‘The Forest’ Latest Update Brings A Lot Of Changes, Including Stirring Up The Restless Mutant Enemies

The Forest is a survival horror game for PC that will eventually make you loathe the name Timmy. As a lone survivor that survived a plane crash, players will find themselves stranded (alone or with friends, the multiplayer aspect is fantastic) while they try to survive the hordes of enemies, including aggressive cannibalistic mutants. Players must learn to craft, build, and explore their way to survival – all while trying to find their missing son (dammit, Timmy). The game in itself has a terrifying edge to it. Thanks to the new update, it just got scarier and a little bit more difficult.

Before we talk cannibals, much needed fixes have been applied to the Early Access title included smoother animations, improved swimming, lighting enhancements, cooking in-game, and much much more. A few new penalties have been added too to increase the difficulty such as the new thirst penalty awarded to players that continue to eat dried meat.

Now … the mutants. The developing team has “tweaked” the AI for the enemies to make them much more aggressive, but there is one helpful change they made. Now if a player is completely surrounded by these cannibals, the AI now reads incoming enemies in a way where they will run away or hold back rushing in an effort to not completely overwhelm the experience.

New end-game cutscenes and more have been added. For the full update, check out the patch update below:

• Fixed second arrow appearing if fire button pressed immediately after releasing an arrow from the bow

• (multiplayer) Fixed fireman cannibals appearing with wrong texture as client

• (multiplayer) Fixed birds disappearing if shot with a flare gun as client

• Added new recorded dialogue to end game sequence

• Fixed lizards occasionally becoming invulnerable to damage

• Fixed bodies on fire not blowing up from explosives

• Adjusted look sensitivity when using a gamepad to allow for more precise aiming with bows and other projectile weapons

• (UI) Action icons are now twice as big when using a gamepad

• Book navigation with a gamepad should now be a lot simpler, it will no longer go through tabs and links in bottom right page and instead display the PrevPage / NextPage action icons that should be used

• (Multiplayer) Fixed adding ingredients to a stew as client not updating cooking time for all players

• Using the chainsaw with a gamepad now has a vibration effect ! (requires the XInput option to be on for most gamepads)

• Added new art for the collected coins and cash in inventory

• (performance) Dead enemies are no longer saved in traps on loading

• Fixed rope not attaching to enemy properly when noose trap was triggered

• Fixed missing collision from the deadfall trap large log

• Fixed Happy Birthday trap missing collision sometimes after being repaired

• Fixed navmesh not being updated correctly when some structures were destroyed

• (multiplayer) fixed clients able to see other player on floor during first part of plane crash sequence

• Fixed spears sometimes disappearing if player was hit while throwing a spear

• (multiplayer) Fixed clients unable to pick up rabbits from animal traps

• Fixed cowman exploded gibs never being despawned

• Fixed player able to throw projectiles while in knocked down state

• Fixed player sometimes getting thrown into air after skinning animals

• (Balance) Reduced damage from arrows on modern bow slightly

• Fixed creepy enemies not reacting to players when shot from a distance

• Fixed players unable to throw spear while airborne

• When holding a burning stick, player will do the regular downwards ground attack

• Fixed birds sitting on structures not flying away when structure is damaged or destroyed

• Fixed player not performing proper downward jumping attack with a held rock

• (Performance) Main camera is now disabled while in inventory which greatly increases FPS and locked fps in inventory to 60fps.

• (UI) Items inventory tooltip is now bigger

• Fixed targeted button in book changing when switching page with L/R gamepad buttons

• Book now always uses snapping with a gamepad

• (Performance) LOD distance calculations are now offloaded to a secondary thread lowering the cpu cost

• (UI) New cursor in inventory.

• Adjusted cursor sensitivity when using gamepad in inventory

• Fixed animation sync issues with picking up megan in the end game

• Fixed throw animation not playing if throwing molotov while airborne

• Fixed opening survival book while holding megan causing player to move at wrong speed

• Player no longer plays hit animation from thirst damage while aiming or holding book or lighting fires

• Added small amount of blood effect when taking thirst damage

• (Performance) Added a threshold to the activation range of greeble zones when already visible to prevent it from ever going on and off when standing at the toggling range

• Locking tree structure to trees now uses the same raycast system as anchors which is going to accurately pick whatever tree is currently targeted instead of the legacy fiddly way

• Simple rumble setup for when attacking & getting hit when playing with a gamepad (tested only on xbox controller)

• (Performance) Terrain pixel error no longer takes screen height into consideration

• Fixed stuck arrows not falling from trees when tree is cut down

• Deprecated the “Gamepad cursor mode” option

• Added “Gamepad Rumble” option

• The construction UI now snaps towards player at a lower angle than previously

• Hand cursor icon is no longer visible when using a gamepad in book

• Added new recorded dialogue to end sequence of game to fix what sounded like a bug with end cut-scene

• Survival Book – added numbering to custom building and decoration/furniture pages to match tabs

• Fixed enemies sometimes falling asleep in front of the player while in caves

• Added missing note tabs in book

• Added gamepad action icon in book

• Tweaked highlighted tabs display to be easier to read

• Light burnable item tutorial now displayed for all burnable items

• Zipline rope now renders as far as its wooden gates

• Small rocks now require to hold the “Take” button for 0.5s to pickup

• Eating dried meat now gives 5% thirst in Normal mode and 20% thirst in Hard Survival

• Dualshock 4 touchpad button now opens inventory

• Navigating book and inventory with a gamepad now uses the Horizontal & Vertical axis (left stick by default)

• Water based cave entrances now have an enter/exit system similar to land based entrances

• (Hard Survival) Fixed single player inventory time pause not working in hard survival mode

• (Hard Survival)Food fullness amount set to same as normal mode

• (Hard Survival)Meat spoil time same as normal mode

• (Hard Survival)Reduce dehydration increase rate back to default

• (Hard Survival)halved hydration gain from berries

• (Hard Survival)Reduced amount of turtles and birds in hard survival mode

• Thirst damage now ticks every 30s (from 8) and deals 11 damage (from 2) in normal mode, and 27 damage in HS

• Going to book index when using a gamepad automatically select the Fire chapter button and index button is no longer accessible while in index

• (UI) while having items on the crafting mat It is now displayed that you can press the Drop button to clear out everything

• (Performance)Improved cpu performance when loading into cave reducing the amount of stutters

• Adjusted timing of load when exiting a climb out cave to reduce visible pop in of trees

• Increased speed and hit damage from boars

• (Performance) Fixed chainsaw smoke drift causing significant allocations

• Standing fires no longer set fire to player, enemies or animals

• Fixed fire arrows on modern bow not lightable from standing fires

• Improved underwater player movement:player will now sink in water if looking up and moving backwards

• It is now possible to gain specific bonus when cooking a stew with various ingredient combinations

• It is now possible to gather boiled water from pot using a waterskin or even another pot

• Less small rocks will now spawn in world

• Performance – lowered distance decorative ground sticks (not pickups) spawn

• Performance – optimized collision physics on animals

• Slightly reduced animal spawn distances from player

• Player will now shine light on held story item pickups when plastic torch is equipped

• Mushroom stumps can now be destroyed by hitting them!

• Fixed log sled occasionally flipping up wildly when full of bodies

• Fixed boars sometimes not targetting player correctly when attacking

• Player can no longer do downward axe attacks while crouching and head height is blocked by a low ceiling

• (Performance) Animal shadows are now disabled at distance from the player

• Fixed aim down sights mode getting stuck on if inventory was opened while in aim mode

• (Performance) Optimized Fish AI and animations

• Fixed burning bodies in sled causing body to burn forever

• Blocked equip weapon from inventory while placing building

• Poisoned weapons will now display a visual

• Enemies will now tend to keep their distance if player is already surrounded by enemies

• Fixed a case of enemies sometimes stuck running in circles

• (Performance) Pooling system now handles better mass despawn of a single object type, this will prevent spikes when leaving dense areas, with many ferns for example

• Lowered amount of bird landing spots on birdhouse

• Fixed adding empty pot on fire in SP having water