September Update - Rats in the Walls - Blog #31

SCAVS! This update to The Forever Winter has a metric ton of improvements, bug fixes, and adjustments. It is focused on some much needed quality of life improvements as well as addressing a ton of pacing issues. We won’t bury the lead: the economy has received a major overhaul from every measurable aspect. The value of items, the location of items (both in terms of which level and what kinds of containers), the frequency of drop-rates, what vendors sell, WHERE vendors are, etc. All of it measured at least twice and adjusted to focus on the core: looting and survival. We also have added the ability to allow Scavs to build a garage with an apc that will convert fast travel costs to cash instead of water and transport drones. Bunco as a quest giver can get Scav’s started. Here is a high level list of the update’s contents: Overhaul of Economy (which will continue to be iterated on in the future) Iteration on item drop-rates (which will continue to be iterated on as well) Alternate credit-based fast travel costs to earn via an Innards customization: the garage (much cheaper and no drones required) Addition of in-world vendors Numerous bug fixes and improvements to quests, AI, and Encounter / loot spawning Improvements to Hunter Killer (HK) spawn criteria and messaging And much more! The team really appreciates the support you all have given us, and we can't wait to continue making the world of The Forever Winter better and better. When you play, make sure to read the hints in the PSA from Bunco for what's to come, and we can't wait to share the next push. -Fundog Out!

Happy holidays! It's the end of a long year, and we hope everyone is doing exactly what they want to be doing as we await the coming of 2026! Our latest update adds the Transmission Tower, which allows you to communicate with all sorts of denizens of the wastes, IF you can build the tower and acquire the correct frequencies. This update comes with several frequencies to find and tune into, and we intend to keep adding more as we go. This allows us to meet characters in the tunnels and if you're lucky they will join you in the innards! We’ll add more quests through here as we go, but for today we hope you dig getting to talk with some of the poor bastards on the frontlines, and maybe get a little help for a red robotic friend. He sorely needs it. We have also continued the major quest line to help Lordoss in your innards. It will require both the Bar and the Transmission Tower, so be ready to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. He will walk again. On top of all that, we also have an assortment of fixes and QOL improvements for all Scavs. We adjusted some fast travel costs to make them more affordable, and we will be adding a new fast travel option soon! Can't wait to share more on that soon. Last but not even close to least, thank you again for jumping on discord and voting for your favorite characters to get skins next! I’m really glad you guys dig Shaman, Gunhead, and ofc Scav girl! It was rad to see how close the vote was for 2nd place, and originally we were going to go heavy with 2 skins for the favorite and 1 for 2nd place, but it was so close we went with the top 3. We’ll hold these votes again for sure so if you have a favorite character that’s the place to let us know! Stay warm, stay sane, and stay safe! It's cold out there, and we hope everyone is staying warm! The team really appreciates the support you guys have given us this past year, and we can't wait to share something special early in the next! -Fundog Out

Happy Day after Pie day guys! Hopefully everyone stateside had some turkey and got to spend some time with the fam. And folks in other countries, we hope you guys had a good day too! Our latest update adds the bar which is a nice way to get to know the citizens on both sides of the frontlines. Eurasia is absent because their faction can track them so they'd be listed as awol and blown up to be re-processed. But don't worry there will be another way in the future to catch up with them. Lost Angels also received a Nightshift, with tons of Eurasia kill teams roaming the dead tributaries of the city. Be careful, Toothy and Mother Courage Units have been spotted in the AO, so listen closely for the screams. We also added a new weapon blueprint and it has some pro's and con's and we can't wait to see what strategies you guys come up with. It's a "Front-Liner" weapon, so that means the latest and greatest from Europa, and it's built to slow-down heavy infantry. Ammo must be crafted so use it wisely. Stay safe out there scavs! Don't die for nothing! -Fundog Out

Greetings Scavs! Happy Anniversary! We all can’t believe it's been a year already. To celebrate, we have a massive update for you. First off, to thank everyone for scavenging the world for a year we are giving everyone a free skin for Mask Man called “Red Dog”! Once you enter the Innards from the main menu, you will be granted this skin. But lets not forget the giant changes this update also brings: The Innards is now connected to the regions via a Tunnel system, allowing Scavs to travel the maze-like underground to their locations or (once they have visited a location at least once) fast-travel directly there. Scav’s Innards have two new Extensions to manufacture and upgrade: the shooting range and the personal quarters! This is just the beginning for Innards Extensions. We plan to add more as development continues, so stay tuned! Small disclaimer, that Blind MC unit is still in development and will be joining us shortly, there are also a few weapons that are still in test that you might see in here. They will be in the game soon! Stay frosty out there guys! -Fundog out

Greetings Scavs! We are proud to deploy another update. The main focus of this update are a new stamina system, consumable-use animations, and night mode for Babel! In addition, a new skin-pack is now available for those who want Old Man, Gunhead, and Mask Man to rock the newest and hottest aesthetics. Those major improvements are also closely followed by a slew of bug fixes and adjustments across the board! Stamina! All characters except for Gunhead now consume stamina for strenuous activities including (but not limited to) sprinting, jumping, climbing / mantling / vaulting, dodging, etc. Characters have different interactions with stamina. For example, Scav Girl can sprint for longer but is much more impacted by heavy loads: try to carry too much weight and she will exhaust herself quickly. By contract, Bag Man can’t sustain a sprint for as long but is much less impacted by heavy loads. There are Adrenaline Stims available to purchase in the Innards and / or find by looting in regions. Each of these will restore your stamina and prevent its use for a time, giving you that burst of needed stamina when you want it most. Existing Scavs will receive a handful of free Adrenaline Stims when they launch the game after the update. To top it all off, there is new rig equipment to manufacture. Having this equipment in your rig will reduce both stamina costs and the delay before stamina recharges after stamina use. Strategic Healing via. Consumables + Animations All health-based consumables will now result in animations. The Scav you select will now inject, eat, drink, smoke, or use the syringe, food, liquid, etc. that you use. This means that timing the use of these consumables is more important to think about. While you will be able to move while using them, you can no longer use them in rapid succession or perform specific activities while using them (it's pretty difficult to aim a rifle and eat ENuggets at the same time). Babel’s Night Mode Babel now has a night mode! Combine the heights of this ruined region with the gloom and uncertainty of night mode for a true cliffhanger experience and a twist to the elevated nightmare.. New Skins "The Forever Winter Fleshwraps Skin Pack" The Forever Winter Fleshwraps Skin Pack includes: T he Teddystuffa for Gunhead - “Making him cute doesn’t make him any less deadly.” The Filtermund Skin for Maskman - “No matter how much I try, I can’t ever seem to avoid the SMELL of the surface…” The Smoghide Skin for Old Man - “The chill just cuts right through me.” New skins will be applied the first time you use the character after acquiring them. After that, skins are selected at random after every death or can be manually selected in your Innards. If you want the true FW experience, treat that scav as dead and let the revolver decide. Please see the below list of improvements, bug fixes, and newly added features. ADDITIONAL FEATURES PLAYER SYSTEMS, WEAPONRY, & EQUIPMENT Player weaponry now reacts more violently / climbs during sustained fire, requiring the player to counter-act the climb Adjusted the Radial impulse / force from explosions (grenades, missiles, etc.) Pneumatic jump received animation improvements for Scav legs Player weaponry SFX have been improved for distinguishing between single-shot, burst-shot, and sustained fire Mantle and vault animation speeds have been adjusted (and are still influenced by button mashing) AI Infantry now move in a more realistic way when investigating a potential threat pre-combat Medium mechs will now sometimes sync kill eachother The stilt walker now has leg IK Soldier enemies now have fall states SFX for the Orga have been improved The Kotleta melee punches have improved SFX SFX hooks for HK spawning have been improved Medium mechs can now be killed with LARGE amounts of firepower (aka sustained attacks from other medium mechs, tanks, or a LOT of player aggression) REGIONS Downtown received a lighting pass and additional scaffolding art Updated the HLODs for numerous regions INNARDS Players can now buy-all and sell-all of a specific item in vendor interfaces Players can now buy or sell multiple items at once in vendor interfaces ADDITIONAL IMPROVEMENTS / BUG FIXES PLAYER SYSTEMS, WEAPONRY, & EQUIPMENT Pump action shotguns have had their SFX adjusted for reload to match the animation speeds Fix for tombstones sometimes spawning at the world origin instead of at a reachable spot Projectiles no longer block loot attempts Shaman animations fixed to no longer cause unintended twisting for pistol movements Fixed issue where the HUD sometimes shows a negative value for weight AI AI taking shots at undetected players should now be fixed Fixed issue where a patrol order might be issued before an AI was completely initialized, causing them to just stand there vs. move. Fix for enemy AI that spawn far away from any player occasionally falling thru the terrain Mech weaponry will no longer collide with other mechs Cyborgs now play the correct hit VFX when damaged Fixed potential crash when an AI tries to perform a melee attack Fixed issue where brawlers would attempt to melee attack if not in range Fixed issue where melee attacks could happen if their target was on the other side of a thin wall Addressed issues with larger mech patrol paths Opal terrain navigation improvements Drones no longer spam their SFX calls in specific situations Exo death and hit reacts now play correctly Cyborgs will hit react more often when under focus fire from player(s) Soldier dropped loot containers should be spread out more / not on top of each other as often, making choosing which container to loot a bit easier REGIONS Elephant Mausoleum’s navigation mesh has been rebuilt to mitigate / eliminate Medium Mechs getting stuck in the trenches Various invisible collision / incorrect collision has been fixed in Frozen Swamp, Scorched Enclave, the Innards, and Elephant Mausoleum Fixed several areas in Downtown where players could get out of the environment Scrapyard Nexus VFX fixes for ambient sparks Quest volumes for Theater of War / Radar quests improved in multiple levels INNARDS Fixes for recruits and rigs in vendor menus occasionally not initializing properly when entering the menus Fixed clients seeing join / dismiss text that should only be displayed for the host Quests now properly validate when re-entering the Innards

Good to see you all again, Scavs! The team is excited to give you another update influenced by your requests! The community voted to reinforce the Europan Faction and we heard you loud and clear. Introducing the first implementation of the StiltWalker! This terrifying multi-legged beast is armed to the hilt and will be a terrifying foe for Eurasia, Euruska, and (if provoked) will be none too kind to the Scavs either. We are excited to introduce this boss and will continue to iterate on it with even more features as updates continue! We also added a new region to search for loot: Lost Angels. The first pass of this region is a journey through ruined urban nightmares where threats can appear around any corner. On top of all of that there are more performance improvements and feature improvements to make the Scav experience both smoother and more responsive to control. We are and continue to be incredibly grateful to be here and for your continued support. If you dig what we’re making please leave us a like and if you're feeling extra helpful maybe even a sub. That helps the algorithm gods show more of these apocalyptic nightmares to the world!

Summer update just dropped—Infantry AI and Performance both got serious upgrades. We’re not done yet, but it’s a solid step toward the chaos you’ve been asking for. Also, FW is $20 for a limited time as part of Steam’s Summer Sale—a good chance to bring a friend into the fight. Tom ripped the guts of the game up and we should have improved performance as well! We understand everyone's rig is different, and some hardware plays better than others. But whatever! We will continue to do what we can so folks aren't left behind. Lastly, Europa will have to wait a bit longer for reinforcements, they have a new unit in the works that might be our biggest yet, and we want to bake it up so it does what it was designed to do properly. Don't worry we have not forgotten. We will update the demo shortly as well, so everyone can test their hardware and see if the game is right for them. And if it is, join us in the discord, our community is fucking rad. Lastly, all things considered we are incredibly grateful to be here and bring the rain. If you dig what we’re making please leave us a like and if you're feeling extra helpful maybe even a sub. That helps the algorithm gods show more of these apocalyptic nightmares to the world! Jason Willey’s latest track featured in this trailer "The Five Suns".

Greetings Scavs. This update focuses on the grand scope and the minute-to-minute: the dynamics of the war at large are brought to focus while additional tools to eek out survival are made available. Theater of War (Beta / 1.0) This update allows Scavs to pull back the curtain and earn the right to see the current status of the war in each region. Regions now have three radar walkers each. These radar walkers can be decrypted by the Scavs to reveal the current faction control percentages for that region. Decryption needs to be done in sequential order, and the order changes every time Scavs enter the region. Once completed, the status of the war will be available on the Region Map for a set amount of time (which resets on daily intervals), allowing Scavs to see who is winning and who isn’t. Take care when approaching a radar walker, if a Scav is underneath it when it decides to crouch they may be crushed! There are also specific actions that can be taken in many of the regions that can tip the balance of the war in a specific faction’s favor. Actions in one region can impact that region AND neighboring regions depending on what is done. These actions are difficult to pull off and will certainly be noticed if accomplished, so beware and be prepared if you choose to engage. Decrypted radars will reveal what actions have occurred and their impact. Thrown Grenades Scavs can now add thrown grenades to their arsenal. For this update there are three grenade types available: Frag grenades do a concentrated amount of damage at their point of explosion but have a dramatic damage falloff at a distance. Custer grenades do less damage but over a wider area Signal Scrambler grenades (otherwise known as “Faction Grenades”) have a special purpose: Once they detonate they block ALL transmissions in the level, allowing Scavs to attempt to loot or dispatch foes without their actions being reported (and thus preventing any impact to their faction rating). Beware and be quick: any agro’d foes that are still alive once the scrambler ceases to function will be able to report what it saw, thus nullifying any benefit. Each Scav will receive a limited amount of each grenade type in their stash when they go into the Innards for this update. After those are used, grenades must be found on corpses and / or manufactured in the Innards. By default, “G” on the keyboard throws the currently selected grenade and “H” swaps grenade types. Weapon Repair Broken / disabled weaponry collected in the field can now be repaired if a Scav has properly upgraded their Innards. Each repair requires broken weaponry and a specific faction / level of an IFF card. IFF cards can be collected from the corpses of fallen combatants and are available for Eurasian, Europan, and Euruskan factions. Level 1 IFF cards are fairly common and can be used to repair common weaponry Level 2 IFF cards are more rare and are used for mid-level weaponry repair Level 3 IFF cards are EXTREMELY rare and are used for high-end weaponry repair Improved Character Control This update adds two key control enhancements to Scavs Scavs can now shoulder swap the camera to be over either shoulder. Scavs can now also do a quick 180 turn By default, “X” on the keyboard performs the shoulder swap (or use one of the side buttons on the gaming mouse if one is in use). By default, S (back) + Shift performs the 180 turn (if not already running). Update Summary Please see the below list of improvements, bug fixes, and newly added features. FEATURES Theatre of War 1.0 (beta) + Region Modifiers (c4-reaction) Radar Walkers + Radar decrypting minigame Boss Camera (beta) for large enemy entrances New Enemy Types: Euruska Field Commander and Opal Global Reinforcement Systems Grenades- fragmentation / signal scramblers / cluster Weapon Repair Station & IFF repair tags Mini Rig - stealth at the cost of carry capacity Mech Trench- Horror Lighting / Scenario Shoulder Swap Camera Functionality Quick 180 turn Functionality IMPROVEMENTS Shaman: Tactical Scanner Expertise / Longer Scan Range Ai Buddy 2.0 hand signals added (beta) Map polish for Ashen Mesa & Mech Trench (additional vignettes) Updated reload animations for Gunhead and Shaman Updated sync kills / Animations for the Brawler dy content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.