Version 1.0 is Here! (Modding | Fixes | Water Treatment POI ++)

December 5th, 2025

Well today marks a massive milestone for us. We’re releasing our 1.0 build and leaving of early access. It has been a long road and we’ve loved every minute of it. All the feed back, all the work has finally resulted in a real solid foundation for the future. 1.0 marks not only our release to what we hope is a much larger audience but the start of something special, a mod ready zombie sandbox experience, the kind we’ve all been waiting for.

First things first - this isn’t the end of development. Not even close. It’s more of a turning point. Up to now, our focus has been on delivering the core concepts and all the crazy ideas that you - and we - dreamed up over the years.

From 1.0 onward our focus shifts slightly:

• Maintenance and fixes to keep the core game tight.

• New content, heavily driven by community feedback.

• Modding support, tools, and access (more on this below)

Modding

We’ve added a full modding suite with the ability to swap basically any asset in the game, inject code, and even add your own content. For years we’ve held back until the foundation of the game was where it needed to be - so that the creative vision stayed intact.

Now that foundation is here. It’s time to let you all break things in creative new ways. Below are couple of examples of the Mods you can find on the workshop right now.

MODSDK DOCUMENT

Steam post image Integrated mod workshop

Insta-cook mod

Horn honk opens gate mod

Fixes

The feedback over the last couple of builds has been fantastic. We’ve been ticking off tickets and making really good fixes when i comes to polish. Below are just a few of those highlighted fixes.

Vehicle Updates — Smoother, Less Janky, Wiggle Flips!!

Vehicles just got a major polish pass aimed at making them feel smoother, more reliable, and way less prone to awkward “I can’t believe you’ve done this” situations. We’ve simplified the main body colliders and switched them to a frictionless setup, which helps prevent cars from snagging on small obstacles or digging themselves into the terrain. A new stability system kicks in whenever a wheel leaves the ground, giving all wheels extra drive power and letting players wiggle the vehicle free by steering left and right. If you manage to flip your ride completely, you can now recover it easily by using the wiggle system to roll yourself back over. We’ve also tightened up acceleration logic to reduce glitchy behavior by blocking acceleration briefly when driving directly into an obstacle, and fixed an issue where vehicles wouldn’t move forward after reversing down certain slopes. Along with physics tweaks and cleanup work, these changes should make driving feel far more dependable and a lot less frustrating as you explore the island.

Here’s what’s new:

• Simplified body colliders Cars now use cleaner, frictionless colliders that prevent snagging and reduce those “why am I glued to this tiny pebble?” moments.

• Better stability & fewer glitches If you try accelerating into something you can’t move through, acceleration is blocked for a second to stop the classic jitter-launch.

• New “wiggle” system If a wheel leaves the ground, turning left/right (A/D) engages a recovery mode that drives all wheels and helps you wiggle free. Great for ruts, rocks, and tilted terrain.

• Upside-down recovery

  • Steer left/right to flip the car using the wiggle system

• Improved slope handling Fixed an issue where cars wouldn’t move forward after reversing down certain slopes unless you turned the wheel first.

• General cleanup Physics improvements, collider cleanups, error fixes, and other under-the-hood tweaks to keep rides feeling smooth.

Wiggle Free!

New Play Types

1.0 introduces fully fleshed-out play types designed to let survivors tailor the game to how they want to experience the island. Whether you prefer a forgiving, progression-focused run or a hardcore “every mistake matters” challenge, the new Arcade and Realism modes give death, loot, and progression their own identity.

Alongside the new systems, we’ve added UI that clearly displays your current play type and world info both in-game and on the death screen, so players always know exactly what rules they’re living—or dying—under. These changes come with several fixes to world loading, attribute syncing, and XP behavior to make sure progression feels consistent and fair.

Steam post image Play type selection

Arcade Mode

• Loot respawns

• Attributes are kept on death

• Sleeping bag respawns allowed

• Player level and attributes kept

Realism Mode

• Loot does not respawn

• Attributes are lost on death

• Sleeping bag respawns disabled

• Player level and attributes lost

New UI Improvements

• Play type + world details now visible in the pause menu

• Stats panel hides while actively in-game (cleaner HUD)

• Full play type info is also shown on the death screen

• Play type selector only closes with Escape if it’s currently open

Other Fixes & Improvements

• Fixed incorrect client health on zombies (causing XP + stat issues)

• Health can now increase properly even if a horde is still active

• Correct world data is loaded on startup to prevent reset stats

• Removed sleeping bag & loot respawn settings from configs where needed

• Additional tweaks to the play type selector and syncing logic

Water Treatment Plant POI

We’re introducing a new POI in 1.0, the water treatment plant. The plant is on the south side of the island and it features a functioning dam. Like the power station, the plant is operational. If you want clean drinking water from your taps, someone is going to have to get it going!

Steam post image Dam entrance

Dam functioning water level changes

Zombie AI Overhaul (Enhanced Detection, Communication, and Horde Behavior)

With this update, we’ve made major improvements to zombie perception, alerting, and group behavior. These changes make the world more reactive and create more realistic escalation when players make noise or are detected. Below is a detailed overview of the new systems and their intended impact on gameplay.

Expanded Noise System

Zombies now react to a wider and more accurate range of player-generated sounds. Actions that previously had no AI impact will now carry consequences:

• Reloading

• Melee weapon swings

• Jumping

• Heavy landings / fall damage

Each of these actions produces noise based on severity, allowing nearby zombies to investigate or move toward the source. This brings additional weight to movement and combat choices and makes situational awareness more important, especially indoors or in high-risk areas.

Improved Zombie Communication and Informing Behavior

When a zombie spots a player, it now alerts nearby zombies in a more intelligent and believable way.

Instead of a single alert point, the system now evaluates three positional references:

1. The hunting zombie’s location

2. The player’s current location

3. A midpoint between them

This provides more nuanced responses:

• Zombies close to the event receive accurate information about the player's position.

• More distant zombies move toward a general area to investigate rather than immediately sprinting at the player.

This results in more natural group behavior and a more believable spread of awareness across nearby infected.

Dynamic Horde Escalation During Chases

Zombies actively pursuing a player will now periodically inform other zombies around them. This happens every 3–8 seconds at a reduced radius and allows chases to escalate gradually if the player cannot break line-of-sight or reduce noise.

This system creates more consistent threat buildup and makes prolonged encounters riskier over time.

Noise Sensitivity Adjusted by Player Behavior and Time of Day

Alert radius now scales dynamically based on:

• Player noise level (sneaking, walking, running, gunshots, etc.)

• Time of day (zombies are more responsive at night)

This ensures that noise discipline and stealth matter more in low-visibility environments and encourages more thoughtful nighttime movement.

AI System Refinements and Stability Improvements

The underlying reaction system—[c]AiReactOverlapSphereServer[/c]—has been refactored to improve stability, performance, and consistency. Key changes include:

• Ensuring zombies only process each noise event once

• Ignoring zombies that are already chasing, dead, or otherwise invalid

• Reducing unnecessary calculations to support larger engagements

These optimizations help maintain performance in high-density situations and reduce erratic AI behavior.

Zombies are more alert

Vaulting

Something many of you have requested is vaulting, traversing windows in the past has been a challenge. 1.0 introduces a vaulting system that provides a far more fluid experience. Simply jump near a window and you’ll quickly make your way through. The system blocks vaults should the window be fortified of course.

Window vaulting FTW!

Thank You

From everyone on the team: Thank you for surviving Early Access with us! We can’t wait to see what you create, break, build, and reimagine with version 1.0. Welcome to the next era of Survive the Nights!

Patch Notes - Version 1.0 (End of Early Access)

• End of Early Access milestone release.

• Added new player vaulting system with dynamic vaulting/jumping SFX.

• Massive Zombie AI overhaul with noise-based alerts, shared awareness, and group behaviour improvements.

• Added full modding support, including asset and script modification via Harmony, with complete SDK examples.

• Introduced new Play Type Modes: Hardcore and Arcade.

• Major vehicle improvements including simplified colliders, glitch-prevention acceleration logic, logout safety behaviour, and a new wiggle flip recovery system.

• Significant enhancements to barricade and gate placement, snapping, rotation, and visualisation.

• Large set of tutorial, UI, and inventory improvements.

• Major localisation overhaul across all languages with improved override accessibility.

• Improved performance with incremental garbage collection and zombie system optimisations.

• Numerous world fixes including floating rocks, trees, environment corrections, ladders, and harvests.

New Features

• Added player vaulting system, allowing players to climb and traverse low obstacles more fluidly.

• Added dynamic jumping and vaulting SFX.

• Added new Play Type Mode system defining gameplay style differences:

  • Hardcore – permanent death, no character progression retained between deaths.

  • Arcade – progression and unlocks are retained after death.

Zombie AI Improvements

• Zombies now alert nearby zombies when they spot a player.

• Close zombies learn the exact player location; distant zombies begin searching the area.

• Zombies actively chasing a player will periodically alert others, creating dynamic horde escalation.

• Alert range and intensity scale based on player noise levels: sneaking, walking, running, gunshots, etc.

• Melee swings, reloads, jumping, and heavy landings now generate noise that can alert zombies.

Movement & Traversal

• Added player vaulting system.

• Added dynamic jumping and vaulting sound effects.

• Ladders at the power plant now function correctly.

Modding

• Added full modding support, enabling modification of all game assets and scripts through Harmony integration.

• Included comprehensive SDK examples to help creators get started.

Localisation

• Overhauled localisation for all languages.

• Optimised localisation handling in the override system.

• Improved localisation override system to be more user-accessible.

Performance

• Implemented incremental garbage collection improvements to reduce lag.

• Added performance optimisations for zombie systems.

• Fixed lag spike caused by the world preview screenshot system.

Tutorial Improvements

• General tutorial flow improvements.

• Blocked certain interactions during the tutorial to guide player progression.

• Waypoints now trigger more quickly.

• The breaker activation step is now less dark to improve visibility.

• Fixed double horde banner appearing during tutorial.

• Attributes in the tutorial are no longer incorrectly maxed out.

• Death effect now works correctly in the tutorial.

• Improved death screen at the end of the tutorial.

Zombies & AI (General)

• Fixed issue causing zombies to appear in incorrect locations.

• Added general performance improvements for zombie handling.

• Improved zombie and passive AI hit detection.

• Fixed ragdoll behaviour on death for certain character models.

Vehicles

• Simplified vehicle body colliders for world collision (detailed mesh still used for player collision and weapon ray casts).

• Improved stability by blocking acceleration for one second when attempting to accelerate into an obstructed direction.

• Added Wiggle System: steering left/right allows players to flip an upside-down vehicle back onto its wheels.

• Players are now safely removed from vehicles on logout.

Barricades & Gates

• Fixed issue preventing wood and metal gates from snapping to other barricades.

• Limited gate rotation to 90 degrees for cleaner alignment.

• Added gate door path visualisation during placement mode.

• Improved handling of barricade placement on tricky or sloped surfaces.

World & Environment

• Fixed floating rocks, trees, and other design issues across the world.

• Removed grass inside a house on Terrain 40.

• Lowered floating crate in Union Point.

• Fixed bench clipping into shipping containers at car lots.

• Fixed floating design issues in strip malls.

• Fixed harvests not working in the large apartment building in Union Point.

• Ladders at the power plant now work correctly.

Map & Navigation

• Improved zooming behaviour on the map.

• Prevented zooming out past the minimum zoom level.

• Added map panning limits to prevent dragging the map fully off-screen.

• Fixed issue where the map wouldn’t work on first server join.

Inventory Improvements

• Search fields are slightly larger.

• Search fields no longer clear when clicked while containing text.

• Search caret changed to black for better visibility.

• Inventory windows can no longer be dragged off-screen.

• Pressing Escape clears the search field and closes the inventory.

• Added sound effects for pick up, enter placement mode, place, and drop actions.

Audio Improvements

• Improved melee door-hit sound and animation.

• Added dynamic vault/jump SFX.

• New denial SFX for when an action cannot be performed.

• Music fixes:

  • No longer plays incorrect track during transitions.

  • Now reliably starts after loading screens.

  • Tracks always start from the beginning.

  • Music and ambience fade to 30% volume when paused.

  • Playback is now reliable across respawns and disconnects.

Gameplay Fixes

• Fixed bug allowing vehicles to move with no wheels.

• Fixed scenario where players could spawn mid-air.

• Cleaning weapons while driving is no longer possible.

• Removed incorrect “stew” option from water canteens.

• Stopped invalid wood removal from fires.

• Consumables now reset rotation when entering placement mode.

• Electric garage doors now require both circuit and meter to be active.

• Burn time is no longer lost when disabling a fire with 0 wood left.

• Fires no longer consume new wood if burn time remains.

• Tweaked melee damage ranges for realism.

• Roaming hordes no longer show notifications.

• Fixed trap visibility issues.

• Interact hand animation now plays correctly on fires/traps.

• Machine parts now persist across server restarts.

• Toilets now show “Hold E” for consistency.

• Right-click dropdown UI hides after selecting non-repeatable actions.

• Crosshair now works correctly after respawning.

• “Few parts” option on first startup for machines now works correctly.

UI & Interaction

• Fixed invite button in the player list.

• Improved sneaking mechanic — attribute points now have a more noticeable impact.

• Fixed incorrect “no power” notification when activating electricity meters.

• Battery level is now displayed in the hotbar.

Locks & Doors

• Locks now animate correctly along with garage doors.

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