Update v.0.5.0.36 delivers a massive overhaul to the core progression systems, introducing a fully reworked skill and item system that emphasizes meaningful choices, streamlined growth, and fairer stat progression. Weapons like machine guns and rifles have been redesigned for more distinct roles, while new content, environmental upgrades, and balancing adjustments further refine the gameplay experience. On top of that, this update includes crash reporting, anti-cheat measures, and a wave of bug fixes and visual improvements.

Rework Skill System

DISCLAIMER: Just a heads-up — these skill changes are pretty major! We haven’t focused on balancing just yet, so expect numbers to shift over the coming weeks and months. We’ll be tweaking things based on your feedback and the data we collect. So if something feels off, let us know — we really appreciate your input!

Reworked all active and some passive skills.
Level caps & badges: Each tree starts at max level 10. Spend Badges to raise that tree’s cap in +5 steps (15, 20, 25, …) up to 50; skills cannot exceed 50. Badge supply at game start: 13 to raise caps to 15, 12 to 20, 11 to 25, and so on—decreasing by 1 per step—down to 6 for raising caps to 50. The old token system has been removed.
Each active (non-ultimate) has 1 base skill (1 point), 3 Enhancers (Cooldown, Stamina, Impact with up to 5 points each), and 2 Specializations (choose 1 after investing a minimum of 11 points into that active; costs 1 point). Max per-active investment: 17 points.
Per-tree totals: There is a theoretical 86 points to spend (51 in three actives, 30 in passives, 5 in the ultimate), but you can only allocate up to 50—forcing meaningful tradeoffs.
Ultimates: Up to 5 points; every point improves stamina cost, cooldown, and impact. Minimum tree level 46 to invest. With badge-raised caps you can reach level 46 and immediately put all 5 points into the ultimate if saved.
All invested skill points have been reset. Every player must reassign them.
Some skill levels of higher-level characters had to be reduced to match the new badge system. We decided to reduce profession skills first.
Each character receives 3 reset tokens, which can be used to reset invested skill points and reassign them. This does not reduce the skill tree level or refund badges

Rework Item System

Damage and armor values (primary stats) of higher-quality items are now always better or even than those of lower-quality items.
Secondary stats (crit chance, crit damage, headshot damage) are now generally higher with better quality — but there is still overlap. It remains possible for higher-quality weapons to have lower values.
Crafting refinement in the Safehouse has been reworked: you now have to decide whether to use refinement. Using it increases costs but guarantees better primary stats!
Due to these item changes, HP and DPS of all enemies have been adjusted.
Armor skill XP gain has changed: you now earn armor XP alongside all other skill XP. Getting hit no longer yields armor skill XP.

Machine Guns rework

Penetration for Machine Guns (previously tied to Mow’em Down) is now baseline: MG shots penetrate up to 3 targets, dealing 50% damage to each penetrated target. Certain active skills can further increase penetration damage.

Rifles rework

Only Mk 14 EBR and SVD are obtainable/craftable for now; additional rifles will return in future updates.
Increased attack speed and standardized magazine size to 20; future rifles will be balanced within this range.
Reduced headshot damage
All rifles include a scope (toggle with Right Mouse Button) and can hide damage indicators on targets so you don’t reveal your position at range.
If hit by a rifle there is no damage direction indicator
Migration: All other rifles in inventories/backpacks/storage are automatically replaced by an Mk 14 EBR or SVD, while preserving original DPS.

Content

Added Thatcher equipment set to Thatcher NPCs
Added Enclave equipment set to Enclave NPCs
Added props, lootables, harvestables and enemies to few more areas in Ashwater
Started replacing nature assets with new custom trees and bushes
Updated shaders and materials of roads, sidewalks, rusted objects and certain vehicles
Reworked Parkside area around Junction to improve playability

Balancing

Minimum DPS with max sanity is increased by 20%
Sanity is reset at -4999 karma instead of 0 karma
Decreased Crit Damage of all shotguns
Drop rate for gear and weapons has been slightly lowered in higher difficulty rings
Drop rate for junk has been slightly increased in higher difficulty rings
Poison was nerfed (after 2s: 10% damage of max hp, after 4s: 7% damage of max hp, after 6s: 4% damage of max hp, after 8s: 3% damage of max hp, after 10s: 2% damage of max hp, after 12s: 1% damage of max hp…)
Vulnerable was buffed: 20% -> 25% damage increase
Increased stamina regeneration by 50%
Reduced stamina costs for jumping to 0
Doubled armor bonus for passive skills Sturdy Armor -> STF Treatment and Flexible Armor -> Reactive Mindset
Reduced stamina costs of Marathon Lungs
Increased chance to loot items with better values

Further Changes

Added new shaders for burnt wood
Added automatic Crash Reporting
Added Bug/Feedback Report which can be opened with F8 in the game
Added Mouse Aim Sensitivity
Added first server side anti cheat measures
Added Graphic Setting to control the amount of dynamic lights being rendered
Fixed bug where machine gun skill “Mow em Down” did not work as expected
Fixed bug where fishable in parkside lake has wrong fishing duration
Fixed bug in pvp system where gameservers were not able to save gamestate in database as expected
Fixed bug in render system that caused lag spikes in the first 30 seconds after entering the world
Fixed bug in skill Vengeful Guardian where status effect stayed active after shield expired
Fixed bug in skill Pitch Puddle where corspes consumed loads from the puddle
Fixed bug in trainings mission tooltip
Fixed bug in weapon keywords tooltip
Fixed bug in loot chance of Purrch for quest “Feeding the Predator”
Fixed bug in resource calculation for safehouse trade missions
Fixed bug where shield bar of in nameplates did not work as expected
Fixed bug where reloading weapons triggered a false positive in server side cheat detection
Fixed bug where regular shots of weapons triggered false positives in server side cheat detection
Fixed bug where certain enemies and equipment pieces might cause black and white render artifacts
Fixed tooltip of Pinpoint Precision
Fixed a bug in Furious Fanning
Fixed Migration issues
Fixed an issue where the Safehouse UI was not rendered correctly
Fixed a memory leak in the client
Fixed bug in skill item audio handling where wrong mixer group was set
Fixed bug in water cooler interactable where SFX range was not set correctly
Fixed bug where depth of field calculations in close rooms messed up
Updated various tooltips of various profession active skills
Updated music volume for Safehouse
Updated visuals for Pitch Puddle and improved placing
Updated label texts in for crafting rooms in shelter
Updated tooltips of various skills for better understanding (i.e. Battlefield Bulwark, Negating Ward and Ricochet)
Updated various localization translations
Hunted Music now shuffles through tracks with pauses during playback
Humanoid Characters and Enemies can now fade out when standing too close to camera
You can switch between DirectX11 and DirectX12 in the game settings (Windows)