deer and Rabbits should now more consistently show when it has detected the player with a red triangle above the head.
- Improved display of notes and books.
- We completely reworked the trees’ visual design.
- We reworked the gravel texture in the whole landscape.
- Improved mesh for Stone Compass Marker.
- New mesh for Carpenter Station.
- Now the Compass Markers stay hidden in the widget after Save/Load.
- We removed the redundant choice dialogue options from the Introduction since they did not actually give you any choices.
Stay up-to-date 📰
As we move forward, our team will continue to monitor your feedback and make improvements to ensure Winter Survival remains a thrilling and immersive experience. We're already planning future updates and content, so stay tuned!
As always, we’re curious to see how you like the changes we’ve made. Also, I cannot wait to see your scores in the Cold Wave mode, so feel free to post it as well in the comments section below. And last but not least, to celebrate the release of ACT II and Cold Wave mode, Winter Survival is currently available at a 30% discount for a limited time. It’s the perfect opportunity for newcomers to join the adventure and for veterans to dive back in. Stay sane and until the next devlog!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1394960/Winter_Survival/
~Sewek