by theygamesOf all the new survival games that arrived in 2024, grimdark looter shooter The Forever Winter has a particularly captivating premise. In its wasteland ruled by the hulking mechs of warring megacorporations, you’re but a tiny figure scrabbling through the dust. Every inch of space or ounce of water you can scrounge might prove the difference between life and death. Fun Dog Studios has nailed the tone – but so far, it’s felt very distinctly early in the cooking process. Now, however, one of the team’s biggest updates since launch revamps and upgrades many of the core systems, making it a great time to check back in.
The Forever Winter’s March update is titled ‘The Descent to Averno is Easy.’ If you’ve been playing, you’ll notice sweeping adjustments across the board, from gunplay and looting improvements to smarter enemies, performance fixes, and – most significantly of all – a complete transformation of the way water works. The survival game’s most important resource has long been one of its most controversial aspects, so Fun Dog has rethought things from scratch.
With ‘Water 3.0,’ the wet stuff no longer behaves as a resource that drains in real time, and is now a currency used to access region entry points. The cost of this changes daily within a certain range, and is paid by whoever is currently hosting (although other players can choose to contribute). Water is now only stored in the Innard’s supply, and any excess brought back will be converted to currency. You can trade water with other players via the ready room screen, providing they have space for it.
To account for these changes, water drops have been rebalanced across the game. Fun Dog warns that its notorious water thieves are still present, and can invade your base if you leave the game with no water in storage, if you’ve hired water bots to help gather and they’re followed back, or for some other as-yet-unspecified reasons. It also says that a special reward will be coming in the future for any players with a save game that dates back to the era of the old, real-time water system.
The next big overhaul is for weapon feel. Player weapons have been completely retuned with regards to recoil, dispersion, kick, swing, and handling. Upgrades and mods have been similarly adjusted, and the gun position and depth of field when aiming down site has changed to give you a better view. Shotguns will now skew more notably towards close-range damage, and there are new reload animations for several weapons.
Enemy spawning has been improved, and computer-controlled hostiles will be smarter and more communicative. New detection icons will show up to four arrows so you can see exactly which players are being tracked, but you’ll have an easier time slipping by threats undetected if their attention is already occupied with something else. They’ll also make smarter use of melee, and hurting members of certain factions will now result in a more immediate and notable penalty to your relationship with that group.
To help make looting feel smoother, new on-screen elements will indicate objects that you are able to interact with or pick up and if you’re close enough to do so. These can be adjusted via the options menu depending how much feedback you want. You should also find it easier to aim at and select specific items on the ground when there is a lot of clutter in the nearby area. Additionally, new crash detection tools have been introduced to help prevent item loss if you have a problem.
While that’s certainly a big list of improvements, the March update goes beyond just changes. There’s a new region, ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ and the Frozen Swamp zone has a special, particularly horrifying iteration that you can find yourself thrown into if you visit at night “when the conditions are right.” There are more quests to take on in both new and existing locations, and even more besides – Fun Dog says to expect “countless other bug fixes, tuning adjustments, improvements, and maybe a surprise or three.”
The Forever Winter March update is out now. You can buy the game at a 20% discount through Thursday March 13, paying $23.99 / £19.99. Find it here if you think you could survive as a rat in its monstrous, mechanical maze.
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