We’ve been cracking along with fixes and adding features. One of the biggest we’ve ever added will be introduced in 1.4. Traders along with Realms, these two new features totally change the way the game plays and we couldn’t be happier with the turn out. Below is a short showcase of the features going into 1.4. For a full look at what has gone in, check out our changelog!
Traders
Traders are something the community has asked for and 1.4 provides their initial integration. You can find 5 traders on the island currently. With this initial release they’re all the same but we’d like to hear from you as to what they should all trade in. Each trader can be different, each having their own supply and pricing.
Traders will barter with players in our new currency. Cigarettes are what we’ve come up with as they seem like they could hold some value post zombie apocalypse. As it’s currently setup zombies will be the only source of cigarettes. Share some of your ideas on this system and we can alter things to suit any good ones. We’ve thought about adding cigarettes as a functioning drop, smoking could reduce mental illness? Perhaps some kind of addiction system also?
Realms
In this version of Survive the Nights, we’ve introduced the foundation of the new realms feature. Realms are hosted servers that you and your friends can share. Similar to Minecraft realms, they allow players to share a persistent world save without the world owner needing to be online. This has been one of the most requested features from the community over the last few years, so we’re excited to finally start rolling it out. Pricing Realms has been tricky for us. Our aim is to keep the feature as affordable as possible while covering the hosting and infrastructure costs involved. Hosting persistent worlds is not cheap, but recent optimisations have allowed us to price realms much more reasonably than we originally expected. At launch, realm access is included with STN+, and individual Realm access is available for $8.99 for 30 days. This is a significant infrastructure change for us. While we’ve done everything we can to make the system stable, please bear with us as we monitor, adjust, and improve it during rollout. We may make pricing and stability tweaks over the next update cycle as we get everything dialed in. We recommend only starting a realm during this early rollout if you’re comfortable with potential teething issues while we finalize the system.Patch Notes - 1.4
Highlights
A new economy has arrived in Survive the Nights.
Traders have begun setting up outposts across the island, offering survivors a new way to buy, sell, scavenge, and prepare for the nights ahead.
Cigarettes are now the main trade currency. Loot, harvesting, item values, and trader prices have all been adjusted to support the new economy.
Cloud Realms have also been added, giving players a way to host shared worlds that can stay online even when the world owner is offline.
Traders
Trader outposts can now be found across the world.
These safe trading locations give survivors a place to meet NPC traders, sell unwanted gear, buy useful supplies, and prepare for their next run.
Traders stock a variety of items, with different traders offering different selections.
You can now buy and sell:
Inventory items
Resources
Ammunition
Traps
Survival supplies
Trader stock will refresh over time, giving players more reasons to revisit outposts during long-term survival.
Economy
Cigarettes are now used as the main currency for trading.
Items now have trade values, allowing gear and resources to become part of the wider survival economy.
Zombie harvesting can now reward cigarettes, giving players another way to earn currency while surviving the world.
Zombie loot has been reduced to better support the new trader economy and make scavenging, harvesting, selling, and buying feel more meaningful.
Trader prices, item values, harvest rewards, and overall balance have been adjusted around this new system.
Trader Outposts
Several container fort locations have been replaced with new trader outposts.
These areas have been rebuilt and dressed as trader-focused locations, complete with NPC traders, lighting, watch towers, and improved world placement.
Zombie spawners have been removed from trader outpost areas, making them feel more like protected survivor trading hubs.
NPC Traders
NPC traders have been added to the world.
Traders now have unique appearances, clothing, idle animations, facial expressions, greetings, and reactions when interacting with players.
They will look towards players, respond to trades, and help bring trader outposts to life.
Cloud Realms
Cloud Realms have been added.
Realms allow players to host shared cloud worlds that can remain available without the world owner needing to be online.
Players can now create, list, join, manage, and remove Realms through the world save menu.
Realm access, permissions, participant lists, and expiry information are now shown in-game.
Cloud save upload, download, conversion, linking, loading, and checkpoint saving have been added to support persistent Realm worlds.
Realm Improvements
Improved Realm startup reliability.
Improved Realm save persistence.
Improved Realm connection handling.
Added Realm health checks and startup status feedback.
Added clearer Realm failure messages.
Added waiting for Realms to be ready before connecting.
Fixed Realm inventory persistence on shutdown.
Fixed Realm Steam authentication timeout handling.
Improved Realm save transfer reliability.
Hid player-list ping where it is misleading for Realms.
UI & Interaction
Added item value display to the inventory.
Added trade currency display to the inventory.
Improved trader UI handling.
Improved Realm UI handling.
Fixed cloud Realm save title alignment.
Fixed inventory quantity padding.
Sped up repeat-on-hold input behaviour.
Updated localisation for the new UI.
World & Balance
Updated world areas around the new trader outposts.
Updated navigation and world data for trader locations.
Fixed tree gravity behaviour.
Reduced melee distortion intensity.