- Added Working Steel, a trader contract offering a guaranteed route to steelworking notes.
- Expanded early objectives to guide you through finding notes, researching steelworking, and crafting your first steel axe.
- Opening guidance now appears while waiting for the introductory trader.
- Trader contracts now explain their purpose, recommended preparation, required supplies, and rewards.
- Added A Home for the Road, an optional post-bunker contract focused on stocking your pantry and provisioning a roadside shelter.
- Added the Overseer’s Blade bunker reward.
- Furnished bunker interiors and NPC homes with additional environmental details.
- Added moving cloud shadows, canopy lighting, drifting leaves, heat shimmer, rain-darkened ground, and nighttime water reflections.
- Added colour grading and optional camera reactions, with individual controls for the new atmosphere effects.
- Added non-harvestable smoldering hotspots to burned areas. Watch your footing—they cause damage.
- Burning vines now damage wildlife and other characters.
- Improved player damage reactions, including environmental damage and multiplayer feedback.
- Improved tree-shadow shapes and softness, and fixed shadows appearing detached from tree trunks.
- Fixed grass discoloration that appeared to follow the player.
- Improved bunker roofs, interior wall cutaways, and room lighting.
- Reduced frame spikes during lightning strikes and room-lighting updates.
- Fixed water-reflection errors and improved water footsteps and bunker footstep handling.
- Quest tracking now shows discovered or accepted content.
- Improved contract scrolling and controller navigation on smaller displays.