Get ready to show your colors, Super Animals, the Season 5 update has arrived alongside the season finale of SAR Tonight! A flock of colorful surprises are migrating to the island including Super Peacocks, the scenic and serene Murre Woods, Dogna’s Dartfly Gun, updates to the Bwoking Dead game mode, an upgraded emote wheel, and so much more. Let’s glide right into the patch notes!
Season 5 Update Highlights
- Super Animal Royale Tonight’s season finale is here, with the conclusion of the nearly 2-year journey of intrepid reporter Joe Cluck and his rebel friend Peep.
- Season 5’s Friends of a Feather pass offers colorful bird-themed items (including many seen on SAR Tonight), and the new Mini Chicken pet!
- Super Peacocks join the fight, flaring their fans with four unique breeds!
- A new biome centered around a sprawling redwood forest: Murre Woods, featuring new lighting effects and Peep’s Camp, as seen in the season finale of SAR Tonight.
- A new weapon: Dogna’s Dartfly Gun is an upgraded, epic and legendary version of Dogna’s Dart gun, designed in collaboration between S.A.W. weapons expert, Thomas Sledison, and S.A.W. Lab Lab, Dr. Jennifer Dogna.
- The Bwoking Dead game mode has been reworked, with explosive results!
- The emote wheel has been overhauled: now EVERY emote you have can be accessed in-game, with the ability to set 8 as favorites for easy access.
- A new neck cosmetic slot, mini animal dances, and more!
SAR Tonight Season Finale
It’s been a long and winding road, but the nearly 2-year journey of SAR Tonight’s second season has come to a close in the season finale! In case you missed any of the previous episodes, check out the SAR Tonight playlist on YouTube so you can catch up.
After the finale, the show will now be taking a break to give us time to plan and write the next big chapter of Super Animal Royale’s story. In the meantime we’ll be continuing to release game updates, short videos and Animal Pass seasons, with a new chapter of the show planned for 2023!
Season 5: The Friends of a Feather Pass!
Inspired by the season finale of SAR Tonight, the Friends of a Feather Pass celebrates friendships and birds of all kinds. It contains dozens of flashy and feathery cosmetic items that are sure to grab attention, including the Splits emote and the pass’s exclusive new pet, the Mini Chicken! With unique animations and sounds, the Mini Chicken is a fantastic battle buddy, even if the weapons team has been grumbling about a shipment of BCGs that never got made. It’s a worthy sacrifice.
- During Season 5, the Friends of a Feather Pass will be available for a discounted price of 550 S.A.W. Tickets.
- As always, you can continue working on passes you own from previous seasons on your second track for as long as you need, and you can purchase them from The Archive for 750 S.A.W. Tickets.
Additionally, for Xbox and PlayStation players: new outfits, umbrellas, BCG skins, and Sparrow Launcher skins are available now for Game Pass and PS Plus subscribers, so be sure to claim yours before the end of the season!
Season 5 Starter Pack
Split the sky with the latest purchasable DLC, the Season 5 Starter Pack! It’ll be available for the duration of Season 5, and includes the following electrifying cosmetics and currency:
- Super Marble Skullcat
- Zeus Outfit
- Lightning Bolt melee weapon
- 600 S.A.W. Tickets
Streetwear Bundle in the S.A.W. Shop
Ms. Macawsome has really outdone herself this time, with a new and trendy look available in the S.A.W. Shop: the Streetwear Bundle! And of course, no self-respecting fashionista would turn down a CRISPR Frappé: it’s not a milkshake, it’s a marvel of genetic engineering.
The Streetwear Bundle includes the following hot-to-trot items:
- CRISPR Frappé (melee weapon)
- Pink Streetwear (outfit)
- Pink Streetwear Glasses
Super Peacocks Strut Their Stuff
An ostentation of overtly ostentatious avians has arrived in the Research Lab: Super Peacocks! You can unlock them at level 70:
- Super Peacock
- Super Green Peacock
- Super Purple Peacock
- Super White Peacock
New Map Location: Murre Woods
Take a hike… to the scenic Murre Woods, a new location to explore on the island! Fight amidst tall sequoia trees and on mossy forest floors, enjoying the occasional beam of light peeking through the canopy. A prime camping location, plenty of tents and wild forageable mushrooms can be found here, as well as rebel caches for a nice arsenal upgrade to get you back in the fray.
Near its heart is a key location seen in the season finale of SAR Tonight: Peep’s Camp. Be sure to check it out, and maybe give the Mini Chicken a couple pets for good luck.
New Weapon: Dogna’s Dartfly Gun
We hope you bought some super bug spray for your Murre Woods getaway: the Lab Labs’ newest invention is here and it’s got a sting!
Dogna’s Dartfly Gun is a new, upgraded version of Dogna’s original Dart Gun that comes in epic and legendary varieties and fires a pair of intertwined dartflies. Once the gun’s projectile hits an enemy or teammate, the second dartfly will choose the closest additional target to bounce towards, spreading even more healing or poison to nearby friends and foes.
- The bounce will only occur if an enemy or damaged teammate is within 50 SAU of the first target, and within line of sight of where the target was hit. The second dart is also able to go from a teammate to an enemy, and vice versa.
- The dartfly projectile bounce can be dodged, as it does not home in on its target, but it’s pretty accurate so you’ll need to be quick if you want to get out of the way.
- The second dartfly dart has reduced damage/healing compared to the first dart, with 50% effectiveness at the epic rarity, and 75% effectiveness with the legendary version of the gun.
- Existing Dart Gun challenges can also be completed with the Dartfly Gun, including the “Dart the (not a) Rat” milestone.
- Dogna’s Dartfly Gun has its own kills stat and 8 colored milestone skins to unlock, as well as a Paint Splatter skin in the Friends of a Feather Animal Pass.
- The initial hit damage of the original Dogna’s Dart Gun has been slightly lowered to 10/11 for uncommon and rare varieties respectively, while the Dartfly guns do 12 and 13 initial damage for their epic and legendary varieties. All dart guns still take 3 shots total to kill a player from max health.
- The new gun will be available in the S.A.W. vs Rebellion mode too, as part of the Medic II class, which you can read more about below.
The Bwoking Dead: Updates and Balancing
The Cluckles are still running rampant on the island, infecting Super Animals and turning them into Zombie Joes in The Bwoking Dead infection-style game mode. In this update, we’ve revamped the mode to make for a more engaging (and explosive) experience for both sides of the brutal conflict.
- Zombie Joes can now explode on death to damage survivors caught in the blast! Zombies will be able to fill a green explosion bar by hitting survivors and emus or eating mushrooms and coconuts. Once the bar is filled, they’ll be visually ready to burst with green goo, and their next death will result in a small explosion that deals between 30 and 45 splash damage depending on the recipient’s proximity to the blast. Those lucky enough to have body armor will be protected from half the damage.
- To reduce the amount of time that Zombie Joes have to spend wandering around, and to make the survivor experience more engaging, the match will now begin with a pre-made Skunk Gas circle. This means that the match length will be a bit shorter and take place within a smaller playing field. As such, loot spawn rates have been increased, so survivors can get kitted up and start mowing down the horde faster than before.
- Additionally, during certain parts of the match, zombie respawn times have been increased a little to accommodate the smaller play area.
- Survivors using Dogna’s Dart Gun or the new Dartfly Gun can now see teammate health bars.
We also heard your feedback about how getting unlucky with randomness and being infected in a single hit can be frustrating, so we’ve adjusted the way infections work to make it feel fairer for survivors while also balancing to avoid putting zombies at a disadvantage.
- If you don’t have body armor, or your armor is fully broken, your infection chance when getting hit is the same as before (10% for regular Zombie Joes and 15% for red Super Zombie Joes) and you can still get infected on the first hit if you’re unlucky.
- However, if you have any undamaged body armor equipped, the first hit from a zombie can no longer infect you.
For body armor above level 1, infection chance is also reduced per tick of armor as follows (the first percentage being a hit from regular Zombie Joe and the second being a hit from red Super Zombie Joe):
- If you’re hit 2x in a row while wearing level 2 armor, the 2nd hit has a 4% / 6% infection chance (the first hit with armor always has no infection chance).
- With level 3 armor, the 2nd hit has a 2% / 4% infection chance and the 3rd hit has a 4% / 7% infection chance.
S.A.W. vs Rebellion Updates
With Howloween right around the corner and the past two updates featuring major SvR updates, we focused more on Bwoking Dead updates this season, but we still managed to include some nice quality of life updates for SvR as well, including one highly requested new feature:
- By popular demand, we’ve added class counters in SvR on the class selection screen, so you can see how many players on your team are playing as each class and help balance the team with your own selection.
- The Medic II class gains an epic tier Dogna’s Dartfly Gun in place of the rare Dart Gun, but its secondary weapon has been changed from the Thomas Gun to an SMG to help balance the class’s offensive power.
- Bots no longer pick up ammo, Super Tape, or health juice in SvR so that there’s more available for players. To balance this, Super Tape and health juice now despawn after 30s like ammo, and repeated flag captures within 20s no longer drop items.
- Bots in SvR will also no longer ditch a flag capture to fight someone or to flee from damage if the flag is within 1.5 seconds of capture.
As always, the modes will continue to rotate weekly, but we’re giving Bwoking Dead a few back to back weeks so you have time to dig into its larger updates.
Express Yourself in New Ways
Emote Wheel Update
You asked for more emote slots, so not only are we upgrading the wheel from 6 to 8 emotes that you can set as favorites (as well as optional keyboard bindings for all the slots) we’re also letting you access and use ANY emote you own at any time, using the mouse wheel or controller bumpers!
Additionally, your 8 favorite emotes are now saved globally to your account rather than tied to specific presets, so all your loadouts will share the same equipped emotes without needing to edit your favorites for every preset.
Mini Animal Dancing
If you thought Super Animals were the only ones getting new moves, you’d be cri-mini-ally uninformed – Mini Animals will now dance with you! They have two variations depending on the type of dance being performed. This works in both the main menu and matches, so get groovin’, because you’ve got a backup dancer now!
Neck Cosmetics
We’ve also added a new character customization slot: neck cosmetics! Several existing clothing items such as bowties and scarves have been moved to this category, so you can now mix and match them with your regular outfits for extra fashion freedom.
More Updates, Quality of Life Features & Balancing
- The Cardinal Bow & Sparrow has a new custom projectile, custom sparrow tracker, and custom feathery impact. These effects are client side to avoid any risk of competitive impact. The Cardinal Bow & Sparrow’s price has been increased slightly in the S.A.W. Shop due to the new effects, but players that already purchased it can enjoy the updates for free!
- The walls of SMOMA have been updated to feature the winners of the “War!” Super Fanart Contest. Take some time to check out all the amazing and poignant pieces made by the community!
- The T-pose emote now allows you to move while emoting. We’ve also improved the idle/walk animations that mix with the T-pose, Hungry, and Point emotes.
- Added footstep sounds when walking in BCG yolks. Squelchy.
- Added a footstep effect for players walking out of BCG yolk splats: for 2s they will leave behind footsteps visible to everyone through line of sight. Ninja Booties prevent this effect.
- The clip sizes for the AK and M16 are now 25, down from 30. This is to rein in their overall ability to sustain automatic fire, while not changing the core functionality of the guns.
- In accordance with the rifle changes, the carrying capacity for big bullets is now 80, down from 90. However, in the Bwoking Dead and SvR game modes, it will remain at 90.
- The Thomas Gun’s clip size is now 35, down from 40. While not a huge change, this is meant to help keep it in line with the rifle changes and reduce its oppressiveness slightly.
- Moved railings inward a bit at the top Beaver Construction HQ dam walkway to help players avoid getting stuck near the shallow water.
- The recoil indicator hotkey (F6 by default on PC) now also applies to BCG charge markers.
- Triggering a campfire while riding an injured Giant Emu now contributes to the “use campfires” challenges and milestones too.
- Improved posture of the Super Border Collie, Super Raven, Super Rat, Super Duck, and Super Parrot. Don’t forget to improve yours, too. We see you slouching.
Fixes
- Moved controller hotkeys for unlocking animal breeds to display along the bottom of the screen rather than directly on the 'Create' button. This fixes translation and text spacing issues and helps clean up the UI a bit.
- The end of match report button no longer displays if you die to the Skunk Gas or yourself. That’s on you.
- Fixed a bug where melee attacks and Giant Emu pecks could break boxes through walls occasionally.
- Reduced character flickering while rolling and aiming up with a controller.
- Fixed a bug where BCG aim markers would appear while using the Scout class in SvR after having charged a BCG in the lobby.
- Fixed a rare bug where looting weapons in a certain way could cause your aim to be stuck until rolling or reloading.
- Fixed dart and sparrow projectiles having trails visible through line of sight.
- Improved the visual of dart trails to make it cleaner and avoid breaks in the line.
- Fixed a bug in the "pick up legendary weapons" challenge where it wouldn't count if you looted the same type of weapon later on in a match.
- Fixed pets flipping left and right when following an emu vertically.
- Fixed a bug in SvR where dying while creep zooming with a sniper caused the camera to be briefly zoomed out upon respawn.
- Fixed a bug where emus would sometimes still spawn in private matches after using the command to turn emus off.
- Fixed a misaligned grass patch at the Welcome Center.
- Fixed an issue on MacOS where the news box would fail to load.
- The Snakeskin Hat is now allowed in the Wild West Mystery Mode.
- Fixed mohawks on the Super Goat.
- Repositioned the blue beanie on the Super Ferret.
- And finally, we’ll leave you with some huge news: the dot at the Welcome Center docks is now gone. Whatever you were, wherever you are now, little dot… you will be remembered.
We hope you all enjoy the Friends of a Feather update! We have more exciting news coming up in October, including this year’s Howloween event and Twitch Rivals tournaments in Thailand and Japan on October 1st and 7th respectively with an exclusive Twitch Drops item during the streams, so be sure to keep up with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and in our Discord server to make sure you don’t miss anything! We’ll see you on the island, Super Animals.