The new Patch 01 for Sons of the Forest introduces a bunch of new gameplay features, and many more bugfixes, balance tweaks, and general quality of life improvements. In addition, a number of audio-related issues have been addressed, but not all of them! We’ll take you the most significant changes on this page.

New Gameplay Features in Patch 01 for Sons of the Forest¶

Added New Boss Fight, Binoculars, and Hang Glider¶

The most significant additions that come with this Patch 01 update for Sons of the Forest are arguably the Binoculars and the Hang Glider. Both of these have the potential to significantly improve your experience as you explore the island, but there are a few things to keep in mind about them.

First, the Hang Glider can’t as yet be stored in your inventory, so you won’t be able to take it around with you while exploring. Instead, you’ll either need to find new spawn locations, or alternatively you can place a stick in the ground and put a GPS tracker on top of it, then keep it next to wherever you leave the glider. Ideally you’ll do this within a confined space protected by defensive walls, somewhere with a shelter that you can save at. If you want to learn more about the glider and its known spawn locations, check our page on How to Get the Glider in Sons of the Forest.

In terms of the Binoculars, these are a particularly welcome addition for us. They might seem like a simple device that you could easily overlook, but having the ability to zoom into objects of interest in the distance is a game changer. It can help you to discern whether that dot on the horizon is actually a cannibal waiting to ambush you, or help to identify camps and landscape features at a safe distance, or without having to waste your time (and energy!) by running to them first. The only issue with the binoculars at the moment is that you can magnify the zoom more than the default setting when using them. They’re still useful, but it’d be nice to see more zoom options in the future!

In terms of other new features, you’ll now find a new boss in the food cave, located in the northwest of the island on our interactive map. You’ll need the Maintenance Key Card to enter the part of the bunker where the boss dwells, however.

New Defensive Wall Gate, Door Locks, and Other Building Changes¶

In addition to these two new items and a boss, there are some changes to the building system which are worth mentioning. First, you can now build a Defensive Wall Gate, giving you an entrance to any protected areas that you build which takes more to smash through than just a regular door. All you need to build this is a row of at least five vertical logs (not necessarily with spikes cut out on top), then place a full log (not a half log!) vertically across them. You should be able to interact with the gate to open and close it then.

The new Door Lock is a handy feature too. It will stop most enemies from walking into your buildings, but they can still attack it and eventually destroy it in the process. Still, you’ll at least have an extra defensive layer which enemies need to break through before they can get to any values stored in an interior space! The only thing to keep in mind with both the Defensive Wall Gate and the Door Lock is that they can’t currently be opened by your AI allies such as Kelvin and Virginia. Keep this in mind if you want them to follow you - you’ll need to open and close the gate / door for them first.

Aside from these two new major building features, there’s a few quality of life changes to the building system as well. For example, you can now grab small structures (such as furniture) to place it in a new spot, throw it, or collapse it to return the resources. There’s also a new structure type referred to as the One Sided Apex. In the words of the devs, this essentially fills the space between a leaning beam and its supporting beam, aligning automatically based on the leaning beam orientation. It also fits quarter log variations to the correct length automatically.

Bug Fixes, Balance Changes, and Improvements¶

Now that we’ve covered the major feature changes introduced with the new patch, we’ll cover a few miscellaneous fixes and improvements which have the potential to make a big difference in your gameplay. One of the most significant is that fish traps should now actually work properly when you place them yourself in almost any body of water. Previously, this only worked if you had Kelvin do it for you.

In keeping with the theme of food, berries will now replenish your hunger and quench your thirst slightly more than they used to. It’s still not a massive amount, but better than it was. However, there’s still no option to eat a stack of berries all at once, something we’d love to see in a future update. On the flip side, energy drinks only quench half as much thirst as they used to, which is probably a good balance change since they used to fully replenish thirst with just one drink.

There are potentially less welcome changes included too, but which certainly add to the overall immersion. For example, your sleep can now be interrupted in the middle of the night if there are enemies nearby. If you want to go back to sleep, you’ll need to deal with them first, which can result in some seriously spooky encounters with unknown numbers of cannibals ambushing you in the pitch dark of night.

After some testing, melee combat feels a bit smoother now too. The AI is more responsive to melee strikes, which makes the combat feel more fluid. Before, there were numerous examples of striking at an enemy only for them to jankily slink away from you. Melee combat feels a bit more consistent now, probably thanks to the “Adjusted some player melee events and ranges for better A.I. responsiveness” change.

There have also been some improvements to the audio system, but there’s still an issue with sound orientation, wherein an enemy could scream from any distance or direction from you, but it will almost always sound like they’re right behind you. We hope to see this fixed in a future patch, but it’s good to see some serious attention being given to these quality of life elements.

There are many more changes to look through, so if you’re interested in seeing the full list, be sure to check the patch notes below!

Features¶

• Added Binoculars
• Added Hang Glider
• Added Defensive Wall gate
• Added mid game boss fight into food bunker
• Added Settings Reset in the Options screen
• Added missing Virginia leather suit pickup to world
• You can now lock doors with a stick placed on the interior of the door
• Built small structures (furniture) can now be grabbed, while grabbed it can either be placed again somewhere or thrown to collapse it and get back its resources
• Some additional story elements added
• New headshot death animation variations added for cannibals
• Angry regular cannibals can attack now by jumping out of trees
• Small birds will now land and eat/gain fullness
• Added option to hide player name tags
• Added option to hide projectile reticle and trajectory
• Fish trap should now work and catch fish (every 5-10 minutes) as long as it’s placed in water and the current season is not winter
• Added lookout towers to some cannibal villages
• Story Paper pickups will now show UI to “Zoom” in
• Added new structure type: One Sided Apex. Fills the space between a leaning beam and its supporting beam. Aligns automatically based on the leaning beam orientation. Fits quarter log variations to the right length automatically.

Balance¶

• Added sleep cooldown
• Set rest drain from hunger and dehydration to 0
• Muddy Cannibals will now get less angry (from player proximity and in late game)
• Added possibility of Player Sleep Interruption events from nearby enemies that can reach player
• Tweaked fire drain rate to make using firewood more important
• Tweaked berries to give slightly more fullness
• Tweaked energy drink to give half as much hydration and less energy buff
• Tweaked amount of fullness and hydration all herbs and mushrooms give
• Hard enemy health setting reduced to 1.25x health
• Increased cannibal armor health by 1.5x on hard
• Kelvin catch fish order will end after a time
• Fixed opening a cave in late game having too many enemies
• Adjusted some player melee events and ranges for better A.I. responsiveness
• Halved shotgun damage
• Boosted seat rest amount from 0.3 to 0.7
• Added regular Puffies to dining hall
• Increased health on creepies depending on amount of multiplayer players active

Improvements¶

• Improved red cannibal animation and blends
• Fixed sleeping animation for female cannibal
• Set up player effigy struggle/idle for multiplayer
• Fixed ‘bouncy’ logs when deep in water
• Performance speed up for world locators
• Added Logic to allow hatches and doors to be forced open when player is spawned inside
• Fix for some LOD’s sometimes not switching correctly
• Fixed error caused when quitting while in death wakeup
• Unique/Story items are now force equipped when they are collected
• Door orientation is now determined by the position of the player when placing it, the face in front of player is the interior face
• Adjusted Deer and Moose locomotion for better pathing
• Prevented placing bench so close to objects that player could be stuck when standing up after sitting on it
• Added more small prop setup for melee impacts and collision
• Added LODs/optimization for the wall torch
• Destroying screw storage now spawns stored items as dynamic pickups
• Beach greebles regenerated with coral rock sizes reduced
• Bunker food fixed some small lighting issues
• Added radio to bunker food
• Turned the table cards for Mr. and Mrs. Puffton into story pickups
• Updated DLSS dll to version 3.1.1

Fixes¶

• Should no longer be able to get through locked doors with a stick (Sorry speed runners!)
• Fixed Kelvin cutting down trees with player structures attached
• Fixed keycard guest not opening the two doors in bunker entertainment and not being needed to get into bunker residential
• Fixed ghost blueprints not rendering underwater (for example fish trap)
• Fixed some stream underwater rendering glitches
• Fixed some potential issues on multiplayer disconnect
• Fixed multiple issues with input bindings
• Fixed player stuck after dying while climbing rope
• Fixed being able to place paper target on tarp collision
• Fixed place defensive wall option available on non grounded pillars, often resulting in invalid placement that gets rejected
• Fixed placing a defensive wall log against a pillar made of log quarter variation causing an invalid placement that gets rejected
• Fixed destroying the small animal deadfall trap getting its resources yielded back twice
• Fixed some issues occurring when a fire is destroyed while interacting with it
• Fixed lifting tarp with stick sometimes not detecting stick being equipped properly when auto equipped resulting in a unnecessary delay before performing the action
• Fixed adding log planks to ghost blueprint structures by splitting logs automatically not consuming the log properly
• Fixed case where some elements from some unbuilt outlines could be removed
• Volume fix for cave visuals disabling when navigating into some corners of caves
• Fixes for various open rock / cliff edges in terrain
• Fixed case where Virginia grab bag interaction could trigger at same time as pickup, leading to bad player state
• Fixed case of player stuck attacking with spear after revive
• Fixed enemy armor setting not working
• Fixed animal count setting not working correctly
• Fixed player able to trigger actions while doing ground attacks, fixes some possible temporary stuck states.
• Fixed some cases of small birds not being scared of player
• Fixed some incorrect keyboard icons for keypad inputs
• Fixed music not playing in title screen after leaving a multiplayer game
• Autumn ground leaves shouldn’t pop on visually as much now
• Player will no longer get into a broken state when trying to equip an item that they are already holding and have maxed out in inventory
• Fixed a transition to move with Tactical Axe which was preventing attack/block/parry from activating during it
• Fixed case where removing a beam supporting a pillar wouldn’t re-link the pillar properly with its new support, resulting in wrong pillar position calculated after the cascading repositioning process
• Fixed wood stack loading from saves as an apex (non retro-active)
• Added player saving system for cutscenes
• Fixed the cave shark eating severed limbs looking broken
• Fixed some cave entrance bat scare spawn locations
• Fixed some eagle perch landing / takeoff issues. Add a perch spot to tall dead stump
• Fixed issue where walking over entertainment bunker could cause trees and other world objects to disappear.
• Cannibals should no longer snap long distances to climb into windows
• Fix for clients no longer loading into the correct season when rejoining a saved game
• Players held items at time of knockout are now remembered upon being revived
• Tutorials will no longer be force closed when opening the pause menu and are instead just visually toggled. This should fix some tutorials such as the pick up construction element tutorial from completing before the player has actually done it
• Player will no longer slide down slopes when either utility book is held or when the player is in their inventory
• Can no longer attach both the laser sight and flashlight weapon mods to the crossbow at the same time
• Fixed some cases of multiplayer client able to duplicate logs
• Fixed repairing wood stacks not putting its elements back in correct position
• Fixed floating log when chopping down a tree with tree shelter attached to it
• Fixed Screw Structures being broken apart have no audio
• Tagged auto jumps off on portable light
• Fixed Kelvin dropping radios destroying the radio
• Fixed weapons given to Virginia not being returned with correct amount of ammo and weapon upgrades
• Modified fade distance on icons slightly to make them more visible
• Fixed for player able to be pushed through terrain if another players stand on their head
• Fixed opening hatches removing weapon upgrades from currently held weapon
• Made sure player correctly aligns to death marker when dying at high height
• Removed floating life vest
• Fixed displacement digging visuals breaking on some quality settings

Audio¶

• Improved audio CPU overhead
• Improved some cannibal audio/vocals
• Reduced audio stuttering issues
• Reduced intensity of high wind audio to reduce performance impact
• Reduced max instances of footstep audio to reduce CPU cost and improve performance
• Changed the audio ringing effect on explosions and grenades to lessen as you are further from the explosion to avoid it cutting out with distance
• Spittle audio added to first spittle nest in entertainment bunker
• Added fadeouts to physics sounds
• Tuned player rock footstep when running, waterfall and surf levels
• Added gun fight audio before door opening to “Get down son” cutscene
• Updated triggered and reset audio events on flyswatter, bone maker and small animal traps
• Prevented repair tool from spamming SFX causing performance and audio issues
• Fixed audio loop not ending when climbing down ropes