Happy Year of the Super Tiger, Super Animals! This update is packed with quality of life improvements alongside the holiday event and new weapon, so we’ll waste no time and hop straight into all the details.
If you prefer to watch your patch notes rather than read them, be sure to check out our latest Developer Overview video for all the highlights of what’s new in this update:
New Weapon: BCG (Big Clucking Gun)
Super Eagle eyed players will have noticed that Thomas Sledison has been hard at work on an explosive new weapon, but the final form that has hatched in his workshop might not be what you eggspected…
The Big Clucking Gun (BCG) is a grenade launcher style weapon that shoots eggs that bounce off walls and explode on impact with enemies.
- Egg explosions deal serious area of effect (AOE) damage and leave a sticky pile of egg yolk that slows anyone standing in it.
- The gun uses a charge-up mechanic so you can control the distance your eggs will fly. The longer you hold down the fire button the further it’ll go!
- The BCG is only available in epic (purple) and legendary (gold) rarities, and as such you’ll need to open rebel caches or mole crates to get your paws on one during a match. But you can always take it for a spin in the Super Shooting Gallery north of the Welcome Center while you’re waiting for your match to start.
- It also comes with a full set of colored gun skins that you can earn by getting kills while using it to complete its milestones.
- There will also be two premium skins making an appearance in the S.A.W. Shop: the Retro BCG and the Tiger BCG.
Note: the BCG is disabled in the “One Hit Kill” Mystery Mode.
Year of the Super Tiger Event
Play the 2022 Lunar New Year event from Jan 25 to Feb 15 and collect red envelopes to redeem for exclusive event cosmetic items! There’s 8 new items debuting this year:
- Lunar Dress (2022)
- Coin Glasses
- Gold Yuanbao
- Lunar Headband
- Peach Blossom Hat
- Lunar Flower
- Lunar Paper Umbrella
- Peach Blossom Branch
There’s also 16 returning legacy items from previous years, and you’ll be able to redeem red envelopes to collect each of these too until you own them all! Be sure to also check out Carl’s Cart during the event for some additional legacy items.
Year of the Super Tiger Breeds
To celebrate their lunar year, 4 new Super Tiger breeds are also arriving as permanent additions to the Research Lab:
- Super Golden Tiger
- Super Toy Tiger
- Super Bengal Tiger
- Super Lunar Tiger
Map Updates
S.A.W. Bamboo Resort has been updated for the Year of the Super Tiger!
- The beavers have moved 2021’s Super Ox statue out of Bamboo Resort and into storage at Beaver Construction HQ, and replaced it with a new Super Tiger statue!
- You’ll also find a new portrait of the tiger on the wall in the resort next to all the previous years’ animals.
- The entrance gates are also now adorned with a new Spring Festival Couplet for the new year, provided again by the Chinese SAR community!
Beaver Construction HQ Updates
- Increased size of the Forebeaver’s Den building in the north, added additional detail to the interior, and added some breakable mini beaver dams around it for cover.
- Adjusted the dam's wooden rails to be a bit shorter so they don't poke out onto the boardwalks quite so much.
- Added shadowing to the concrete floor in the workshop to better distinguish interior and exterior ground.
- Added edge lip to outdoor concrete.
- Added a curved concrete end-piece on the front-left of the dam, and extended the boardwalk on the front-right side of the dam.
More Island Improvements
- Added snow grass throughout most of Thomas’s Tundra for more looting opportunities (and because it just looks really pretty).
- Improved grass in several areas around the map that were sparse, and updated some of the deciduous tree biomes with improved tree placement (both to provide a better mix of cover and open areas for fighting and to look more natural)
- Made some collision/walkability improvements to the Super Animal Super Stage.
- Adjusted some shipping containers in the top right corner of the military camp near research labs based on community feedback.
S.A.W. Shop Additions
New Mini Animals
Adopt 4 new mini pets from the Pets tab of the S.A.W. Shop!
- Mini Sheep
- Mini Skunk
- Mini Deer
- Mini Raccoon
Emotes, Lunar New Year, BCGs and Duos Day
The Shop tab in the main menu now displays an exclamation mark whenever new items have rotated in, and you’ll want to make sure to keep an eye on it around the update for all the new items! Some new items you’ll see rotating into the S.A.W. Shop include:
- Rap emote
- Country emote
- Kumquat Tree (melee weapon)
- Dragon JAG-7
- Moneybag Gravestone
- Tanghulu
- Scimitar
- Retro BCG
- Tiger BCG
Note: the Dragon JAG-7 also has custom muzzle confetti effects.
Cupid's Bow will also be returning on February 12th for 96 hours (we’re giving it two 48hr slots back to back so you have a bit of extra time to grab it for Duos Day)!
S.A.W. Shop Bundle Improvements
In addition to purchasing a full bundle at the discounted price, if you only like one or two items in a bundle you now also have the option to purchase individual items from the bundle at regular price. Just click on the bundle and navigate to any item within it!
Because of this new feature, bundle items won’t be rotating through the shop in individual slots anymore, they’ll just be accessible from their bundle whenever it’s available. As always, if you own any individual items from a bundle, you’ll still be able to purchase the rest of the bundle together at a discount to complete your set.
We’re also debuting a new bundle!
The Ming Bundle includes:
- Ming Hat
- Ming Outfit
- Ming Dress
Hamster Ball Update
We’ve made a bunch of key refinements to gameplay in this patch, and the first one is one we think a lot of you will be happy to see: an update that makes hamster ball kills feel a whole lot better whether you’re the one getting the kill or on the receiving end.
- Hamster balls now take a bit longer to reach the point where they’ll get a 1-hit kill.
- Once you’ve been rolling at max speed for at least one second, speed lines will appear and a sound will play indicating that you’ve now entered full damage mode where a hit will score 101 damage and kill your opponent upon impact.
- Before the speed lines appear, hamster balls will only do up to 80 damage (still influenced by acceleration for precisely how much damage you do).
From our play tests we think this mechanic helps a lot with clarity and makes rolling at full speed and getting kills feel extra satisfying. We’ve also added a rare easter egg animation where your animal can trip while in the ball (just for fun, this doesn’t impact gameplay in any way).
More Gameplay Updates
- Sparrows, Darts, and BCG egg ammo have been combined into a single new 'Specialty Ammo' that is used in all 3 weapons.
- The Bandolier boosts max carrying capacity for the new Specialty Ammo from 35 to 50 (previously Sparrows and Darts were boosted from 35 to 45)
- Sparrow Launcher clip size increased to 5.
- Dogna's Dart Gun will now auto-fire darts if you hold down shoot.
- A visual dart now appears stuck into the animal when they’ve been hit and are being actively poisoned by Dogna’s Dart Gun.
- Grenades & BCG egg impacts now play the “hit” sound effect when you hit yourself with them.
- Grenades, Bananas, Skunks Bombs, and BCG eggs now make bounce sounds when bouncing off of walls.
- Bananas no longer deploy in deep water (ex. ocean), and all throwables will splash upon landing in the water. Grenades and eggs still do damage and Skunk Bombs deploy despite splashing into the water, but eggs do not create yolk traps in deep water.
- Traps (ie. bananas, Skunk Bombs, and BCG yolks) will now have their positions checked and corrected by the server upon landing. Server simulation should rarely differ from client, so this shouldn't occur very often but helps make them more precise.
- Minigun (and the new BCG) aiming should now more closely and consistently match the cursor’s aim (added a new aiming bone on the character skeleton for guns held in the low position).
- Added a small release buffer at the start of a jump roll for charged weapons such as the Bow & Sparrow and BCG. This should improve the feeling of releasing the bow while rolling. There was already a small buffer at the end of jump rolls, which is staying the same, so this just adds something similar to the beginning of the roll.
- Shooting right after reloading or picking up an item will now force the player model into the aim animation, which fixes a long-standing issue where bullets would spawn at undesired angles while the animal was completing an animation.
- Added custom muzzle flower effect to the Sakura Sniper.
- Weighted the random positions of skunk gas circles to get them to appear closer to the edges of the map more frequently. The previous randomness favored the middle of the island slightly, whereas the new randomness is more evenly distributed around the whole island.
- Added fading to one of the Beaver Construction HQ wall pieces that was able to obscure players too much.
- In the Bwoking Dead mode, when Zombie Joes break crates or cut grass, loot will not drop (so zombies can now deny ammo to survivors by breaking these things).
- Changed texture atlas for Bwoking Dead's opening noise effect to be individual sprites that are loaded from the hard drive only when someone plays Bwoking Dead (cuts down load size by 8MB).
Controller Improvements
- Added controller hotkey icons to the game interface for taping, healing, and weapon-swap.
- 'Switch Weapon' bindings for controller will now conflict with inventory bindings to prevent double-binding issues.
- Controller users now have separate bindings for 'Quick Chat (Inventory)' and 'Quick Chat (Map)', to prevent conflicts.
- Improved controller selection in most of the shop tabs, where it will now re-select the last item properly after cancelling a purchase or equipping something.
Menu/Interface Updates
- Added a “Manage Party” UI for party hosts that groups all party-related options together including viewing/copying the invite code for cross-play parties, kicking players, and leaving the party.
- Kicking a player from a party will now trigger a popup message and sound.
- The PC version of SAR now displays a 'COPIED TO CLIPBOARD!' popup when you click the copy button to indicate that it successfully copied to your clipboard.
- The mode selector will now display an exclamation mark if a new limited-time game mode becomes available to play.
- Increased clarity around Super Edition requirements in the Milestones tab, with a helper label that better explains which milestones require the Super Edition DLC. Additionally, the in-game notification for completing a milestone will now more clearly indicate whether it’s a Super Edition Milestone.
- When you first open the holiday event UI, the event’s leaderboard button now has a subtle slide animation to help draw attention to it.
- Updated all buttons throughout the menus that were still using the old blue button style to instead use the new teal style.
- Added a subtle fade/slide animation when viewing the S.A.W. Shop bundle details screen.
- S.A.W. Shop bundle preview images are no longer pre-loaded at game launch, instead being loaded from the hard drive when you view the shop (reduces initial game load time).
- Translation updates for several languages.
- For Simplified Chinese users, the Discord button in the main menu will now link to the SAR QQ group instead.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where one account could join the same cross-play lobby from two devices/platforms.
- Event screen's character should no longer glitch out on the first frame.
- Fixed the animal pass preview box's second pass from showing template blue hat while loading.
- Coupon code placeholder text should no longer be cut off in certain languages.
- Fixed a bug where the main menu's side menu would fail to make elections if a controller was activated while it was open.
- Fixed a controller navigation bug with the 'Done' button and the arrow buttons on the Stats screen.
- Fixed controller selection going blank after leaving a party.
- Fixed a bug where controller selection wouldn't properly revert to the purchase button after cancelling a bundle purchase.
- Alt-tabbing in the main menu will now cancel your emote if you were emoting (fixes an audio issue).
- Fixed an audio glitch caused by changing volume while emoting on the main menu.
- Hotkey icons for the inventory UI will no longer display while spectating another player.
- Fixed a case where players could get stuck in the grenade throw animation: it will now auto-cancel after 2s if the grenade has not already been thrown.
- Map can no longer be opened while the Settings screen is open.
- Fixed minigun retaining charge when opening the Settings screen while shooting.
- Fixed melee hit sounds on shooting gallery targets being played for all nearby players in the lobby.
- End-game rewards now force close player inventory if it was open. This fixes a bug for controller users where navigation got stuck and inventory was still displaying in a broken state.
- Fixed visual bug with bots reloading and appearing to have negative ammo.
- Bwoking Dead clientside Skunk Bomb capacity issue should be fixed.
- Dropping the Cupgrade while drinking with it equipped will now stop your healing (fixes audio bug).
Upcoming Events
- Twitch Drops: watch SAR streams with Drops enabled to unlock the new Guan Yu items! Get the Guan Yu Helmet, Guan Yu Armor and Guan Yu Guandao while supporting your favourite SAR Content Creators on Twitch. You can link your Super Animal Account and Twitch Account to earn Drops at drops.animalroyale.com
- Duos Day is coming and the Duos Day Rose melee weapon will return! Play a duos match between Feb 12th at 12am PST and Feb 16th at 12am PST to earn it.