About mid-way through my little four-day vacation, indie developer Endnight Games decided to go and make their open-world survival horror game The Forest even better. The latest patch is nice and meaty, too. This is despite being the fifth major update in what’s been an impressively steady trickle of new content and bug fixes since it first released on Steam Early Access at the end of May. That’s just about two patches a day. Nice work, developers.

As for what this update brings, below you can find the full list. I’d also love to know if you’re still playing this game, or if you’re waiting for them to spend a few months improving it before you decide to either return or jump in for the first time.

Version 0.06 Changelog:

A.I. – New tribe type added – starving cannibal! Will eat fallen comrades
A.I. – Different tribes will now interact with each other, hunting, stalking, killing and eating each other
Shadows Improved! Fisheye shadow distortion gives higher resolution shadow up close and now uses a single cascade (experimental, maybe cause some glitches)
2 New cave systems added near geese lake
Fixed missing light on crafted torch
Real caustics added to water
Lighting effigies uses the lighter correctly now
Fixed issue where cannibals could get stuck after being knocked down
Creepy mutants and animals no longer get stuck in noose trap spinning forever
Improved look of noose trap when sprung but empty
All traps can be reset
Player will set off traps if he touches trigger
5x new plant types added
Fixed (Unity fix) issue where grass would cause slight framerate hicks
Hint to NVIDIA driver that it should use the discrete GPU in Optimus chipsets. (Unity fix – should help laptop performance)
Added press space to skip tutorial to opening plane crash
Fixed bug where arrows could get stuck in sky above fires
Fixed rockpit floating slightly above terrain
Moving forward, crouching, jumping or pressing e will make player stand up if sitting on bench
Better bench model
Fresnel effect applied to specular and fixed specular leak around backside of objects
New props added: washed up packages and shipping containers
New prop added : Orange tent
New improved opening plane crash sound effects
Fixed marigold and dead rabbits overlapping in inventory
Improved plane interior textures and resolution
Added icon to remove ghost structures, fixed issue where add icon could sometimes stay on screen after removing ghost. Limited ghost removal to only if no resources have been added. New crunch sound effect for when removing ghost structures
Wall built can now be destroyed by hitting it with axe, giving you back resources
Musical sting added to player waking up on plane
Improved terrain spec and (finally) fixed water accumulation when raining, added new sharp rock terrain texture to under lakes
Improved pond water distance settings
Crafting: Fixed issue where you could remove feathers before crafting arrows and still craft the arrows. Fixed issue where you could sometimes not craft items depending on order of items placed. Adding an item to a craft that isn’t needed will stop you from crafting until it’s removed again. Fixed bug where you could lose medicine by crafting the same item multiple times
Lots of collision issues fixed in caves
Improved cave lighting! Better looking settings for skull lights and less light popping on/off
Sped up rabbits
Lowered brightness of click to place buttons in survival book
You can now save your game at a shelter without sleeping
Fixed bug where coins could vanish after adding them to a craftable item
Fixed bug where day counter wouldn’t increase correctly
Fixed bug where crickets would continue to play during the day
Fixed issue where cave sounds would sometimes vanish when walking between connecting caves
More combat balance and a tweak on weapon settings
Performance and memory improvements

Note: Some reported bugs may be due to old save games! To ensure your game is fully up to date start a new save game every couple versions.