The final weekend of the SOS Closed Alpha 2 is here. Return to La Cuna Island one more time on November 4 from 9am-9pm PT & November 5 from 8am-9pm PST to cement your place on the Fame and Survival Leaderboards. Here’s some of the new things you can expect to see on your arrival this weekend.

New Weapon — Grenades!

You ever release a cloud of toxin-bearing mosquitos and wonder why you couldn’t just hurl that cloud into a group of unsuspecting Contestants? Well, then these grenades are for you. They come in three varieties: Smoke Grenades, which release a haze of smoke obscuring you from your foes; Poison Gas Grenades, which you can use to surround your enemies in toxic fumes; and Mosquito Grenades, which unleashes a swarm of disease-ridden mosquitoes to infect your enemies.

These powerful weapons can’t be found on La Cuna Island. Your only means of acquiring them are in the form of supply drops. Let’s hope the audience is on your side!

Voting Changes

We rebalanced voting options a bit based on your feedback. We have consolidated and reconfigured the voting options so all choices will be pairs of items instead of variable numbers. Yes, this means the lone box of papayas is no longer an option, so audiences are going to have to be more inventive with their trolling.

Sprint Planning

We have added new sprint animations to SOS to improve the fluidity of movement,. We improved how our movement animations transition between the different locomotion speeds.We added new animations for walking and sprinting. Contestants now look smoother when changing direction, running up slopes, or getting slowed by damage.

Good for the Environment

We have continued adding environmental polish to La Cuna Island. We’ve worked more of our new temple architecture into the map, offering better firefights.

A Box of a Different Color

We’re experimenting with new color language for our interactable objects. All of our pick-ups are now color-coded based on Item type so pay attention the next time you loot a backpack!

Quite the Spectacle

We have added the performer HUD to spectator view so that even after you die, you can see your audience’s reaction to what you’re watching.

Hair Today

We’re continuing to update the look of our characters including improving their hair and headwear. Each of our characters will undergo these sorts of makeovers, but the latest Contestant is The Skater. Slap a cap on him to shield him from the sun or flip it backwards and get ready to ollie your way to extraction.

Odds and Ends

Loot Spawn Changes

We’ve randomized Melee Weapon loot spawns. We have increased the number of potential Melee Weapon locations, but then randomized where they actually spawn in match. The total weapon count will remain the same, but you’ll have to be a little more resourceful to find them.

Anti-Cheat Measures

We have added BattlEye implementation to SOS to help with game security and assist in cheat prevention. Upon hitting ‘Play’ in Steam you will be prompted to install and launch BattlEye on your computer. We are committed to offering a fair playing field for all of our Contestants and BattlEye integration is the first step in ensuring this. Check out our knowledgebase article for more information on BattlEye.

More Servers!

We just added servers in Northern Virginia, so players on the East Coast of North America should have an even better play experience.

Improved Draw Distance

Key landmarks and La Cuna’s native vulture population are now visible from even farther away.

Hero.tv Updates

We weren’t just busy on SOS all this time. Hero.tv has also seen some massive updates since you last visited. Head over to the Hero Blog to see what they’ve been working on.