A few days ago, Endnight Games released the second major update for Sons Of The Forest. Patch 02 comes with a lot of improvements, tweaks, fixes and new features, so time to take a look at them.

Update 02 adds new demon boss to end of hell caves, new story elements, an auto backup system, and a new cave system. Furthermore, this patch packs numerous balance tweaks, and some audio tweaks and improvements.

As always, Steam will download this update the next time you launch its client. Below you can also find its complete changelog.

Sons Of The Forest Patch 02 Release Notes

Features

• Added new demon boss to end of hell caves
• Added dead cultists to map
• New double story cannibal hut type added
• Added turtle shell rain collector
• Added new tougher puffy variation
• New surveillance room added to bunker residential
• New cave system added
• Added admin panel for admin clients
• Additional story elements added
• Added auto backup system when overwriting saves

Improvements

• Moved gold armor to new cave system
• Removed keypad entrance to bunker luxury, will now need to open it an alternate way
• Container items will now save their state in single player, so if they are opened or broken, they stay that way
• Improved lit fire torch brightness when viewed in first person
• Removed instant season switch logic from sleeping
• Adjusted the min/max turbulence of wind to prevent extreme mesh distortion at highest intensity
• Firewood now crumbles when it’s fuel is used up on fires, and can then be replaced with new firewood
• Furniture or ziplines can no longer be attached to doors and gates
• Repositioned dead sluggy in bunker residential making it possible to come back inside bunker
• Player is now able to use most left hand items while gliding
• Closing save menu will go back to game rather than pause menu
• Changed face on maintenance keycard to not be player character
• Improvements to Finnish and Traditional Chinese text
• Improved look of old paper pickups
• Added books to bookshelves in bunker luxury
• Removed shotgun pickup from bunker luxury
• Gold armor pickup visual is now the full armor and is positioned to fit on skeleton burnt model
• Improved held location of flashlight and lighter when sliding
• Added additional wakeup locations in hell cave

Balance

• Increased fullness from eating MRE’s and decreased fullness from eating cat food
• Rabbits and Squirrels will now try harder to evade player and run faster
• Added unique hit reacts to dining hall bosses and replaced their knockdowns from shotgun with smaller staggers
• Player no longer takes survival stat damage while strung up on effigies
• Gold Armor now absorbs 70% demonic damage instead of 90%
• Increased burn time on camp fires
• Increased fire fuel amount provided by leaves & cash by x10
• Reduced chainsaw full charge duration
• The flashlight will now auto replace the battery sooner so that it happens before the light begins to fade

Fixes #1

• Fixed Item Duping using storage holders
• Custom day length settings will now work correctly
• Fixed multiple cases of enemies able to spawn inside player built bases
• Fixed pops on machete block animations
• Also fixed bloom on tech armor blowing out visually
• General navmesh improvements
• Fixed issue where leaving save menu would bring back HUD and leave menu state in pause menu
• Fixed locking player movement when starting to dig to fix alignment issues
• Floors no longer allow placing walls if there is a leaning beam above
• If a held item is set to require both hands, the equip will now also drop any logs the player was holding, fixes glider disappearing when player attempts to equip it while holding a log
• Can no longer drink water while swimming
• Fixed missing cleanup of the player out of breath audio
• Fix for players dying instantly if jumping in water and rebreather was out of air
• Camp Fires will no longer set off fire sprinklers until the fire has been lit
• Fixed issue with the player getting in to a bad state if they died while performing an interaction in their inventory, such as eating or crafting
• Fixed issue where the player could get stuck in a bad state when equipping, stashing and equipping items very quickly
• Fixing issue with the player sometimes being able to begin eating by using hotkeys while starting other actions
• Fix for binocular visuals getting stuck on screen if the player opens the pause menu while using the binoculars
• If the player is not grounded while the tutorial book is out, the tutorial book will be stashed
• Items can be equipped while not grounded again, excluding books
• Fix for campfires becoming interactable when the player is in another action if the player previously backed away from the fire while trying to light it
• Fix for having to look away from the fire after lighting it before it would be interactable
• Turtle Eggs will no longer hatch on shelves or on the players grab bag

Fixes #2

• Fix for GPS locator not being cleared after being picked up and loaded from a save
• Fix for clicking anywhere in the grab bag taking an item back from Virginia if the player closed the grab bag while hovering over the missing item
• Fix for items not being able to be equipped from within inventory if they were not left or right hand items
• Tactical in coffin GPS locator will no longer show up after loading a save where the player has already picked it up
• Fix for clients not being in sync with the host for season duration if the starting season was spring
• Fixed issue with player out of breathe audio not following the player unless they are running
• Fixed hovering over crafted items on the mat not showing the total number of owned items including the ones on the mat
• Fix for player getting stuck in falling pose if quick select is opened at the same time as jumping
• Fix for the player always triggering the logic to dismount from a rope when dying; This was causing issues with incorrect items being equipped after death
• Fix for player being able to pull out their grab bag on fires when they do not have the grab bag
• Fix for survival damage not working in save games
• Multiplayer clients are now synced with the hosts stat damage and consumable effects settings
• Fix for breaking unfinished tree cabin giving infinite logs
• Fixed placement prompts staying behind when placement changes from valid to invalid in some cases
• Fixed beam supported by walls not propagating destruction properly to linked strutted beam
• Also fixed some open edges on cliffs around world
• Fixed some cases of trees vanishing when walking over some parts of map above caves
• Fixed firewood giving different amounts of fuel for Host and client in multiplayer games
• Also fixed snow appearing on some indoor plants in winter
• Blood reveal on Demon should now match the body part hit
• Fixed cut ferns flying up into air
• Fixed Kelvin being able to burn to death from fires
• Also fixed some cases of A.I. actors getting into invalid states
• Improved A.I. navigation in structures
• Prevented some cases of animals and enemies able to spawn on player built structures
• Prevented some cases of enemies attempting to move to stimuli they can’t reach
• Fix For grab bag still being able to be equipped on garden plots even when the player does not have their inventory
• Fix for player clothing blend shapes not applying correctly in certain situations in multiplayer
• Fixed issue where other interactions would still be possible while the look animations were playing on equipping the book pickups
• Planting seeds in gardens will no longer consume two seeds at a time
• Item Crates and containers will no longer look closed if the player opens them, runs away and then comes back to them in single player
• Fix for players held items not being re-equipped if the player is wearing the rebreather and exits the water but the mouthpiece was not actively up
• Fix for players not getting their items back if the end game cutscene is triggered before they have picked up their dropped inventory
• Additional fix for all items always doing their first look action after the walkie talkie has been equipped
• Fixed player stuck with open grab bag if campfire is destroyed while they’re adding something to it
• Fixed defensive wall placement UI rendering underneath cliffs
• Also fixed pillar building decal drawing over hands
• Fixed Interacting with light fire prompt multiple times while lighting a fire getting player stuck in falling state

Audio

• Fixed fire axe and modern axe hitting metal sounding like hitting flesh
• Waves on shore audio no longer set to streaming
• Added some additional mouseover and pickup audio events for arrows
• Widened speaker spread on mutant voice events
• Made near distance levels of mutant audio events more consistent
• Fixed the occasional very loud mutant cry in mid distance
• Tuned audio on wind, streams, player footsteps, mutants and more
• Fixed hard cuts on some regular male mutant praying audio
• Added audio volume slider for Walkie Talkie