This is a major update to the game — the download is large, and the list of improvements is long! We’ve highlighted the most exciting ones in each category, but it’s worth reading through the whole list to see everything that’s changed.

Zedhunter

• The Zedhunter Update launches today, free for all SoD2 players including Xbox Game Pass, and owners of the Standard and Ultimate editions. This update adds eight new crossbows, three new melee weapons, three new close combat weapons, three new blood plague consumables, quirk skills, achievements, a respecc option, and missions to the game. For a complete content list and more information, you can read our blog post here.

Daybreak

• Earned CLEO rewards are now given to players even if they close or disconnect from a game before the round is finished.
• The collections screen now shows you the prestige cost of the selected item— as well as your current prestige total.
• Walls no longer show interaction icons when they do not need to be repaired.
• Lightly-damaged walls now show yellow (not orange) repair indicators.
• We added a waiting screen for clients to keep them from spawning into Daybreak before the host.
• When a player dies in Daybreak, their un-detonated remotely triggered land mines now disappear to reduce battlefield clutter.
• The loadout screen now remembers your last equipment selection.

Red Talon Contractors

• We added a secondary Recruit option for Red Talon contractors that offers the classic Red Talon uniform (tan vest over black clothing).
• Red Talon contractors can now be inspected and rejected upon meeting them. Rejected contractors offer a 3000 prestige refund.
• The cooldown between Red Talon recruit attempts has been reduced by half.
• Red Talon contractors will no longer have their trait lists disrupted by new traits gained through conversation — nor by Starvation, Frustration, and other temporary effects.
• Red Talon contractors with the Combat Medicine skill now offer Medical Advice, just like real doctors.
• The Warfighting skill advertised that it caused all shots to pierce enemies, but this wasn’t true. Now in the main game, it is true. In Daybreak, it still isn’t true, but we’re not advertising it anymore.

Gameplay

• The aim camera no longer hitches when zooming in and out with a scope or sight.
• NPCs no longer become hostile when dealt damage from sources that weren’t hostile to them.
• NPCs no longer react negatively when you accidentally point a gun in their direction.
• Your character is now only impressed by a scavenging location when it actually has a lot of searchable containers.
• Your character no longer reacts to every suburban house like it’s a prime outpost opportunity.
• We fixed an issue that was making it extraordinarily difficult to walk instead of jog using the analog stick.

Community

• It may not have been clear in the previous Patch Notes that we now store only the 50 most recently used legacy characters, instead of stacking them up endlessly. This was necessary to reduce save sizes and prevent data loss. We are currently working on further improvements to this process.
• When you delete a community, any characters within that community who have completed at least one legacy are now saved.
• Negative traits gained through conversation have had their negative impacts reduced, and in many cases, removed entirely. You can feel more confident bringing followers into the field.
• We fixed several skill specializations that were not responding to experience-rate buffs.
• We fixed an issue where we would display a mood description for a character that was not as sad as their actual mood.
• We fixed some hero bonuses, traits, and other attributes whose effects were being ignored — specifically, Durability Loss Per Shot, Durability Loss Per Hit, and Food Consumed Per Day.
• We fixed a crash that could occur when the final member of your community died after finishing the final legacy mission.

Facilities

• The Sniper Tower now offers a passive –2 to Threat Level, and a new option to spend 2 ammo to reduce Threat Level by 6 for an hour, while training the Shooting skill.
• The Bell Tower at the Church on the Hill and the Announcer Box at Whitney Field now trigger genuine sieges when used to reduce Threat Level at the base. To balance this out, their Threat Level benefit has been slightly increased.
• You now need to interact with the storage facility directly to withdraw a rucksack, rather than teleporting them magically onto your back from across the map.
• We now properly check the Cooking skill when upgrading the Kitchen 1 facility to Kitchen 2.
• The Scrap Materials For Parts action now awards Craftsmanship experience, as intended.
• The Bike Generator no longer accidentally incurs a fuel upkeep cost, so cyclists are apparently no longer drinking gasoline.
• We fixed a cost mismatch when employing the Pathology skill to craft the Bulk Plague Cure item, versus individual Vials of Plague Cure.
• We no longer award free Influence when changing maps, since you now arrive with a free base instead.
• The Infirmary text now more accurately describes recovery from injuries and trauma.
• You can no longer repair the same weapon multiple times in a row without damaging it first.
• The Withdraw a Rucksack actions on the storage facility now appear in the same order as the resource icons in the HUD.

Items

• Fallen NPCs now drop their close-combat weapons for you to recover. They can be equipped by other characters or salvaged for parts.
• The inventories of your parked vehicles now come with you when your community changes maps.
• Dropped items now display in-world icons to better indicate what they are, as well as their current condition.
• Plague samples are now dropped as individual items, not as containers, making them quicker and easier to pick up.
• The interaction prompt on dropped plague samples now says “Take Plague Sample” instead of “Interact”.
• Vials of Blood Plague Cure now cure early-stage infections, without needing to wait until you develop full-blown Blood Plague.
• We fixed a bug where Remote Rocket Pods and Deployable Minefields dealt no damage to vehicles. They now deal a small amount.
• We fixed the stack count for Piles of Weapon Remains to be the standard 3 — not the 99 used for crafting items.
• Triggerable items, such as C4, are now set off in roughly the order in which they were placed. While most of these items are still set off simultaneously, some of them (such as remote rocket pods) will interrupt the chain, as they must be detonated individually.
• Consumables that provide an effect over time will now display while active over the health and stamina bars.

Missions

• Allied enclaves ask for help (and risk leaving the map if you ignore them) about half as often as they did before.
• When you interact with an NPC, the dialogue options now always pop up immediately, rather than sometimes waiting for a VO line to finish.
• Personal leadership-related missions no longer automatically override your current mission in the mission HUD.
• Several story-driven enclaves have new trade inventories specifically themed to their specialties.
• Starting characters are no longer shown as belonging to the same community until after you’ve completed the tutorial.
• We fixed cases where the “Warlord: Notice of Eviction” mission could accidentally be abandoned.

Multiplayer

• We’ve refined the experience for clients depositing rucksacks for the host. Now anyone can make a deposit, either at the Storage facility or at a Parking Slot, and everyone is rewarded appropriately with Influence.
• Clients now gain appropriate progress for Achievements earned while in the Host’s game. 
• We clarified the error message for when a Client interacts with an NPC while the Host is also interacting with that same NPC.
• We clarified the error message for when a Client attempts to claim an outpost or home site while in the Host’s game.
• We removed some jittery behavior of players and icons when riding together in vehicles.

UX

• When you open a vehicle trunk while carrying a rucksack, the cursor defaults to the rucksack in your possession (if there’s room in the trunk to store it).
• When you die, and you only have one remaining available character, we now auto-switch you to that character, rather than having you choose from a list of one.
• Pressing the View or V button will now close the Community Screen, even when you are zoomed in on a character.
• The car-flip icon now consistently shows as inactive whenever flipping is impossible.
• Help Tips no longer show over dialogue.

Graphics

• Billboards and signs now stream in their high-res textures at a greater distance — they look better from farther away.
• The visuals and audio for automatic gunfire now line up much better than they did before.
• You can no longer “outrun” the rate at which grass visually appears in the game, causing it to “pop in” seconds later.