Super Animal Royale News

First of all, we just wanted to say thank you so much to all of you for your feedback and excitement around the big update and upcoming PTR! We can’t wait to test it all with you, and we’ll be announcing details on how to join the PTR next week.

As thanks for participating in The Great Gun Buyback, everyone who has at least one basic colored gun in their inventory when the script begins running tomorrow will be rewarded with the Hellfire SMG and Frozen AK. You’ll receive the guns when the full update arrives at the end of October, and you’ll also be able to preview them on the PTR.

If you missed the developer blog last week about all of the major changes coming to the game you can read the full post here, but I’ll also quickly recap the details about the Great Gun Buyback here so everyone has it in one place for reference!


Thanks to your feedback in August, we’ve decided to go ahead with moving 91 colored gun skins from random drops to milestones! We felt that the gun skin colors representing mastery with each weapon would be more fun than just just having them as random drops, and more than 80% of you agreed, so this weekend we’re implementing it.

Here’s what you can expect to see in-game:

• We’ll be starting to run a script tomorrow night pacific time (Friday PDT) to convert everyone’s basic colored gun skins into alternative random items of the same rarity tier. For example, if you have 4 rare colored gun skins, those will be removed and replaced with 4 rare random cosmetic items.
  
• You’ll know that the script completed running on your account when you boot up the game and see all your new replacement items pop up!
  
• Basic colored gun skins will also stop dropping randomly, and will no longer be able to be traded up.
  
• There will be a brief period of time in October where basic colored gun skins won’t be available in the live version of the game, since the new milestones are arriving in our Major Update at the end of October. However, you’ll be able to get started on earning those milestones in the PTR, and that progress will transfer to the live game when the update arrives.
  
• None of your special gun skins are affected by the buyback (for example, the Lucky Hunting Rifle that you might have earned during the St. Pawtricks event). The buyback only includes the basic color gun skins.
  
• The script has a lot of user accounts to go through, so we estimate 24-48hrs for it to complete. You should see it take effect sometime over the weekend!
  

When the update arrives at the end of October you’ll also see new white tier gun skins for all guns as the highest tier milestone, as well as new gun color skins for the Hunting Rifle, Bow & Sparrow and Sparrow Launcher (all with associated milestones of their own). In total, there will be 128 milestones associated with weapon mastery in the new update!

We hope you like the skins and enjoy the new system when you get a chance to try it out in the PTR or in the full update! Just let us know if you have any questions here in the Steam Discussion or in our Discord.

Hey Super Animals! You might have noticed that we've been quieter than usual, and that this patch is taking longer than our typical 3–4 week update schedule. We haven't been on a break: in fact we've been hard at work on one of our biggest updates yet. Early this spring, we took a step back to plan out our long term roadmap for the game and decide how we wanted it to improve and expand the world of SAR the coming months and years. This latest development cycle is finally bringing the first batch of those longer term designs to the game!

The upcoming update targets 3 critical areas of improvement for the game:

• Better free version of SAR. We're making the game accessible to more players with a free version that's more generous and feature complete, while also offering new optional, purchasable cosmetic items. At the same time, we're turning the current "full version" into the "Super Edition" which we'll continue to add value to over time.
  
• Progression system overhaul. We're making big improvements here, reducing randomness, adding new ways to earn items, and expanding/improving popular features like Super Milestones.
  
• Major gameplay additions. We're adding new gameplay modes to keep things fresh and fun for longterm players (us included!), and new tutorial/teaching content aimed at helping new players get oriented.
  

We want your feedback on all of these changes before we release them publicly so we're going to be opening up a Public Test Realm (PTR) at the beginning of October so that you can all let us know what you think before we release this major update later in the month!

And we're also hosting an AMA tomorrow (Friday) at 5pm PDT on the r/AnimalRoyale Subreddit (click here to see the event time converted to other timezones) to give us all of your feedback.

We've written a detailed dev blog post all about the changes coming to the game, which you can read right here:
Read the full post

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We're so very hoppy that you could join us for this presentation of the winners of the first-ever Super Art Contest, hosted by esteemed art critic, Rabbita Smith! Watch to see who will be the first winner of the Golden Paintbrush.

We were originally planning on only selecting the Top 10 pieces, but we received so many amazing submissions that we felt that we had to increase it to recognize the Top 20!

Congratulations to all of the winners! View all of the art on the contest website:

artcontest.animalroyale.com

Things are about to get a bit squirrely in Super Animal World: SAW Researchers have made a breakthrough and are bringing Super Squirrels to the Research Lab!

Not to be outdone by the Labs, Thomas Sledison has cooked up two new weapons in his Workshop, with medieval outfits to match. He’s also made a host of other changes to SAW weaponry including scopes for snipers, so read on for the full rundown.

Super Squirrel
Unlock the base Super Squirrel at level 10, plus 3 additional breeds in the Research Lab:

• Super Gray Squirrel
  
• Super Black Squirrel
  
• Super Vanilla Squirrel
  

New Milestones + Cosmetics:

• Brown Archer Outfit (track players with Sparrows 5 times in a single match)
  
• Green Archer Outfit (track players with Sparrows 15 times in a single match)
  
• Archer Hat (track players with Sparrows 25 times in a single match)
  
• Target Gravestone (shoot a gallery target with a bow during a match)
  

SAW has made an exciting breakthrough in live ammunition, with genetically modified Sparrows that provide unique benefits:

• Track enemy Super Animals through the fog of war for a limited period of time (5.5-10 seconds depending on the weapon’s rarity and type).
  
• Sharp beaks also provide some piercing damage through body armor, but the armor will still absorb 40% of the Sparrow’s damage per hit.
  

Thomas has constructed two new weapons to take advantage of the new Sparrow ammunition: the Bow & Sparrow and the high tech Sparrow Launcher:

Bow & Sparrow

• What better way to launch a bird through the air than with a longbow? Simply pull back the string and let your Sparrow fly.
  
• Pulling back all the way before letting go will give you the most range, speed and damage with your shots.
  
• Available in uncommon (green) and rare (blue) varieties. The uncommon bow tracks enemies for 5.5s and the rare bow tracks for 6s.
  

Sparrow Launcher

• Thomas has outdone himself with this crossbow: its cage magazine can hold 4 Sparrows at a time and it can fire a new Sparrow every 0.5s.
  
• The Sparrow Launcher can be found in epic (purple) and legendary (gold) varieties. The epic variant tracks targets for 7s and the legendary variant tracks targets for 10s.
  
• Legendary Sparrow Launchers are only available in the mole crate.
  

Thomas has also been busy refining some of his existing weapons:

New Sniper Zoom

• Creep with the Hunting Rifle for a 10% zoom out.
  
• Creep with the Sniper Rifle for a 15% zoom out.
  

Other weapon balancing:

• Max carrying capacity for Sniper ammo and Poison Dart Gun ammo is now 30 (up from 25 for both).
  
• Minigun base damage increased by 3.
  
• Hunting Rifle reload time lowered to from 0.8s to 0.7s.
  
• Hunting Rifle & Sniper Rifle bullet speed increased for each rarity from common up to legendary tier: 240/250/260/270/280 to 250/258/266/274/282.
  
• Sniper rifle has slightly faster recoil reset while idle or creeping.
  
• Magnum & Deagle have also had slight bullet speed increases.
  
• Deagle base damage reduced by 3.
  
• Skunk Gas Vial no longer prevents poison damage (we found this was too powerful against the Poison Dart Gun). Instead, it will simply prevent poison death (maximum poison damage will bring you to 1 health, but not kill you).
  

We’ve been hard at work reviewing and re-redesigning SAR’s metagame systems since early spring and have made some exciting progress behind the scenes. A huge thanks to all of you who have been providing feedback in Discord on what you like and don’t like about our progression systems and what you’d like to see added to the game. These systems are super important so we’ve wanted to make sure to take our time with them and get them right.

We’ll be sharing more of our plans and looking for your feedback in the weeks ahead, and are aiming to get v1 of the new systems in place for beta testing by the end of the summer. You can join the SAR Discord or follow us on Twitter and Facebook to get the news first and provide your feedback.

In the meantime, we’ve already made some improvements to our Daily Challenges system that are ready for release today:

Daily Challenges Improvements

• Rather than earning 1 new daily challenge per day, you’ll now get 2 new challenges every day.
  
• Daily challenges will refresh every 24hrs regardless of whether you’ve completed them or not, so you’ll always have two to work on until they’re complete.
  
• Since they refresh every 24hrs and you always get two new ones, you’ll no longer be able to accumulate 3 at a time.
  
• Challenges refresh at exactly 00:00 UTC and we’ve added a handy timer so you can clearly see when they’ll refresh.
  
• Some challenges have been adjusted or removed to make sure they’re all attainable in one day.
  
• Rerolling a challenge won’t ever give you the same challenge type (previously it was possible to reroll a challenge only to end up with another challenge of the same type).
  

Game and UI Improvements:

• Quick chat ground markers will now snap to the edges of the screen.
  
• Can ping your guns in your inventory to say "Need [ammo]."
  
• Can ping either Super Tape or Armor in your inventory to say "Need Super Tape."
  
• Can ping health juice in your inventory to say "Need healing."
  
• Can ping Giant Emus and Hamster Balls.
  
• You can now see the weapons & gear HUD for players who you’re spectating.
  
• Ghost spectators in private matches will now see the kill count of the person they are viewing (in the top left).
  

Additional Changes:

• Minor map changes: adjustments to the bramble near the middle of the map, and a small change in the south by a campfire.
  
• All long body characters like the Super Sloth have been changed to standard Super Animal size for consistency and to help with technical requirements of supporting so many unique animals.
  
• Beard styles updated.
  
• Decreased gas cloud particle texture size. May improve performance.
  
• Fixed Banana Forker tooltip.
  
• Fixed a bug where lobby weapons were sometimes visible during the match in private games.
  
• Various translation fixes.
  

Super Summer has arrived on the island and the animals are kicking things off with a new limited-time event from June 25 to July 19!


Collect Fruit Baskets until July 19 that you can redeem for 9 new limited edition event items! You'll find baskets scattered around the island, and will also earn them automatically after each match based on your survival time. Fruit baskets that you find on the island will give you 20hp when you eat them (and yes Giant Emus can snack on them too). The Delivery Mole has also included 3 Fruit Baskets in every Mole Crate.

9 new Super Summer Royale event items

• Blue Sport Sunglasses
  
• White Bermuda Shorts
  
• Blue Polo Shirt
  
• Yellow Plastic Shovel
  
• Vintage Round Sunglasses
  
• Vintage Floral Swimsuit
  
• Badminton Racket
  
• Vintage Floral Dress
  
• Orange Pastel Overalls
  

8 2019 legacy summer items 25% chance of dropping a legacy item that you don't own yet.

• Fish Swim Shorts
  
• Straw Umbrella
  
• Lifebuoy
  
• Fruit Skewer
  
• Yellow Lei Hula Skirt
  
• Popsicle
  
• Duck Floatie
  
• Fruit Hat
  

2 new Super Animal breeds Create 2 new Super Animal breeds in the Research Lab!

• Super Pineapple Hedgehog
  
• Super Watermelon Skunk
  

4 2019 legacy summer items are being added to the general drop pool
We decided that these 4 items from last year’s Super Summer Royale event were general enough in theme that it would be best if everyone had an opportunity to earn them (we don’t want to deprive any would be chefs of their aprons) so we’ve made them regular drops.

• White Apron
  
• Floral Swimsuit
  
• Hot Dog Fork
  
• Meat Skewer
  

Super Pool Noodles
4 color variants of pool noodles have also been added to the item drop pool, and if you use the coupon code "SUMMER" you'll unlock a pool noodle of a random color!

The event ends at 11:59pm PDT on July 19th, but you'll still have until July 22nd at 11:59pm PDT to redeem your final Fruit Baskets before they expire!

New Rainbow Love Items
We’ve added two new rainbow items to the item drop pool (and if you haven’t already, use coupon code "LOVE" to score a rainbow baseball cap and umbrella).

• Rainbow Headband
  
• Rainbow Dress
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Our quick chat / ping system has finally arrived to help you communicate with your teammates!

• Hold the [Z] key to bring up a radial menu of 6 different messages.
  
• A quick tap of [Z] will show the regular paw marker.
  
• You can also use the Quick Chat Wheel when you have the map open, to ping further away locations.
  
• In duos and squads you can ping weapons and items with the [Z] key.
  

• Visual clarity of guns with shorter ranges has been improved by removing bullets that have reached a damage falloff of 85% (they’ll now despawn rather than traveling the remaining 15% of distance where they would have done very little damage).
  

Note: Previously, armor was not removed once a bullet reached 85% damage falloff because the amount of damage it was doing was so miniscule that it felt unfair to remove a full tick of armor. This won’t change gun balancing in any significant way, but makes it much clearer when a bullet will do meaningful damage or not, and brings the visual in line with how armor removal already works.

• Chonk Emu’s health has increased from 170 to 190 hp.
  
• Skunk Gas Vial now also provides poison immunity (from poison dart gun and others using the vial, but not from skunk bombs).
  
• Banana Forker has had its banana eating distance increased, and healing has been increased from 15 to 25 hp.
  
• Increased footstep volume slightly, and increased roll and running footstep audible distance (which increases the benefit of creeping or using Ninja Booties).
  
• Standardized the shotgun's spread to be 15° whether idle or running. Previously it was 15° while idle and 19° while running.
  
• JAG-7's spread adjusted to be 17.5° while running. Previously it was 18.5°.
  
• Increased the magnum’s bullet speed slightly.
  
• Magnum and Deagle have both had per-shot recoil lowered, and recovery time is now slightly faster.
  
• Damage falloff for the Uncommon/Rare SMG and the Thomas Gun has been increased slightly.
  
• Initial bullet spread for Thomas Gun increased by 0.5°.
  

We've added several new commands for hosts of private matches (see the full list on the SAR Wiki):

• /ghost can now make someone else a ghost by specifying a player number (ie /ghost 14).
  
• /gun can now include rarity while spawning a gun (ie green pistol would be /gun0 1)
  
• /ammo# # command to spawn ammo type with specified amount.
  
• /armor# command to spawn armor (value can be 1 to 3).
  
• /gason can now include a number in order to set a delay (in seconds). For example, to set a 5s delay, you’d use the command: /gason 5.
  
• /gasspeed # command to set the speed multiplier of skunk gas. Value can be from 0.4 to 3.0.
  
• /gasdmg # command to set gas damage multiplier. Value can be from 1.0 to 10.0.
  
• /allitems can be used to toggle all item spawns on/off. This includes enabling/disabling the Delivery Mole, Mole Crate loot and grass loot.
  
• /guns can be used to toggle gun world spawns on/off.
  
• /hamballs can be used to toggle hamster ball spawns on/off.
  
• /emus replaces the old command to toggle emus spawns on/off.
  
• /moles can be used to toggle the Delivery Mole on/off.
  
• /armors can be used to toggle armor spawns on/off.
  
• /throwables can be used to toggle spawns of all throwable items on/off.
  
• /utils replaces the old command to toggle powerup spawns on/off.
  
• /bulletspeed # command to set the speed multiplier of bullets. Value can be from 0.5 to 2.0.
  
• /flight command can be used in the pre-game lobby to regenerate the Giant Eagle’s flight path.
  
• /god # to set god-mode on a player with ID #. Applies only to damage from other players.
  
• /onehits command to toggle one-hit kill mode. Doesn't apply to grenades or gas.
  

In addition:

• Ghost spectator cam now moves faster when zoomed out.
  
• Fox soccer ball can now be spawned during the match, not just in the lobby (still only possible for developers, mods, and private match hosts to spawn the ball).
  

• Added new sound effects for when teammates eject from the Giant Eagle.
  
• Fixed markers on the minimap not sticking to the edges at the proper angles (thanks to user, BatoSoupo, on r/animalroyale for this one!)
  
• Fixed an issue with guns poking under campfires.
  
• Fixed issues with Minigun aiming up close.
  
• Fixed map markers briefly displaying in the wrong position.
  
• Fixed bug with disconnected players on emus.
  
• Skunk Gas Vial no longer cancels the melee-only victory milestone.
  
• Main menu's region selector no longer uses LT/RT on controllers.
  

New Super Mod Items 2 new items celebrating our super moderators are being added to the item drop pool!

• Oyqy's Earbud melee weapon
  
• TaMa's Banan Hat
  

Hope you all enjoy the update and have some fun in the sun. See you on the island, Super Animals!