The Forest is Finally Escaping Early Access in April, New Patch

It's been a long time coming but finally, FINALLY, The Forest is moving its way out of Early [...]

By Liana 'LiLi' Ruppert

It's been a long time coming but finally, FINALLY, The Forest is moving its way out of Early Access and onto Steam as a full title this Spring! Now you can battle creepy multiarmed cannibals, and search for your son, without any of that Early Access glitchy mess. Just ... don't forget to fortify, this survival horror game is no joke!

Not only did the team give us the good word on Steam, but they have also released a new patch to help prepare for the big day. According to the official Steam community post, this is what players can expect as the official full launch approaches:

"We wanted to share our plans for moving The Forest out of early access and into a full v1.0 release. We're aiming for a release date towards the end of April. We'll have an exact date when we are a bit closer. On release of v1.0 the price will increase from $14.99 USD to $19.99 USD

There are a bunch of new features we've been working on for v1.0, and want to give everyone an idea as to what we're planning on shipping with. Languages and controller support will be improved and officially supported. We're going to be adding new reasons and resources for killing the creepies. There will be a rethinking of the cold and warmth system, including a new warm suit. New buildables will be added. There will be some big performance optimizations especially for late game saves. Changes and improvements to how multiplayer save games work and along with this a bunch of dedicated server improvements. The multiplayer clothing system is being improved and expanded, with a new system to allow you to switch outfits. We'll also give some details about a VR game mode when we are closer to release. Along with a bunch more we don't have room to include here, we have some really crazy and fun surprises in store, especially regarding the ending and are really excited to see what people think.

To focus on pushing this out we're going to stop doing the smaller timed patches. To keep everyone involved in the process leading up to launch and to help ensure the release is as good as it can be, we will be putting out release candidates as we get closer to our first final."

As far as Patch 0.73 goes:

  • Fixed dynamite going off automatically when added to catapult
  • Fixed caves not loading properly in some old save files
  • Fixed dynamite turning off in water breaking achievement for fishing with dynamite
  • Fixed issues with survival book not opening if player was briefly airborne when opening the book
  • Fixed camera jerkiness when moving while opening or closing the survival book
  • Fixed equip weapon animations looking wrong when cold
  • Player will now drop any held logs when sitting on a bench
  • Increased height of all tree trunk colliders
  • Fixed player able to pause game during loading screens and before plane crash cutscene
  • Fixed construction UI widget positioning being off for some structures
  • Flag and interaction icons are now hidden while using the log sled
  • Fixed dropped dynamite fuse lit in wrong place
  • Fix wrong scale on some dropped sticks
  • Fixed geese sometimes appearing to float above water
  • Fixed animation issues if taking heavy fall damage while aiming bow
  • Overlay icon grouping, finds icon clumps of same icon type and color by world position and groups it into a single one when far away
  • Caves – Updates and polish to Cave 5
  • Fixed end boss not appearing on fire for clients
  • Fixed issues with arrows not sticking into end boss
  • Rebalanced saplings to work better with machete versus other weapons
  • Fixed player flashlight not casting spec!
  • Arrows and spears can now pass through stick and bone fences
  • (Multiplayer) Bumped construction material count max synced value to 65k (from 2k)
  • (Multiplayer) Beanie is no longer available for character models that don't fit (not retroactive)
  • Fixed one of the bone arrow views in inventory not visible
  • It is no longer possible to build things within the large raft pillars and stairs
  • Placing a ghost catapult now requires to have enough room behind for the player to use it
  • Fixed cloth on put out burning weapon not visible even though it can be relit
  • Fixed lighter not behaving properly (getting stashed) when relighting a burning weapon that was put out
  • Fixed sharks disappearing for clients when killed
  • Fixed turtles not dropping head trophies when skinned
  • (Multiplayer) Setup texture variations for the new cargo pants + fixed red paint & bloody textures
  • Fixed triggering the "Fire1" action (left click by default with a mouse) while holding the passenger manifest in inventory attempting to stash the manifest
  • Fixed L to light tutorial no longer visible after going in pause menu while in the hanging cutscene
  • Fixed missing remove all prompt when backpack is on the crafting mat to set quick select items
  • Fixed remaining issue with combining recurve bow & arrows to set the active bonus
  • Berries on bushes are now only visible when up close and not on the lod version of the models
  • Improved held and fill water skin animations
  • Fixed cooking head on fire missing eyeballs
  • Fixed some props falling out of beach huts on spawning
  • Fixed ghost target, ghost rabbit cage, bench using old mesh in ghost renders or old wood models in built versions
  • Fixed pot and other items from appearing in hand if picked up while eating meat
  • Fixed keycard disappearing sometimes when opening door in end game section
  • Fixed wrong weapon sometimes being equipped when opening keycard doors
  • Fixed happy birthday trap not requiring rope
  • Fixed some areas player could get stuck in sinkhole
  • Improved some shiny hair variations
  • Fixed birds sometimes landing on perch targets that have already been destroyed
  • Fixed enemies standing up after being killed and dropped from the noose trap
  • Fixed not able to equip lighter or light fires while holding a dead body
  • Fixed water splashes visible on other players while inside yacht
  • Fixed cases of building treehouses on dead trees, allowing players to climb down through world
  • Fixed upgraded stick's cloth appearing off the stick when windy after the fire had been put out
  • Fixed flag cloth color not set automatically when completing a building
  • Fixed walking in and out of endgame entrance breaking lighting in caves
  • Added "group overlay icons" in gameplay options
  • Fixed player not able to pick up logs while airborne
  • (Multiplayer) Fixed end boss sometimes not spawning if client entered end game section alone
  • (Multiplayer) Fixed player able to look around in pause screen if hit by explosives
  • It is now possible to light burning weapons, molotov and dynamites while having the plastic torch equipped, it will now switch to lighter automatically
  • (Multiplayer) Attempting to join a full lobby now opens back the game browser automatically and displays a relevant error message
  • UI- updates to main menu save slots and difficulty screens

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