Hello survivors,

First off, thank you once again for the amazing support and feedback. Huge thanks to the community — to the kind-hearted members on Steam, Discord, and everyone who's playing. We appreciate your support from the bottom of our hearts.

This is a major technical update that also impacts the core gameplay loop. With the introduction of item durability, you'll now need to manage your tools, weapons, and armor more carefully — make sure to repair your gear or swap them out before they break.

⚙️ Features & Content

• Added a full Item Durability System

  • Weapons, tools, armor, and more now degrade over time with use

  • Items can be repaired or replaced when worn

• Added a buildable Repair Bench under the Utility category

  

• Introduced a new weapon variant: RK-47

  

• Remade and improved the Armor System

• Added a Wandering Trader who moves around the zone with rare items to trade

• Added buildable Gas Canister (explodes when shot)

• Added a large version of the Gas Canister

• Added buildable Plastic Barricade

• Added buildable Storage Fridge

• All new buildables are added to the Blueprints menu

  

🔄 Changes and Improvements

• Armor stats rebalanced and improved to match the new durability system

• Patrol Helicopter balancing:

  • Increased health, armor, and fire rate

  • Added missile attack ability

  • Despawn after a certain time

  • Loot drops rebalanced

• Reworked and improved the Building Repair mechanic and UI

• Rebalanced building durability

• Balancing and tweaks to:

  • Loot tables

  • Item prices

  • Trading economy

  • Food and drink stats

• Tweaks to AI accuracy and behavior

• Improved AI navigation

• Improved NVG

• Added Toggle Run (Hold) option in Gameplay Settings

• Nearby Camps and Mission Givers now display map markers when close

  

• Night Time duration increased

• Minor tweakes to tutorial missions

• Various UI improvements and translation fixes

🐞 Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug causing animals to walk slowly after exiting water

• Fixed an issue with water camper

• Fixed minor UI bugs

• Fixed certain translation errors

• Fixed bugs with Night Vision Goggles (NVG)

• Fixed minor animation issues

• Fixed minor issues with buildables and repair functionality

• Fixed multiple small bugs across systems

🔜 What’s Next

This update marks another big step forward as we prepare for an upcoming major content expansion. Currently in development:

• A new large area of the map

• New POIs, missions, and items

• And a secret surprise we’ll reveal soon...

We’ll be sharing progress and sneak peeks in the coming weeks.

🧷 Important Note for Pre-Update Save Files

Due to the introduction of the Durability System, items from older save files (before this update) may appear broken.

To help with this transition:

• For the next 48 hours, all broken items in older saves will auto-convert to fully repaired items.

• After 48 hours, any un-loaded save will keep its broken items, which will need to be repaired using a Repair Bench.

• If you've already loaded your save after the update, you're good — your items are safe.

If you miss the 48-hour window, you can use our special FixDurability Beta Branch:

1. Right-click Dreadzone in your Steam Library

2. Go to Properties > Betas

3. Select the FixDurability branch

4. Let the update download, load your save, then quit the game

5. Return to Properties > Betas and set it back to "None" to return to the latest version

We’ve also added a new Last_Stable Beta Branch — this will revert the game to the last most stable version before this update.

⚠️ Note: You won’t be able to play multiplayer with others using different branches, and the Last_Stable version will not include any of the new features or updates from v1.4.5.

We wish you all a happy, chill, and fun weekend — and as always,
Happy gaming!

— The Dreadzone Team