CBT Patch Notes | 2nd of May, 2025

Strap in, this is going to be a long one with a lot of exciting updates, new features, and fixes across the board. It's a huge testament to the incredible work that the devs have been pouring into this game and dear reader, I'm in AWE. Better yet, these changes will be present within our upcoming Closed Beta on the 10th and 11th of May! Find out more HERE about how to take part in the CBT.

[h2]Match Rules[/h2]

When you pick up the Biocore, you can now wield it as a weapon. While carried, it replaces your pistol. Fueling you with power, its primary attack lets you fire large projectiles which detonate in an area effect. It also has a secondary attack which launches large ‘bubbles’ into the world. They linger in the world for an amount of time or until they collide with something (the environment or a player). When they burst, they deal heavy damage to whoever popped it, and also damage in an area.
A new match intro has been added, with a brand new event voting system.
- At the start of each match, you will see a brief overview of all events that have been activated (well, except events that are so common that they’re pretty much always on somewhere on the map, to avoid cluttering).
- Additionally, you will be presented with three large impact events and you will be able to place a vote for which one of them you want to turn on (as opposed to the game choosing which one should be on, which is how it used to work).
- Each vote is effectively one “ticket in a raffle”. In other words, the events with most votes is not guaranteed to win, but is more likely to win.
- During the vote, you can access your team’s information and change your loadout on a secondary tab.
Cargo trucks close to team bases can now have enemy scanners on them.
The aiming abilities and reaction times of bots across all difficulties have been adjusted.
You can no longer take shields from the Biocore station if its contested.

[h2]Events[/h2]

High value drop pods can now spawn around the wilderness, in unused base locations. When they appear, they will appear fairly around the forest, so all teams have equal distances to one.
Large parts of the forest can now be covered in permanent smoke or spore clouds. These clouds will have additional plants (e.g. toxic smoke bombs or rejuvenation fruits) growing in or around them.
More events can now spawn around the wilderness, and additional locations have been added to the interior of buildings in the wilderness.
You no longer need to pull a lever on the wilderness launch pads to activate them; standing on them will now automatically start them and launch you a couple of seconds later.
The player controlled gorlizard has suffered a bit after we increased player movement speeds, so its melee damage is now 50 (up from 45) and the cooldown for its spit attack is 1.5 seconds (down from 2).
More sound effects have been added to the player controlled gorlizard.
A number of new events have been added that can only turn on if they are voted on (they will never be on automatically without player input):
- Weapon banning - A chosen type of weapon will be banned from the match. They will not appear as loot, in shops (including the custom weapon shop), or be able to be printed from the weapon replicator.
- No Custom Weapons - If this is chosen, players will be unable to buy any custom weapons in the match (or use any weapon replicators).
- Mycopocalypse - See the ‘Creatures’ update below for the new mycotic. If this event is on, most NPCs around the whole map are replaced by mycotics (except burrowers and resource carrying gorlizards). Additionally, during this event, two other mycotic types can appear: the toxic and the large.
- Hardcore Mode - All players start with 0 lives, and there is only one Biocore. In the future, we also plan to remove resurrection stations during this event and disable the extra life gained from the Second Wind perk. As there are fewer Biocores to claim, victory bonuses from this event are instead increased.
The owner of a weapon (and their teammates) now has a 2-second grace period during which other players can’t steal them from the weapon replicator. So if you happen to be at one replicator and an enemy at another one, waiting for your gun, you should be able to take it before they have a chance to steal it.
The ‘loot pods’ from the Power-ful Forest event now have 20 health (down from 50).
The EMP pulse VFX should now more accurately represent its full range.
Boost stations have received new VFX and audio.
Added some VO for if a lightning rod spawns nearby.

[h2]Weapons & Consumables[/h2]

Fire damage now uses the same hit zone damage multipliers against players as regular energy damage. It used to deal less damage to shields than other damage types, but now does more damage to shields (same as energy ammo). In other words, the Flamethrower, pyro plasma rifles, the X3 Incendiary pistol (see below), and the burn from the Fire Hog energy bomber now all do more damage overall.
The burst damage and damage variation (based on where you hit) has been lowered for most weapons. This is primarily driven by lower headshot bonuses (but not for sniper rifles) and lower shotgun damage, but the exact details are as follows:
- Headshot multipliers with physical non-sniper and non-shotgun weapons is now 1.4 (down from 1.75).
- Headshot multipliers with physical shotguns is now 1.25 (down from 1.5).
- Headshot multipliers with energy non-sniper weapons is now 1.2 (down from 1.4).
- Headshot damage from energy sniper rifles is now 1.7 (up from 1.6). For comparison, physical snipers have a multiplier of 2.
- Upper arm multipliers from energy weapons is now 0.72 (down from 0.81), which is the same as lower arms and upper legs.
- Lower leg multipliers from energy weapons is now 0.64 (up from 0.56).
- The overall lowered multipliers for energy damage types also means that explosions and other energy AoE effects (e.g. popped spore traps) now do slightly less damage.
- Shotgun damage has been lowered by 5% across the board.
Small shotgun magazines have been given damage bonuses to make up for the overall reduced shotgun damage (and lower reload flexibility):
- Light - Double now increases damage by 5% but is also a bit more expensive to equip.
- Heavy - Double now increases damage by 6%.
- Heavy - Single now increases damage by 12%.
The Hex-7 Jawbreaker shotgun now uses a Disruptor Amp (instead of a Damage Amp) to compensate for the cost change to its magazine.
Base damage from plasma rifles is now 18 (down from 19). Surge plasmas are unaffected.
All plasma rifles now deal 40% of their base damage at point blank (down from 70% for standard plasmas and 50% for surge plasmas).
- This means that modules that adjust close range damage are now more impactful, so all of them have been updated in some way; either reducing their modifiers and/or adjusting the costs of equipping them.
Plasma rifles now have slightly more recoil and spread.
The X3 Incendiary pistol now does fire damage with its bullets, as opposed to physical damage that just happens to set things on fire.
The base damage of the X3 Incendiary pistol is now 30 (up from 22), has 12 rounds in the magazine (up from 8), and damage fall-off begins at 15m (up from 7.5).
The ‘Dancing Flames’ effect of the Pyro - Fire-Starter plasma rifle ammo now has a 3m radius (up from 2m).
The ‘Heat Wave’ effect of the Pyro - Inferno plasma rifle barrel now has a 3m radius (up from 2) and also has a new VFX to visualise the effect.
Plasma rifle pyro ammo now have bespoke VFX to differentiate them from regular plasma rifles.
The Flame Hurler plasma rifle stock now has some VFX to visualise its flame hurling.
The Unstable Energy plasma rifle ammo now has VFX to show their area of effect.
The ‘Siphon’ effect of the Leecher beam glove module now heals for 35% of damage done (up from 25%).
The Leech I effect from battle rifles and plasma rifles now heals for 17% of damage done (down from 20%). Shotgun Leech I is unaffected.
The Leech II effect from battle rifles and plasma rifles now heals for 25% of damage done (down from 30%). Shotgun Leech II is unaffected.
The Cluster - Shock-Bombs sniper rifle ammo now slows for 2s (down from 3), reduces cluster bomb damage by 30% (up from 9%), and the projectile damage has been slightly increased.
Modules that provide large melee damage bonuses have been made more expensive to equip. The unlock cost has also gone up for the Talon stock for battle rifles, plasma rifles, and sniper rifles, the Talon Fist beam glove module, and the Cutthroat shotgun module.
An update to semi-automatic battle rifle triggers’ damage bonuses that was meant to go into the game a few months ago never made it in, but now it’s here. Along with that, a few other changes have been made to them:
- Semi-Standard now has a damage bonus of 38% (down from 43%).
- Semi-Resetter now has a damage bonus of 28% (down from 33%).
- Semi - Blast Charger now has a damage bonus of 50% (down from 58%).
- Semi-Corruptor now has a damage bonus of 73% (down from 88%).
- The effective range (the point where damage starts dropping off) for the above triggers has been extended by 5m and they have gained an additional 10% bullet velocity.
- The above changes are meant to make them a bit less effective in close quarter combat without harming their longer range capabilities too much.
Sniper rifle bullets now despawn after 700m (up from 500m) and their base bullet velocity is now 750 m/s (up from 700).
The value of changing the base pitch and yaw of battle rifle recoil has swapped around (for modules that make recoil better or worse in various ways). Pitch used to be more expensive, but now yaw is. In other words, modules that reduce the yaw impact of recoil are now more expensive whereas modules that reduce the pitch are a bit cheaper. A lot of battle rifle modules have had minor adjustments to their costs as a result.
Different weapons now equip at slightly different times. They all used to equip in 0.5 seconds (well, a long time ago, they did what is listed below, but then it changed back to 0.5 for unknown reasons…someone did it by mistake), but some weapons are now faster or slower than this:
- Beam gloves, flamethrower, pistol, and shotguns now equip in 0.3 seconds.
- Hyper cannon and hyper rifle now equip in 0.7 seconds.
The Surge - Energy Transfer plasma rifle magazine now specifies how long its speed increase lasts for (2 seconds).
Scaled up a few muzzle flash VFX slightly.
More modules for battle rifles, beam gloves, plasma rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles have received unique appearances.
The pistol now has an ammo counter.
Berzerk Boosts now reduce incoming damage by 35% (down from 50%).
Healing Domes and Shield Repair Domes now restore 10 health or shield (down from 15) every 0.5 seconds. The Healing Dome has 60 health (down from 100) and the Shield Repair Dome has 40 health (down from 60).
Lightning Rods (that can spawn from lightning strikes) now have loot beams to make them easier to notice.

[h2]Movement & Animations[/h2]

You now get slowed down by 25% when you get shot (down from 30%). This is to avoid that this kick pushes a player below the velocity threshold required to start a slide.
‘Heavy landing’ from tall falls has been removed; you can now land from any height without getting slowed down.
The sprint animations for pistols and beam gloves have been updated.
Slowdown effects from perks and firing your weapon no longer stack; only the strongest effect will apply at any given time.
The first time you pick up a weapon of a category in a match, a bespoke pick-up animation now plays. This animation can be instantly interrupted.
The weapon inspect animations from the previous playtest have had an audio pass and further animation polish. The pistol and hyper cannon have been given new inspect animations.
Third person firing animations have been updated.
You now slow down by 20% for 0.7 seconds after performing a melee attack. The slowdown for pistols is only 10% and lasts 0.5 seconds.
The third person movement animations now have a bespoke transition between run and sprint to look less weird when blending.
Vehicle weapons should now have some recoil animations when fired.

[h2]Abilities & Perks[/h2]

The Improvised Artisan perk now drops 10 power from a melee kill (up from 5).
The Long-Ranged Reinforcer perk now triggers from 20m (down from 40m).
The Dome Tinkerer perk now increases the radius Health and Shield Domes by 50% instead of increasing their effects by 25%.
The footprints from the Tracker perk now last 20 seconds (down from 30).
Acidic Tracker now highlights enemies for 2 seconds (down from 5) but increases damage done to them by 5% (up from 3%).
Cheat Death now, once again, only triggers if you are above 20 health.
Endurance Runner is now disabled for 5 seconds after taking damage (down from 10).
The Shield Upgrader perk now upgrades shields every 4 kills/assists (up from 3).
The Shield Surge perk now has a more obvious VFX for when it triggers.
The shader used for the Bunker Dome ability has been updated to more clearly show the ‘windows’ and the mesh is a full sphere instead of a dome, to avoid gaps on slopes.
Resilience now only lets you self-revive for free once per life.

[h2]Creatures[/h2]

A new creature has been added: Mycotics. In this playtest, they are using an out-of-date appearance and will receive a visual update later.
- A mycotic is a human who has been ‘claimed’ by the invasive fungal species of the world surrounding the shades. Some of them are lost convoyers, others unlucky souls whose Earthtrees have fallen. Now, they are slowly progressing through a slow death, with their bodies slowly consumed by the mycelium.
- Mycotics are mostly aggressive, but also quite mindless. Their bodies are relatively resistant to damage (except against explosions, shotguns, fire, and beam gloves), but their head is very vulnerable and their arms can be shot off.
- They have replaced cattermaws and drones around various events in the wilderness.
- During the mycopocalypse event, a toxic and large variant can also appear. The toxic mycotic is surrounded by a toxic cloud that damages nearby players. The large mycotic is just more damage resistant.
A lot of creatures now despawn more quickly after dying, to avoid that they obscure the loot they may have dropped.
Creatures can now pick up dropped Biocores. To get the Biocore back, you have to kill them (which isn’t much to ask for if it’s a cattermaw, but perhaps if it’s a burrower).

[h2]Vehicles[/h2]

The vehicle machine gun turret now uses heavy ammo that deals more damage per shot, fires much faster, has tighter spread, and has a longer effective range. In other words, it is much stronger than it used to be.
Where you end up when you exit a vehicle in motion should now be less…wrong.
If you enter a vehicle from the passenger side when the driver’s seat is empty, you will just go into the driver’s seat (you’re welcome, left-side-of-the-road drivers).
If you swap seats in a vehicle, you will skip passenger seats if there are available weapon- or driver seats to move into. You will only go into the passenger seat if all other slots are occupied.
The armour panels for the turret vehicle and murder wagon have more health.
The murder wagon now has more torque and a faster reverse speed.
The AoE from murder wagon grenades now has a 10m radius (up from 8m) and the magazine size is now 12 (up from 5).

[h2]Environment[/h2]

Consoles for doors and other interactable items around the world have received a facelift.
Large crates have had a visual update pass (replacing the placeholder meshes from the previous playtest).
The map has undergone more lighting changes both for the sake of brightening up some overly dark areas but also to improve performance.
The thermal transfer office has had its layout changed to be less cramped.
Signage across the whole map has been updated. Redundant signs have been removed, more important signs should now be more noticeable and consistent in appearance. Signs leading into areas will also be ‘turned off’ if the area is not available in that match.
The VFX for wind vortices has been updated to make them more visible from a distance.
The ‘cryostasis’ area of the map is now called ‘biostasis’ (to actually be lore accurate).
If a ‘team spawn point’ in the map is not in use, a lot of its associated assets (e.g. lights and barricades) are removed. So if you see barricades in the distance, you will now know for sure there is a base there.
The consumables in forward camps now spawn immediately when the match starts, instead of after a semi-random delay.
A lot of cover items around the main corridor of the vaults have been updated.

[h2]Lobby[/h2]

You can now keep donating Biocores to a vendor you already have Rep 5 with.
Some of the interactable stations around the lobby (e.g. loadout editor) have had their placeholder assets replaced.
The first bounce pad for the Tree Top time trial has been raised a bit to make it easier to land on it while sprinting.

[h2]Customization[/h2]

Increased the contrast in a few patterns.

[h2]UI[/h2]

Critical hit markers have been adjusted following feedback from our previous playtest, to obstruct the target less.
How hitmark positions relate to players at different distances has also been updated so that they don’t overlap with characters far away.
The reload spinner now moves with the crosshair during camera animations (e.g. when reloading or jumping).
Various parts of the UI have been updated to better fit the new style of the new HUD and menus from the previous playtest.
The effect when using shield repairers has been amped up a bit.
Different body types now have different idle animations on various screens.
The hyper cannon now has its own icon (instead of looking like an energy bomber).
The ‘consumable use’ interface should now tell you how to cancel the use.
If you hit a player who is immune to damage (e.g. just after they have respawned), the hitmark will say ‘Immune’ (instead of not getting one at all).
The vignette colour for when you’re affected by spores has been updated to match the colours used in the spore VFX.
A lot of screens in the game have been updated from their placeholder appearances (good bye grey boxes with white default text).
The main menu screen has been updated.
The ‘Fire Rate’ bar for plasma rifles (the metric showing you how fast they fire in the weapon customiser) has a smaller scope to more clearly show differences from modules.
The ‘Melee Damage’ bar for all weapons in the weapon customiser has had its scope reduced as no weapon could get close to the top anyway.
Event icons have been updated.

[h2]Other Updates[/h2]

How the ‘first person graphics’ are rendered has been partially reworked to get rid of some weird “wobbling” artefacts as you get further from the centre of the map.
As a side effect, how weapons are positioned in ADS has also been updated. This is a recent and large update, so there may be some weapon-and-module combination that behave a bit strangely.
A lot more work towards optimising performance and reducing hitches has gone in.
The new lockboxes now have audio.
The loot drill event now has audio.
Climbing ladders is now less loud.
A new sound effect has been added for when you get hit by melee; it should be more noticeable than the previous one (to make it more obvious when you’re getting punched in the back).
Windows will now visibly shatter when broken, as opposed to just popping out of existence.
New VFX have been added for impact at longer distances, where they were previously not rendered at all. So now you see something but it’s less expensive than the close range effects.
Footstep and foley sounds for enemy players should now stand out more.
A new down and kill VFX has been added, but it’s a bit of a placeholder in preparation for a new system.
The ‘change page’ button the custom weapon station should now be bigger.
When you change weapons, the HUD immediately highlights the weapon you will be arriving at even while you are still in the process of unequipping. This part is not new. However, if you pick up a new weapon during the ‘unequip’ part of the change, you will now also swap out the weapon you are moving to (unless it’s the pistol), to avoid confusions where it feels like the wrong weapon has been replaced.
New audio has been added for the launch pads.
You can now swap your selected consumable item while driving.
All healing effects now play the ‘healing shader’ on the recipient.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

Fixed an issue where you couldn’t quickly move between multiple ‘pages’ in the custom weapon shop (for those who have four or more weapon slots).
Fixed an issue with the landing sound from the Rocket Jump ability playing out of sync if you landed weirdly.
Fixed some blending issues with the sniper rifle and shotgun inspect animations.
Removed duplicate and overlapping tooltip messaging from shops.
Impact VFX should now appear when spectating.
Fixed some visual issues with the new loot crates.
The vehicle engine sounds should now play properly based on if you hold forwards in the air or not.
Fixed an issue where energy bomber tracers were “shagged” (to quote the commit) at the start.
Fixed an issue where initial content spawns around team bases could be somewhat unfair.
Loot chests with a single item in them could display the incorrect rarity colour in their glow/paint. (Basically, it was influenced by what the non-existent second item would’ve been.)
The Shield Generator effect on the Shield Charger sniper rifle stock no longer triggers three times for tri-shot ammo.
Custom weapon names should now appear correctly on the HUD again.
Vehicles should no longer respawn on trucks if the previous vehicle was occupied and then left on the truck.
Forward camp lights should no longer disappear if you disconnect and reconnect.
You can now shoot through the wire mesh surrounding enemy scanners on trucks.
Some muzzle flash particles followed the player when moving when they shouldn’t have.
The crosshair when spectating should now be positioned correctly again.
ADS transition animations for the pistol will no longer override recoil animations if you fire during the transition.
Juvenile burrowers should no longer stretch when they die.
Ammo counters on certain weapons should no longer flicker out of existence when viewed from certain angles.
Fixed an issue where you could get stuck in some of the pods at the start of the game (and having to restart to get in).
Your character will no longer call out spore trap events if they have all been destroyed already.
Fixed some issues with lighting going weird if you move between different interfaces.
The Biocore carrier HUD recolour should now also work when spectating.
Walking in water in the cave should now sound like you’re walking in water.
The text on lift consoles should now be visible again to properly display their status.
The shimmering effect on life plants should disappear if the life has been picked up even if you were really far away when it happened.
Fixed various visual issues with the central extraction unit.
Fixed various collision issues and floating asset issues around the map.
Cattermaws should move properly while in combat as opposed to just standing still and staring or shooting at you.
Fixed some issues with bot hit zone multipliers not matching players’.
Jittery collision on the large greentech vines has been fixed.
Loot items can no longer land on NPCs and end up floating in the air.
The keycard symbol on the active vault door should be back.
The drill should no longer be animating if you disconnect while it’s in progress and reconnect when it’s done.
Fixed some issues that could cause relatively quick NPCs (e.g. drones and bots) to move in a stuttery fashion and occasionally be immune to damage during the start of said stutters.
If you change colour to a clothing item, it should once again be represented in that item’s icon.
The kill log should now accurately show what damage was received from the Thundercall: Rapid ability.
Fixed a variety of issues that could result in vehicles rubber banding or the camera stuttering when a passenger got out as you’re driving.
Fixed some map escapes in the lobby.
Player characters will no longer call out the deathbringer when passing through the vaults under it.
The voice line for taking control of extraction uplinks should no longer claim you have faster extractions after only claiming one of them.
Fixed an issue where the weapon signs in the lobby would occasionally disappear.
If you had a respawn point that has since been stolen, it should no longer show up as greyed out on the respawn screen.
Fixed various typos and changed British spellings to American English.
Player voice lines will no longer warn for incoming airstrikes if they are underground (but happen to be under where the airstrike is landing).
Your weapon will no longer be tilted at a weird angle if you ADS while looking sideways during a slide.
Cattermaws should no longer be able to push through closed doors.
The ‘Boulder’ collectible in the lobby should now be accessible again.
Fixed a few events that started their “when should I be active?” timers when the map was done loading instead of when the match had started.
The Upgrade Uplink colours should now update as it changes from friendly to enemy (or vice versa) even if you’re far away.
The needle on the plasma rifle ammo counter should no longer float in the air during reloads.
Fixed various issues with the Thunderdome UI lingering when you went back to the “normal” lobby.
You will no longer be interrupted if you are in process of claiming an extraction uplink and a teammate also tries to pull the lever.
Small med kits should no longer appear as large med kits while applying them.
The rejuvenation fruit should now also show a progress bar as it’s being applied.
Fixed an issue where it looked like bullets collided with certain player blocking volumes (even though they didn’t).
You should no longer sometimes wield a weapon when you get downed or not wield one when you get up from being revived.
The window in the home base should no longer be one-way blocking (you could previously shoot through it from the inside but not from the outside).
You can no longer contest the canteen Biocore by pushing up against the doors.
Hitmarkers from the past should no longer show up when you first attack someone after respawning if you had hitmarks on screen when you died.
You should now be able to claim the forward camp shield even after changing forward camps.
Overlaps when spawning into the lobby should now be less common.
Fixed an issue where you sometimes spawned into a crate when leaving a duel.
The custom weapon slots in the map should no longer show as ‘Purchased’ if the same slot on a different page had been unlocked.
Doors should no longer appear as sealed but open if they were destroyed while you were disconnected and you loaded into the map really far away from said door.
The surveillance drones should now be in the right position if you disconnect and reconnect while they are in motion.
You will no longer appear as still being on fire if you died to fire in a duel.
Nameplates should now be visible in the lobby after you die in a duel.
You can now respawn on a teammate who is carrying a Biocore.
The ability cooldown should now appear correctly when spectating another player.
Fixed an issue where you sometimes had invisible arms when picking up a Biocore.