Sons of the Forest Patch 08 Breakdown: Electric Fences, Swimming Companions, and a Bigger Golf Cart

The golf cart was a welcome addition to the island, right up until someone counted the seats and realized one of them was going home on foot. Patch 08 patches that small social tragedy and rolls out a long stack of additions, balance tweaks, and bug fixes that should keep both solo and multiplayer groups busier through the next few sessions.

The Headline Additions in Patch 08

This update leans more toward polish than reinvention, but the new content is meaty enough to justify another base build. Electric fences are now a real defensive layer around your camp. They keep cannibals and the various mutated horrors at a safe distance, and they are equally happy to fry any turtle unlucky enough to wander into your perimeter. So plan your fence layout with that on your conscience.

The golf cart finally received the upgrade most groups wanted. It can seat four players, comes with proper headlights, and lets you drive after dark without squinting into the trees. Smaller details landed too: the driver and passenger now have idle animations, so they look like actual people instead of static dummies on a buggy.

GPS locators can now be crafted or 3D printed from your inventory. Virginia and Kelvin learned to swim, which sounds minor until you remember how often they used to take the scenic walking route around a lake while you waited on the far shore.

There is also a returning enemy that shows up after the endgame, plus new voice announcements inside some bunkers. The patch trailer on YouTube gives a quick visual of what is new.

Sons of the Forest Patch 08 Patch Notes (July 21)

New Content and Features

• New found footage video
• Hokey Pokey trap
• Electric fences
• Freeform electric wire placement
• Radios can now be carried and played
• GPS locators can be 3D printed or crafted from the inventory
• Golf cart headlights
• Golf cart now seats up to four players in multiplayer
• Reduced ammo difficulty option added
• A returning creepy enemy now spawns post-endgame
• New vocal announcements in some bunkers
• Virginia and Kelvin can swim through deep water

Balance Changes

• Raids are less frequent depending on how many regulars and creepies you have killed; the count ramps up over time unless you keep the kill rate going
• Defensive walls absorb roughly four times more damage before breaking
• Glowing puffies have less health

Improvements

• Animal heads can be shaken while held
• Angry moose may now kick nearby players
• Fixed inconsistencies in enemy search party counts on load or restart
• Fixed several save/load and syncing issues with endgame boss cutscenes and battles
• AI actors now correctly spot players sitting inside a golf cart
• Smoother enter and exit animations for the golf cart
• Kelvin will visibly refuse a tree-related order if no trees are nearby
• Turtles can now be electrocuted
• Turtle eggs now spawn correctly for multiplayer clients
• Rabbit footsteps sound different on snow
• Improved putter contact when hitting a golf ball
• Various asset memory optimizations
• Various UI, pickup, and audio optimizations
• Blueberry bush berries deform with the bush
• Ocean patch optimization
• Various environment layout fixes
• Basalt rocks in caves merged into combined collision meshes
• Moss LOD ranges optimized
• LOD2 for cliffs optimized
• LOD groups optimized
• Starfish LODs added and regrouped
• Stream LOD ranges optimized
• Bunker and cave entrances optimized
• Small rock pickup optimized
• Added missing LODs to some legacy rocks
• LODs set up for KnightV, hang glider, and golf cart
• LODs set up for lakes
• Lake audio emitters optimized
• Spruce tree meshes optimized
• Seaweed Dry Cluster LOD2 optimized
• Berry meshes optimized
• Fix for waterfall particles that stayed on indefinitely
• World collisions optimized with fewer active colliders
• Rocks and stones now have collision inside the log sled
• Action camera now has a play visual
• Fixed faked GI slipping over surfaces during camera rotation
• Improved mask maps for snow and wetness
• Fallen log LODs optimized
• Lily pads optimized
• Moved the dead tacti in the bunker entertainment area into a more visible spot
• Dead stumps and rock billboards draw at longer distances
• Added LODs to stick and log storage, log windows, and fences
• Energy drink uses a low LOD when shelved or on the ground
• In-world stick pickup optimized
• Increased the delay before boss cutscenes start
• Added a countdown timer to the back of the gold room
• Streaming versions of beached yachts added to save memory
• Texture streaming removed from the golf cart logo
• Window shutters now animate when opening and closing
• Beams can now be placed between two strut-supported beams on the forward end
• Idle motion added to the golf cart driver and passenger
• Rifle and other weapons no longer glitch during the player hit reaction animation
• New idle animations for trophy heads
• KnightV now leans with the player in third-person multiplayer
• Server browser filtering UX improved
• Server browser can search by IP via the name search bar
• New server browser filters: "not empty" and "public"
• Server browser entries show ping
• Filter reset button added to the server browser
• Recently played dedicated servers refresh first for faster results
• Dedicated servers where you have a save now appear at the top of the list
• Server browser performance improved
• Server browser refreshing handles poor network conditions better
• Server browser gamepad navigation fixes
• Dedicated servers are no longer flagged as "game running" by the Steam launcher, so the game can be started from Steam on the same machine as the dedicated server
• Non-verbose logging mode added and set as default. Use the `-verboseLogging` command line argument to force the older mode
• Dedicated servers save immediately before shutdown to avoid data loss
• Updated dedicated server guide

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the player drinking from a pot while holding a valid container to fill instead
• Fixed grab bag items being hard to select because of overlapping raycast blockers
• The deer head in the grab bag is no longer convex, so it stops clipping the duck head collider
• Items can no longer be added to the cooking pot while it is purifying water
• Fixed the cooking pot lid popping off for clients each time someone drank or refilled from it
• Storage LODs now behave correctly when the player approaches and then moves away
• A GPS locator without icon data now falls back to default icon data
• Turtle shells drop correctly on skinning even if a shell is already in the player inventory
• Pause menu is now blocked during boss cutscenes
• Escape prompt no longer appears early during the chopper cutscene
• Screen space reflections now turn back on properly after a toggle
• Fixed the sled hit reaction animation
• Fixed the crossbow reload and idle animation bug
• Cannibals no longer die prematurely while burning, and they will not catch fire from a blocked torch hit
• Fixed climbing animation alignment with the lookout tower rope on some towers
• Hanging skeletons on destroyed large huts no longer reappear floating in midair
• Multiple players can no longer grab the same dead body at once
• Fixed visual issues with puffies carried by other players
• Walls now count as valid support when calculating unsupported beams, equivalent to pillars on both ends
• Destroying struts now properly propagates the collapse to the supported beam
• Cutting a pillar into a defensive wall spike now checks whether it is supporting a SCREW structure
• Fixed terrain-conforming outline selection breaking placement alignment for non-conforming outlines used afterward
• Restored the missing snap point for full log or stone pillars under second-story beams
• Planter furniture dirt is now affected by snow and wetness occlusion
• Various beam dismantling bugs fixed
• Moved the last line of Barb's note so it no longer overlaps her thumb
• Dedicated servers can now be joined after the host computer wakes from sleep
• Fixed alpha on the crosses burn demons note
• Spreading phlox no longer renders twice

Audio Additions and Enhancements

• SFX added for placing electric wires and solar panels
• Frog hop audio event added
• Rifle audio falloff tuned
• Flare audio falloff tuned
• Shrub hit sound lowered while driving a golf cart
• Fixed clifftop surf audio cutting on and off abruptly
• Cave entrance audio events now use random start times to prevent phasing