A mythical new update has arrived, bringing with it the long-anticipated addition of Super Dragons! These fiery newcomers aren’t the only thing we’ve got to show off, so strap on ye olde knight’s armor and wizard’s garb, for ahead of us is a grand journey through everything new in the Dragon’s Loot Update.
Highlights
- The Dragon’s Loot Pass is a treasure trove of fantasy-themed cosmetics to earn, including sets like the Wizard and Ranger outfits, the Penguin Palace Photo Booth scene, Coconut Canter emote, and of course, the adorable Mini Horse pet. Just… don’t try to ride it into battle.
- The Season 10 Starter Pack DLC is now available, and features the delightful Super Fairy Skullcat.
- Super Dragons have been released from their slumber to the Research Lab, with 6 distinct breeds to unlock!
- It’s the jolliest, most genetically-modified time of the year: CRISPRmas! For the next 3 weeks, new weekly challenges and Super Animal breeds will unlock as the event progresses. There’s a ton of legacy items to earn, too!
- A wealth of UI improvements, gameplay changes and bug fixes have been implemented to improve player experience.
- It’s Super Animal Royale’s 5th Anniversary! To celebrate we have a coupon code for 4 free items, a new Super Animal, and a sneak peek of some of what’s coming in 2024.
The Dragon’s Loot Pass
Gather your fellowship, Super Animals, because the Dragon’s Loot Pass is a golden hoard of classic fantasy-themed cosmetics to earn. It’s like an island-wide LARPing session… just with weapons that aren’t made out of cardboard.
- During Season 10, the Dragon’s Loot 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.
Season 10 Starter Pack DLC
A new season means a new Starter Pack DLC, available all throughout Season 10!
The Season 10 Starter Pack features these magical items:
- Super Fairy Skullcat
- Fairy Armor
- Fairy Sword melee weapon
- 600 SAW Tickets
The Starter Pack DLC for last season (Season 9) will be going into the vault on December 19th, so if you’ve had your eye on the Super Kitsune and its set, don’t forget to get it before then.
Thar be Super Dragons
The highly-requested Super Dragons have awakened from their slumber to burninate the competition! As the island’s first mythical Super Animal species, they intend to prove why the tales of yesteryear held them in such fearsome regard.
Super Dragons are available in the Research Lab beginning at level 80, with six total breeds to unlock (two of which are Wyverns with a unique design):
- Super Dragon
- Super Orange Dragon
- Super Forest Dragon
- Super Superite Dragon
- Super Ice Wyvern
- Super Black Wyvern
We get a whole lot of requests for mythical species, and Super Dragons in particular, from all of you, and they’ve been in our plans for a long time so we’re so excited to finally release them from the labs! The whole team was so thrilled to see all the excitement for them when we released the first teaser trailer (above), and we hope you’ll all love their season.
Peace on Earth is Overrated: It’s CRISPRmas
As winter arrives, Super Animal World is ready to celebrate everything CRISPRmas means to its Super inhabitants: friendship, generosity, peace (for now), and most importantly, the miracle of genetic modification! The event includes:
- 3 new Super Animal breeds
- 15 challenges to complete with 9 new event cosmetics
- 20 legacy cosmetics return from previous CRISPRmas events
This year’s event functions differently from past years, with challenges to complete to earn the rewards. Here’s how it works:
- When each week begins, a set of five weekly challenges will unlock for you to complete, with three of these challenges awarding you with the event’s new cosmetic items. Once each week’s challenges have unlocked, you’ll have until the event ends to complete them and earn their rewards.
- Each week also debuts a new festive Super Animal breed in the Research Lab! As always, the animals are permanent additions so there’s no time limit to unlock them!
- Candy canes are scattered around the map to consume for a small healing effect and to count towards some of your challenges.
- Snowmen (or are they snowanimals?) have been built around Thomas’ Tundra! You can smash them to get some candy canes, and some of the event’s challenges will require you to destroy them.
CRISPRmas Week 1
We’ve got three weeks of gifts to unwrap this CRISPRmas, so check back for new Steam news posts each week with the debut of a new Super Animal breed and challenges!
Here’s what’s coming down the chimney in Week 1:
5 challenge rewards to earn
- Candy Cane Tie | Collect Candy Canes
- 1500 XP | Smash Snowmen
- Present Outfit | Get Kills
- 750 Carl Coins | Chop Grass
- Present Tophat | Land on Ice
New Super Animal breed
- Super Icicle Deer (available to unlock beginning at level 10 in the Research Lab and featuring transparency!)
New SAW Shop and Carl’s Cart Items
Ms. Macawsome’s got some new items in stock, just in time for CRISPRmas! The Street Art Bundle is available now, as well as the stylish Checker Glasses!
The Street Art Bundle contains the following items:
- Street Artist Outfit
- Street Artist Bandana
- Spray Paint melee weapon
Carl’s Cart also has some new additions to its rotation: Balloon Swords! They come in three colors (red, blue, and green), and don’t ask Carl how he makes them deal as much damage as a typical melee weapon. They just do.
UI Updates
The game’s user interface has received some improvements and fixes that will help to save time and add clarity.
- Cosmetic & item icons now load from hard drive dynamically instead of on game launch. Considering how much SAR has grown over the years, this change will help improve load time and save hundreds of megabytes worth of memory usage.
- When viewing cosmetic items, users may now briefly see hamster ball load spinners depending on hard drive speed.
- Adding an animal in the Photo booth now refreshes from Customize each time, in case there were changes made to the preset.
- Fixed a bug where the "Show Pet" toggle in the Photo Booth wouldn't work if you had updated your preset with a pet later.
- Fixed the game modes screen being bugged on first launch for new players in certain regions.
- Fixed two bugs with death explosions in the shop: changing tabs while mousing over an explosion would position it in the wrong spot, and controller users changing shop tabs would leave the explosion running overtop of the character.
- Changed 'Grenade' to be 'Throwables' for hotkey settings.
Gameplay and Map Changes
- Several hamster balls and Giant Emus are now available to use in the pre-game lobby!
- Banana Forker healing has been reduced from 25 to 20 HP.
- Additionally, the Banana Forker no longer increases range and healing from event currency items like candy canes.
- Slightly increased banana drop rate from slicing grass.
- You can eat mushrooms, coconuts, and health fruit while downed. No hands required!
- Added priority back for the "Ride Emu" interaction, which should make dismounting to gather ammo easier, similar to before. Note that SvR flags, mole crates, Giant Mole boss crates, and downed teammates will not be overridden by a nearby emu (also similar to before).
- While riding a zipline, input for chain-riding versus exiting should be more accurate now, as previously it was very generous on detecting inputs to continue the ride.
- The Super Sea Land gift shop now has animated screens.
- You can now see other player characters picking up coconuts, mushrooms, and health fruit (previously, only your own character performed the animation).
- Cleaned up a few muzzle flashes so the last animation frame isn’t as easily mistaken as a bullet.
- Reduced collisions behind the Giant Mole boss.
- Added a private match command for /saw # and /rebel # to force a player to be on a specific SvR team.
- Improved player name tag position lag at low FPS.
- Fixed a spot at Lab to Table where emus would get stuck.
- Fixed a collision spot in Pete's Swamp between thorns and a stump.
- Fixed shadows on Le Waddle wall.
- Fixed Security HQ table having zip-lines go under it.
- Adjusted conveyors so bananas don't spin in circles on the corners. Sorry little dudes, no free rides.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a shadow sometimes appearing for broken hamster balls.
- Fixed a bug where breaking different types of destructible objects would only play the sound of one type.
- Fixed duplicated sounds when eating multiple things on an emu.
- The emoting while parachuting bug should be fixed.
- Fixed a bug where swapping to a weapon just after dropping it (while at higher ping) would leave the character stuck on the dropped weapon.
- Fixed vertical flicker issue with controllers and petting mini animals.
- Players spawning far in the skunk gas in the Bwoking Dead should be fixed now.
- Fixed event loot items fading out if on screen while becoming a Zombie Joe.
- Fixed bots not being able to go into secret rooms.
- Fixed some hit-reg issues when in high ping mode and shooting at walls.
- Several minor soft crashes should be fixed now.
Celebrate SAR’s 5th Anniversary and Big Things Ahead in 2024
To celebrate Super Animal Royale’s 5th anniversary with us, enter code BIRTHDAY to get 4 items:
- Pixile Anniversary Firework melee weapon
- Pixile Umbrella
- Party Beads
- 5th Anniversary Cake Gravestone
The new Super Piñata Donkey has also arrived in the Research Lab in time for the party, but the Lab Labs asked me to advise you against trying to find out if there’s candy inside: this piñata fights back.
It’s crazy to think of how far Super Animal Royale has come since its Early Access debut half a decade ago on December 12th, 2018, and we can’t wait to share all the big things we have in the works for its sixth year.
But before we look forward, we’d be remiss not to also look back and celebrate the exciting year we’ve shared with all of you. This year marked the first Respawning Day and the new event system for Howloween, the first marine Super Animals and Super Sea Land, the Photo Booth feature, the game’s first-ever collab with Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, the Super Merch Shop and to top it all off, we officially crossed the 10 million total player mark this summer.
We’re so proud of what we’ve built and that so many of you enjoy playing it, and as big as 2023 has been, we can’t wait to make 2024 even bigger. We couldn’t do any of this without all of you in the community, so from all of us at Pixile, thank you so much for your support in building this world together that we all love to spend time in.
Before we sign off for this update we wanted to give you a bit of a peek at some of what we have planned next for the game, but we’re saving the biggest surprises for next year. Here’s some of what’s coming up next after CRISPRmas concludes in the new year:
We can’t wait to share more of what we’ve been working on for 2024 when it’s ready, and in the meantime, we hope you have a ton of fun with the Dragon’s Loot Update and CRISPRmas!
For week 2 and 3 CRISPRmas announcements be sure to follow SAR on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Bluesky and Discord, or check back here on Steam each Tuesday at 10am PT.
Pixile Plays Stream Tonight at 5pm PT
If you’re reading this on launch day, tune in for a Pixile Plays live stream tonight at 5pm PT on Twitch to join the Pixile team in celebrating the game’s 5th anniversary, playing the Dragon’s Loot Update, and answering your burning questions: https://twitch.tv/Pixilestudios
Last Chance to Get Super Skullcat & Fox Plushies
It’s also the last chance to get your order in for the Super Skullcat and Fox Plushies (with included in-game emotes)! Order by December 17th to get yours, and for anyone purchasing both, Makeship is offering 10% off.
We hope you’re all as excited as we are to get our hands on them when they ship in March! Codes for their emotes will be sent out within 1-2 weeks of the campaigns ending (depending on Makeship’s holiday hours since the campaigns end close to CRISPRmas).
We’ll see you all on the island, Super Animals, and happy holidays!