Playtest Update: Survival Warnings, Better Gunplay & Smarter Zombies

Another Ashfield Hollow Playtest update is now live, with more improvements based on continued testing and player feedback.

Survival and Daily Activities

Warning icons now appear when Health, Stamina, Energy, Nutrition, Hydration, or Rest becomes dangerously low. Infection warnings appear when infection becomes high, with gentle flashing when a condition reaches a critical level.

Sleeping now restores 25% of each surviving party member’s maximum health.

Partially used Watering Cans can now be fully refilled from natural water, Small Water Barrels, and Large Water Barrels.

Dogs can only be petted once per day. The relationship and happiness benefits are awarded only for the first pet.

Only one generated quest offer will now appear each day, regardless of whether the player accepts or rejects it.

Combat and Gunplay

Zombie lunges now stop at walls, buildings, and other blocked areas.

Gunshots more reliably register visible hits, and bullet impacts remain active long enough for zombie damage to process correctly. Zombies can also recover from rare stuck states caused by bullets or dog attacks.

Equipping a gun displays an aiming guide showing where the shot will travel. It stops at walls and buildings and can be disabled under Graphics & Performance.

Controller aiming with the right stick is now independent of the mouse cursor and screen position. The map cursor is hidden while aiming, and R2 input is more reliably passed to guns, swords, and other hotbar actions.

Additional Steam Deck safeguards prevent held R2 input from being accepted by fishing until the trigger has been released.

Interactions and Prompts

Interacting with nearby objects and characters should now be more reliable, especially for smaller targets or when several events are close together. The nearest valid target is prioritized instead of requiring the player to stand in one exact position.

Nearby dogs and bicycles now display the appropriate Pet, Ride, and Interact prompts for the player’s current input device.

Zombie Movement and Performance

Large groups of zombies now spread their movement calculations across several frames, reuse recent paths, avoid crowding the same space, and try alternative directions when blocked.

Distant zombies update less frequently to improve performance, while nearby combat remains responsive.

Enemies no longer continue pursuing the player after a new day begins. Enemies returning to another map resume their normal behavior without carrying over the previous chase.

Movement Reliability

Additional safeguards prevent the player from becoming permanently stuck after infirmary recovery, interrupted attacks, fishing, tool use, aiming, vehicle transitions, forced movement, or loading a save.

Invalid saved movement and animation states are repaired automatically. The game can also recover when the player has made no movement progress for several seconds without disrupting legitimate cutscenes.

Audio and Interface Improvements

Forest and city music now loops without long silent endings and automatically restarts if playback unexpectedly stops.

Sound effects have also been corrected for:

• Gifts received from Colt

• Learning recipes

• Purchasing animals

• NPCs opening and closing doors

NPC doors now use the same sound sequence and volume as doors used by the player.

The hotbar assignment window has been expanded so control labels fit properly. Craftable recipes now use normal menu styling instead of a bright cyan highlight, and crafting information has been repositioned for cleaner spacing.

Thank you to everyone continuing to test Ashfield Hollow and report issues. Your feedback continues to shape each playtest update.