Hello, and thanks to everyone who bought the game or helped spread the word after the launch last week! As you might expect with the influx of new players there have been some bug reports, so this is mainly about addressing those.

The biggest ones were probably on XBox[www.xbox.com] - you weren't able to save your characters on the character creation screen, and people have been having trouble joining online games. As regards the latter when I tried joining someone myself I found that it worked but took a long time, and other people kept joining me while I was doing so, and each time they did the progress bar reset to the beginning. The first time you join someone in a Sandbox game it has to send their whole terrain over to you which can take a while (after that the static part of it is cached, so should be faster). And this transfer seems to take longer on XBox, so it's more noticeable. If you start from scratch each time someone joins you, and randos keep jumping in and then leaving, you can get stuck into a loop of it never finishing. So my fix was to stop it resetting just because someone joined you. Note to any XBox players reading this - this patch will be in publicbeta on Steam for a little while first before making its way to XBox.

Here's the full change list:

• Fix for people set to cook a particular type of meal and set to auto-deposit wood getting stuck in a loop when their campfire is out of fuel
  
• Fix for Probability of Infection shown by Brain Scanner for a character changing after hitting the road
  
• Fix for saving characters not working on XBox
  
• Fix for Morgan Harding sometimes informing a chicken that there are infected raiders on the way
  
• Fix for showing the F2 prompt for Community Screen on XBox in a couple of places
  
• Fix for your community members remembering 'you knocked someone out like a light' when you knocked out a zombie
  
• Fix for being able to target Kelly for 1 frame with the bow when she's playing dead
  
• Fixed some props around Wishkey Falls Militia belonging to other groups
  
• Some fixes for Charlie Gant
  
• When NPCs leave their original communities to form new ones the new ones names are known the player if they know the NPCs names (so they aren't shown as 'Unknown Community' forever)
  
• If you happen to move the camera close to an invisible strain character while they are moving towards someone to secretly attack them, they will stop and act like nothing is happening
  
• On the character creation screen, disable Start button if first name or surname is blank (or Community name, unless joining a network game)
  
• Possible fixes for getting stuck on Receiving Game State screen while trying to join a game on XBox
  
• Changed 'Lumberjack' option on action menu to say 'Set Role: Lumberjack' for consistency with other roles
  
• Updated Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Japanese, Indonesian, Italian, Latin American Spanish, European Spanish and Turkish translations

In addition, v243 is now on the main branch, and on XBox!

v244 will be in the "publicbeta" branch on Steam for a while, before pushing it to the main game and to XBox. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

It's done! Welcome to my game! I put zombies in it.

To celebrate the game leaving early access, some of the youtubers from the discord[discord.gg] have been making videos or will be streaming over the course of the week, keep an eye out for them at the top of the store page!

Yes, the 1st of June 2020 feels like not that long ago but terrifyingly it was almost five whole years - that's how long this game was in Early Access for. (I intended it to last "approximately one year"!) A lot has happened in that time - Story Mode, vehicles, friendships and relationships, chickens, constitution and rescuing, extortion squads, surrendering, alliances, infected weapons, hitting the road, numerous quality of life features (remember when you had to manually loot every corpse and sort your loot into buildings, or could only assign one role per person?), 11 complete translations, greatly expanded mod support, etc. Plus it's now on XBox Series[www.xbox.com]!

Of course the game didn't start in 2020, the closed beta started in 2019, and I actually started development around 2016, using the Survivalist code as a base. The original Survivalist launched on Steam in 2015 (after which I added multiplayer). Before that, it launched on XBox 360 (XBLIG) in 2014. And I originally started development in 2009. So you might say this game has been in development for a while.

What does the future hold? As mentioned before I still haven't decided yet - one option would be to make another sequel, as I still have a long wishlist of ideas I would have dearly loved to put in this game. The other option is a new project that I have in my head which would really like to get out. It would share a lot of DNA with Survivalist though so, either way, Survivalist will continue in some form.

Meanwhile, the relentless march of publicbeta continues with the latest patch, v243. This concludes a playthrough and bug sweep I've been doing leading up to launch - here's the change list:

• Fix for Morgan Harding staying stuck on the spot after she returns home after warning Tent City
  
• Fix for kicking not causing damage in fisticuffs against allies
  
• Fix for NPCs saying they know their leader would pay you to bring them food, when their leader is dead
  
• Fix for characters getting stuck in a loop searching for containers if you set Carry Amount to 1 for cooking pots
  
• For modders, if you set up a recipe to build a vehicle, it will be driveable once built
  
• Don't show Abandon action for under-construction buildings (just demolish them instead)
  
• Fix for Out Of Sync error when adding wood to a fire while having both wood and charcoal in inventory
  
• Fix for NPCs getting stuck continually shooting and missing a camping stool
  
• Fix for vehicles taking full damage when parked touching the dump truck
  
• Fix for you losing approval if you loot the corpses of NPCs from the 'Turned' community
  
• Fix for incorrect speech when sending Emma to the safe zone
  
• Fix NPCs from a settlement with no campfires repeatedly picking up unconscious bodies to try to rescue them, but then dropping them immediately
  
• Fix for character spinning round on the spot trying to pay respects to a corpse they are carrying
  
• Fix for wrong backpack sometimes being equipped after you hit the road
  
• Fix for Out Of Sync error on character creation screen when hitting the road sometimes
  
• Updated Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, German, Hungarian, Latin American Spanish, Russian and Spanish translations

And the previous patch, v242, has made it to the main branch!

Some people have asked whether publicbeta will end now that Early Access is ending. The answer is no, it will continue to be the way I release patches :) And there will continue to be patches in future, at least because there are several translations being actively worked on.

v243 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".