Hello everyone!
I know I’ve been fairly radio silent for a while, but that’s because I’ve been working flat out on the upcoming Patch 0.4, which is by far the biggest update to the game to date!
Before jumping into the features, I can confirm this update will be launching in early November, so very soon! There will also likely be a beta beforehand, so keep an eye on the Discord.
Anyway, let’s take a look at 0.4 — Busy Work.
World Overhaul
The first and most notable change: the world overhaul.
Fargone has often felt a bit empty — something I’ve always been aware of. But due to performance issues, bugs, and the general refinement needed, I had been prioritizing other areas first.
With the Game Health Update that launched last month, it was finally the right time to expand the world a lot. The Plains currently remain untouched (as I have specific plans for that area), but nearly every part of the Grasslands and Mountains has been massively expanded. Existing POIs now feature tons of new areas to explore and more detail, while brand-new POIs have been added — plus lots of smaller points in between to make traveling feel far more rewarding and interesting.
Loot has also been completely overhauled, with all these areas featuring much more to find. Both containers and loose items have been reworked across the map to complement the new POIs.
AI spawning has also been reworked, now featuring a mix of handcrafted setups and dynamic spawns — making areas feel more dangerous and alive (or dead, y’know, because zombies).
Overall, the Barrens have never looked or played better, making exploration much more interesting and rewarding — which leads nicely into the next feature.
Dynamic / Daily Mission System
Despite the world overhaul being the biggest feature, the name of this update — Busy Work — actually comes from this system.
“Busy Work” refers to the massive increase in both the number and variety of missions.
When speaking to important NPCs such as Sal, Catcher, Haydes, and more, you can now ask about available work. Unlike standard missions, this is a dynamic system that allows these NPCs to offer a variety of missions every 1–2 in-game days. Each NPC has their own mission pool with unique rewards — including a new random reward system — giving you tons of new ways to earn gear, reputation, money, and more while exploring the revamped world.
New mission types have also been added:
Rescue missions (save captured people)
Assassination missions (take out faction VIPs)
Both can lead to larger firefights and more challenging encounters. Some missions even include deeper lore snippets, further expanding the world and laying the groundwork for the eventual full main storyline.
The Bounty Board has also received its long-overdue overhaul — tripling the number of available missions and introducing the random item reward system to all bounty missions as well. You won’t be short on things to do or earn with this update.
Weapon & Armour Mod System
With all these new ways to earn and find loot, I wanted to make equipment more interesting too.
In this update, both weapons and armour can now receive a randomised set of mods.
Lore-wise, people living within the Barrens have been tinkering with their gear — making each piece unique, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Mods typically have both positive and negative effects, while rarer ones may only provide benefits. Occasionally, you might even find a purely negative mod — a failed experiment of sorts.
Mods affect item value and a range of stats, meaning that even a weaker weapon at base level might outperform your current gear once mods are factored in. Looting just got a lot more exciting.
Lockpicking & Locked Areas
Lockpicking is a new mini-game added in this update, making exploration and looting even more engaging. Some areas now have valuable loot hidden behind locked gates, requiring both skill and the right tools to access.
Locks come with varying difficulty levels, and mastering the art of lockpicking will take practice — but the rewards are worth it.
New Enemy Types
With this update, a brand-new enemy is being added — with another two currently in development and hopefully ready in time for this update as well.
The Undead Bear can now be found roaming the mountain region. Unlike other undead animals such as dogs, the bear is slower but cannot be staggered and will relentlessly charge until dropped. They’re fairly easy to deal with alone, but if they stumble into an existing fight, they can certainly provide a new challenge!
New Weapons & Armour
With the Busy Work update, the game will be receiving a range of new items for you to collect. You’ll be able to hunt down a rare new bolt-action marksman rifle, a new higher-quality Kritch (AK-47) variant, as well as three new unique weapons — which I’ll be keeping a secret for now, so you’ll have to find them yourself!
Alongside weapons, there are four brand-new equipment sets:
Survivor Set
Bandit Militia Set
Military Gen 2 Set (currently worn by the Silent Warriors in-game)
Cold Weather Set (designed for exploration in harsher mountain conditions)
Each set includes gloves, pants, chest, and boots — meaning a total of 16 new pieces of equipment to find in the world.
Additionally, there are several new gear pieces linked to the Gen 2 set, including two helmet variants and a new gas mask as well as 4 new backpacks. Altogether, this update adds 29 new equipment pieces and weapons to loot — all of which can benefit from the new random mod system. Many of these are also included in the new random rewards for bounty and dynamic missions.
Companion System
Human AI can now be recruited to join the player in their adventures across the Barrens. Each faction has its own requirements:
Runners will join you if you are either very friendly with them or by bribing them.
Military members will only join you if you have a high enough reputation.
Hollowed can also be bribed, similar to the Runners.
Liberty currently cannot join you, but there are plans underway to make them a joinable faction soon.
Combining this with all the new missions and ways to earn reputation, you can now fully immerse yourself within your chosen faction.
There will also be even bigger improvements to the faction system coming later this year.
AI Improvements
Life in the Barrens continues to evolve with AI improvements across several areas.
Firstly, the AI pathfinding system has been completely reworked, fixing long-standing issues such as AI cutting corners. The new system is much more stable and performant, allowing for a greater range of movement during combat — for both human and undead AI.
Human AI in particular has received several major improvements to target tracking. Previously, AI would prioritise a single target over everything else, often ignoring nearby threats — making them too easy to exploit. Now, AI more efficiently scans for and prioritises threats based on distance and danger level.
You’ll also see AI looting the battlefield after combat, making them feel more alive and believable. They’ll typically only take some items to avoid over-encumbering themselves — and if you’re unhappy about them stealing from a corpse, you can always reclaim what they took by… less peaceful means.
Human AI will also now also spawn with experience tiers meaning you may encounter harder variants of each factions members out in the Barrens, these also tie directly into some of the new VIP missions.
Finally, human AI movement has also been refined — they now move faster and more fluidly, making them less predictable and harder to track.
Steam Achievements
Fargone will also be receiving its first suite of Steam achievements with this update. These range from simple, easy achievements to some much harder ones that will test your skill and dedication.
This is just the initial set — more achievements are planned for future updates as development continues.
Additional Changes and Improvements
There are also plenty of changes and improvements coming to all areas of the game, including the following:
UI Improvements: The way stats are displayed has been redesigned using a new bar system. Previously, armour stats were shown as raw numbers, which made it difficult to gauge their effectiveness since the values were quite low. The new bar system makes comparing gear much easier and clearly shows how stats are being boosted or penalised based on the item’s condition or attached mods.
Health System Rework: Previously, you would suffer immediate health or stamina penalties as soon as any of your needs fell too low. Now, when your needs drop too far, you’ll begin to gain sickness debuffs that lower your wellness level. As wellness decreases, penalties will gradually appear — meaning you’re only punished for long-term neglect of your needs, not instantly for missing a meal or drink.
Audio Improvements: Many weather and ambient sound effects have been replaced or enhanced with higher-quality versions. There are also numerous new UI sounds for item interactions, as well as unique sounds for different items to improve immersion.
There are even more changes beyond these, which will be detailed in the full patch notes upon release.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this early peek behind the curtain — I’m genuinely so excited to release this update. A ton of work has gone into making this something special and making the game much more replayable and enjoyable.
Full patch notes and further details will be released with the update in early November, so I’ll speak to you all again very soon!
– Jordan