Thank you for playing, streaming, and watching Scavengers. Your enthusiasm has been overwhelming, and we’ve spent the few past days sharing our favorite Twitch streams as we got to work on stabilizing the servers.
Now, we’re excited to announce that tomorrow, Saturday, May 1st at 9AM PT / 5PM BST,Scavengers Early Access will be open to download for anyone - no keys needed.
If you’re a brand new Explorer, you don’t need to register to play. Just click “Play Now” on our homepage or at the top of this page. When the pop-up shows, asking you to select the platform, choose the option you want and then jump in!
To welcome new Explorers into the fold, we’re also releasing a brand new deep-dive gameplay trailer on “What is Scavengers.” Share it with your friends as a quick primer!
[previewyoutube="FjKJhGR9tqc;full"]
All of our previous communications still stand from when we announced the start of Early Access, but in case you missed it, we’ll re-post the important bits below this.
Stay safe and keep warm,
Midwinter Team
BONUSES - DON’T MISS OUT!
To welcome back our returning players and to jump-start all our new Explorers, we’re giving out some perks and bonuses:
Daily 200 Chips to claim. Don’t miss out, this is a limited-time special and the extra Chips can go a long way towards unlocking an Explorer or purchasing valuable items!
Weekend Explorers, save the date. From Saturday, May 1st - Sunday, May 2nd, we’re running a Double EXP Event. It’s the perfect opportunity to get a jump start on your progression!
The event will run from May 1st 12:00 PM PT / 08:00 PM BST - May 2nd, 12:00 PM PT / 08:00 PM BST.
There are more upcoming rewards to look out for. We’d like to show our appreciation particularly to players who have been with us from the very beginning and we’re aiming to recognize and reward those players in the future with in-game items.
More details on these future rewards to come and we’ll update you when we have news to share.
PROGRESSION WIPE
We will be resetting account progress during Early Access. Our goal is to do this only once to accommodate new features that we're still working on, and make sure the balance is as good as we can make it. We’ll let you know when that is coming before we do it.
We know this isn’t a great feeling when you’ve spent time and energy progressing. Therefore, to recognize this and to say thank you for everyone’s support, we’re planning to award in-game bonuses and rewards to everyone after that final progression wipe.
Again, we’ll be sharing more updates on this in the future, stay tuned.
PLAYER SUPPORT & FEEDBACK
With more players joining the field and our awesome community continuing to grow, we want to make sure that we provide the best game support for all our players.
If you encounter any technical issues while playing Scavengers, please submit a ticket to our Player Support team. Your question will get passed to the right member of the team to look into and we’ll reply as soon as we can.
You can also join our Discord server and talk to our Community team, as well as other Explorers to share your Scavengers experiences and see if they might have an answer to your question.
You can also help bug report and submit feedback about Scavengers on our Discord server too. Your feedback and suggestions are still as important as ever to us. We want to continue building Scavengers with you, so your thoughts and ideas will all go towards our ongoing game improvements and updates - keep sharing them with us!
What's New Since the Closed Beta
Check out all the new in-game updates that will be live when Early Access starts on Wednesday, April 28th!
EXPLORERS
We’ve introduced even more ways to customize the Explorers:
Custom executions to finish off downed opponents
Explorers can now emote! You can use your emote by pressing ‘B’ on the keyboard or ‘dpad down’ on a controller
Backpacks can be swapped
Keeper skins can be customized
When you click on an Explorer, all customization options can be found in the Appearance section. Select the appearance you like and you’re ready to go!
Tarik
The Stun Trap ability is now less obvious to enemy Explorers, creating more opportunity for tactical surprises
New Weapon Variant: Longstriker Taskmaster
Increased magazine size
Better hipfire (firing while not aiming down the sight or optics) accuracy
Reduced recoil
2-shot burst fire with lower damage
Shield-shredding energy damage
Longer reload time
Cruz
New Weapon Variant: Cazador Shiver
Deals Cold damage
Slows down the movement speed of the enemy target
Kali
Kali’s ability Active Camo ability is improved, making her a lot less visible to enemy Explorers. Perfect for those looking to sneak and surprise attack.
New Weapon Variant: Heartseeker Shockwave
Low projectile velocity
Arrows stick to targets and explode after a short delay
Longer bow draw and reload time
Letty
New Weapon Variant: Rosie Sledgehammer
Slower projectile speed
Increased damage and explodes on impact
Smaller magazine size
New Weapon Variant: Rosie Vendetta
On hit, Rosie Vendetta has a chance to restart nearby teammates' shield regeneration. There is a higher chance with headshots
Jae
Jae’s Overshield ability has been updated:
Overshield no longer replenishes based on melee damage dealt
While his ability is active, Jae needs to down or kill his target to get a boost added to his Overshield
RESEARCH
Research is now tier-based:
You'll need to level up your research stations on Sanctuary to access the variety of projects that Mother has to offer you
Tiering up research requires the completion of a specific number of research projects per tier, as well as upgrading the research stations
Talents are now a part of research! Play matches to earn resources and materials so that you can customize your Explorers' play styles
You can now spend chips to quickly finish your research projects
Throwables now have their own research category
Some research projects are now restricted by talents and research tier
AUDIO
We’ve improved the weapon audio across all Explorer weapons, Outlander weapons, and secondary weapons
We’ve updated the VO and added new voice lines for Mother, the Explorers, and Outlander enemies
There’s new audio when a player is downed or killed, letting you know immediately when you or a teammate have downed or killed another player
We’ve also added sound effects for when a player you recently damaged gets downed, to help keep you informed during a multi-team battle
We’ve done an audio pass to improve the player experience for key events, rewards, and more
UI
Controller players rejoice: we've added d-pad navigation to all screens! This means there is no longer a virtual cursor for navigation, which should speed up and ease the controller player experience
You can now select your game mode from the lobby. This will allow you to swap between the tutorial and a Scavengers session
We’ve added a “Streamer Mode” option in the Settings menu. When enabled, this will hide the player’s unique ID number in the main menu so no one can see it while they are streaming the game or capturing footage. This prevents strangers from being able to invite the player without their explicit permission
We’ve made improvements to the loadout and Explorer customization screens
We made a UI art pass on the front end screens to improve their overall look and feel
The iconography throughout the game has been improved as well
CORE GAMEPLAY
Lobby Changes
There are now Challenges in Scavengers that you can complete in matches to earn Salvage rewards. These can then be used in Research
Leaderboards have been added to the lobby, so you can aim for a top spot in a few categories!
These leaderboards cover total damage dealt, PvP kills, successful extractions, and more
The leaderboards run on a 72-hour rolling window, so leading players will need to work to maintain their spot at the top
Datapoints
Enemies now drop datapoints when killed. The higher the enemy rank, the more data they drop!
Datapoint bank sites now upload faster
Spectators
We’ve made improvements to the spectator experience:
Added status effect updates for the player you’re spectating
Improved spectate cycling between each player
Information for the Dropship and resurrection are more clearly displayed while spectating
Spectating players now see changes to the spectated player’s camera position, including sighted weapons
Storms
The border storm now scales according to the match size. This means that depending on how many players joined the match, the size of the circle storm will start accordingly and enclose so that there's a greater chance of running into other Explorers in any match size.
Roaming storms are now colder and the border storm will freeze you to death faster. Remember to keep the nearest fire in sight!
Radar System
The radar system now hides players under certain circumstances:
If you're using a silent weapon like melee or a bow, you won't show up on players' radars even when within ping range. You also won't show up if you're crouching, sliding, in shelter, in a storm, or standing still
Players in vehicles can no longer see pings for other Explorers nearby, unless they are shooting. They'll have to exit the vehicle for their radar system to kick in after about 10 seconds of being out of the vehicle
New Boss Encounters
We’ve added new dynamic boss encounters throughout the match. These bosses appear as the hostile weather escalates and are worth a lot of datapoints. However, beware of other players looking to reap these rewards as well
Supply drops now open faster but cost scrap to open. They are now guaranteed to give three high-end weapons to properly kit the team that gets it
We've added an uncommon shield level, so players can now level up their shields 3 times within a session
All default Explorer weapons start at uncommon level. Higher level variants can be unlocked via the Research system
Camps
We’ve removed scrap camps and scrap is now found throughout the world. This includes crates, boxes, and furniture you can scavenge in old ruins, as well as enemies that you kill, and resource camp chests. All small resource camps are the richest sources of scrap
We’ve added new resource camps on the map. Utility camps now offer consumable boosts and a variety of grenades
End of Match Updates
The Dropship doors must be opened in order to enter
Use your Keeper to open the larger doors.
Smaller entryways can be opened by your Explorer
We’ve made some major updates to post-match score recap:
The end of match leaderboard now shows the status of your team prior to the match end, followed by the final score. This includes your team being wiped, losing a player, or seeing a change in datapoints in the Dropship showdown
We’ve added a summary of key match stats and XP earned towards Explorer level
GENERAL GAMEPLAY UPDATES
We’ve added a new slide jump animation to make your slides feel even more awesome!
We did a balance pass across all weapons in the game, based on your feedback and game data from the Closed Beta
We’ve improved the animations for the Outlanders and Scourge enemies
The AI are now aware of vehicles driving at them. Watch out for larger enemies who have special tactics to prevent vehicles from mowing them over
Shooting a vehicle now does damage to the shields of any Explorers sitting inside
Vehicles will also no longer one-shot splatter Explorers
SOCIAL FEATURES
You can now add (and remove) friends to your friends list! Enter your friend’s username (including the unique user ID number and hashtag) to find them and add them to your friends list
You can find your full in-game name in the bottom right corner of the main menu
Parties are persistent after matches, so you can keep jumping back into the lobby with the same party match to match
Team voice chat carries through to the post-match screen now, so you can celebrate your victories with your team
Players can be reported for poor behavior via the system menu
GENERAL UPDATES
In the time since Closed Beta, we've upgraded to Unreal Engine 4.26, which has brought a suite of performance and editor improvements to the project
We've been continuously pushing on performance since Closed Beta. Players should see improvements to performance across all specs (up to our minimum specs). This is an area of continuous focus and while we have made substantial gains, we still have more work to do
We've improved our implementation of Easy Anti-Cheat to prevent cheats from being used in Scavengers
We've improved the first-time player experience so that jumping into Scavengers isn't overwhelming to our new Explorers. We know there's a lot to learn, so we've improved the ramp of players' introduction to the depth that Scavengers has to offer
We've added more languages to Scavengers: French, Italian, Korean, Latin American Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese
The tutorial has been updated based on your feedback from the closed beta
We've fixed tons of bugs that you reported in the last playtest! As always, thank you for reporting them
We’re excited to have you join us for Early Access! We look forward to working with you as we continue to refine and improve Scavengers together. Please join us on Discord to share your feedback and chat with fellow Explorers!!