We’ve been quite busy, making improvements, introducing new features and getting to work on even more of the fixes you’ve all suggested. This blog will focus on just some of the fixes and additions we’ve been developing. Be sure to check out the full changelog for a detailed break down and testing list. As always, if you find any issues please report them in game using the F1 reporter! Thanks again for all the support.

Roaming hordes have been a huge community request and 1.42 features their introduction. These hordes are crazy huge, scary and not something to mess around with so be sure you’re ready to run or gun! You’ll get a simple notification when a horde is roaming nearby and the horde marker will be visible on your map. Hordes can differ in size with some reaching 200+ zombies, it’s basically a terrifying wall of death!!

Roaming horde in town

This isn’t going to end well

Update 1.42 marks a major step forward for the future of Survive the Nights by laying the groundwork for modding. This is the first release of the game built on Unity’s Addressable Asset System.

In previous versions, we relied on Unity’s older Asset Bundle system to manage and stream content. While functional, Asset Bundles came with limitations such as manual dependency management, inefficient memory usage, and performance issues during asset loading/unloading. Addressables address these problems by introducing a modern, more flexible asset management pipeline.

With Addressables, the game can now:- Load and unload assets asynchronously (reducing stutter and improving memory handling).
- Manage dependencies automatically, preventing duplication and reducing build size.
- Provide a modular content structure, which is essential for delivering mod support.
- Validate and profile asset groups more effectively, ensuring stable and optimized builds.

For players, this update should feel seamless — gameplay, visuals, and performance should remain unchanged at this stage. However, under the hood, the game is now running entirely on an Addressables-based foundation.

The real benefit is what comes next: this system is the core platform that will enable modding support in Survive the Nights. Future updates will leverage Addressables to allow external content — such as custom items, assets, and gameplay modifications — to be built, packaged, and loaded into the game in a clean, controlled way.

1.42 is therefore less about immediate player-facing features and more about ensuring the game is technically ready for a robust and expandable modding ecosystem in upcoming versions. We’re very excited to see what you all come up with!

We’re introducing a stronger gate variant in 1.42, metal gates can be crafted with simple resources and provide a cooler look and stronger entrance/exit option.

Metal Gate

Quite a few of you have reported render issues with our zombies so Andre has spent some time tweaking.
Zombie render distance now scales up as long as fewer than ~45 zombies are active, improving visibility in open areas. Forward overlap sphere loads AI further in the direction of player movement.

A major issue with the previous setup was that line of sight checks could hit the player's own vehicle, causing the system to think AI weren’t visible and load them in too late. Line of sight is now much more accurate, using the AI’s head position and only checking against buildings and terrain. AI proxies now support disabling culling like server AI, and LOD cull distances have been increased to match the new relevancy behavior.

To put it simply, this results in zombies being visible when they should be, you’ll see them from quite the distance now.

Zombies, wee little zombies!

Locks have been a bit tedious to say the least. Some of the door attachment points (mainly the last/bottom lock) were really hard to interact with in the past. We’ve made some nice quality of life updates to the placement points.
Along with that you’ll now notice that the lock UI opens automatically after placing the lock. This makes way more sense and has been requested by the community.

Lock placement improvements

We’ve had requests to improve the visualizations for the breaker panel. The 1.42 update features an update UI that now shows the player the current electricity load. This should clear up some confusion and looks pretty neat.

In the screenshot below you can see the panel is overloaded with only one circuit breaker in the box. Increasing the number of breakers will allow you to increase electrical items in the structure.

Circuit overload!

We’ve had some requests about the death marker in game, we’ve also noticed in some streams that players struggle to find it. We’ve made some improvements with 1.42 the death marker now pulses making it far easier to spot on the map. If you have any other suggestions let us know!

Death marker pulse

A small but none the less annoying issue that some of you have mentioned is not being able to water crops/plants with a perfectly good canteen full of water! Well we’ve sorted that in 1.42 and no you don’t have to purify it first :)

Water plants with a canteen

• Fix for roaming horde position sync when switching servers

• Fix for roaming hordes starting at incorrect points

• Disappearing cars fix

• World loading optimisation to stop overload and flickering

• Log cleanup

• Server optimisations for roaming hordes

• Fixed roaming hordes so that they no longer continuously respawn killed zombies.

• Auto search server list working again

• Fix for vehicles settling too early

• Fix for items falling through environment

• New metal gate variant.

• Improved zombie rendering, visibility, and streaming distance.

• Lock interface now opens automatically after placement.

• Double-barrel shotgun damage reduced and capped at 75.

• Fixed critical issue causing items to go missing.

• Explosion damage now correctly affects barricades.

• Added metal gate variant.

• Increased zombie render distance when fewer zombies are active.

• Improved zombie visibility when behind cover.

• Zombies now stream in further ahead of the player while moving.

• Weapon scopes can now be mounted on pegboards.

• Plants can now be watered using canteens.

• Lock interface now opens automatically after placing a lock.

• Death location marker now pulses for better visibility.

• Map recenters more smoothly when opened.

• Double-barrel shotgun damage capped at 75 and effective range reduced.

• FRKS wear rate reduced when firing.

• Item dropping and placement made more stable.

• Reduced occurrences of items clipping or falling through each other.

• Improved item placement through police station interior props.

• Breaker panel now displays total load.

• Circuit breaker display changed from “3/10” to “3” to clarify load-based calculation.

• Removed broken links from the changelog UI.

• Tutorial button is now disabled while in-game.

• Fixed play and other menu buttons not animating when paused in single-player.

• Fixed issue that could cause items to go missing.

• Overloaded breaker panels now trip correctly when powered by global power.

• Fixed player spawn position not being restored after rejoining.

• Fixed gravity not applying to dropped items at very remote locations.

• Explosion damage now correctly applies to barricades.

• Fixed various floating objects across the map.

• Restored missing walls in Popov’s back-store areas (variants 1, 2, and 3).

• Removed duplicate arcades in the final Popov’s variant.

• Fixed fortifications disconnecting or disappearing from vehicles.

• Corrected season after server restart.

• Restored missing kiosk counters in petrol stations.

• Fixed visual glitch when looking between multiple locks.

• Improved interaction on bottom door locks.

• Corrected “Can’t lock with 0000” message when the lock is synced.

• Fixed baseball bat losing its fire effect after re-equipping.

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