Survival Games is officially out of beta!

Over the last week, we have been previewing our new Survival Games update and tweaking the game based on community feedback.

We are now happy that the update is balanced, and have rolled out the changes to the Survival Games modes.

We have also released the first of two new maps, Mobius! We will be releasing the second new map next week.

Thank you to everybody who has given us feedback regarding the update. As always, we are still open to suggestions and will continue to tweak the game based on feedback. If you have any suggestions, please be sure to post them on our forums.

You can view the full changelog here, and the balancing changes we have already made here.

This is the first set of changes to the new Survival Games update, currently in preview. We're constantly reading player feedback and more changes will come if required.

Balance Changes

Loot

• Increased rarity of Boomboxes
• Increased rarity of Activity Trackers
• Increased rarity of Flares
• Reduced the stack size of Arrows

Developer note: We understand that bow/arrow mechanics can feel overpowered. We hope we can have a deeper dive into the damage bows do in the future.

Additionally, loot balance is a very tough thing to get just right. We're constantly reviewing game statistics and community feedback. We will make further changes until it feels exactly right.

Teleporters

• Per-player teleporter cooldown now increased to 15 seconds to deter from teleporter hopping
• Updated hologram to show remaining cooldown time
• Spectators have a shorter cooldown

Flares

• Only one Supply Crate from a flare can now be called in at a time. If a Supply Crate is currently landing, you will be told that the airspace is full.

Hunger [Experimental]

This is an experimental change and will be changing regularly based on player feedback.

• Increased hunger depletion rate while sprinting by 3.5x

Developer note: We've seen a lot of discussion from the community about hunger mechanics. We agree that hunger is currently a pointless mechanic, and we are starting to change that with this update. Our hopes are these changes will stop infinite running, and provide more of a use for food.

Gravestones

• When a player dies to the void, the gravestone will now spawn at the feet of the killer.

Developer note: We've seen an increase of players deliberately running in to the void to stop their killer getting loot. We understand this can be frustrating in such a loot-heavy game. We hope this update will fix this.

Chests

• Removed the ability to destroy a chest with a single punch
• Added the ability to mine a chest (with an axe, for example)

Misc Changes

• Decreased the amount of fire placed by the Fire Boombox. This should help with stutters that players on mobile devices are experiencing.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that would cause the health of your killer to be sent after the health on kill was applied
• Fixed a bug where the killer health message would be sent even if you killed yourself (fall damage, fire, void)
• Fixed a bug where sometimes TNT could be placed in the world
• Fixed a bug where the winning screen did not play a sound
• Fixed a bug that allowed you to damage players while the world was being prepared
• Fixed a bug that allowed Gravestones to be on fire
• Fixed a typo with the Blindness Boombox

It is almost time to bring Survival Games out of beta! Today, we are releasing a preview of the new Survival Games update.

Preview modes are designed as a way for us to get the community's preliminary thoughts. As a result, things may change before the official release. Additionally, no new maps will be added during the preview, as we want to focus on gameplay feedback.

New Items

Activity Tracker

When held, shows a display pinpointing points of interest such as enemies, supply crates, and teammates.

Boomboxes

The boomboxes you know and love for our other games, modified to suit Survival Games, such as shorter fuse time on throw.

Standard Boombox

• Deals explosive damage to nearby enemies

Fire Boombox

• Ignites nearby enemies
• Places small amount of surface fire nearby
• The closer an enemy is to the explosion, the longer the burn time

Cobweb Boombox

• Spawns a scattered cloud of cobwebs
• Cobwebs self-remove shortly after explosion

Blindness Boombox

• Blinds nearby enemies
• The closer an enemy is to the explosion, the longer the effect

Frozen Boombox

• Slows nearby enemies
• The closer an enemy is to the explosion, the longer the effect
• When thrown in water, will create temporary surface ice

Poison Boombox

• Poisons nearby enemies
• The closer an enemy is to the explosion, the longer the effect

Teleporters

Teleporters allow you to travel from point A to point B quickly.

• Short player-specific cooldown to prevent teleporter hopping
• All teleporters are 2-way

Launchpads

Launchpads provide easy ways to get to hard-to-reach areas.

Horizontal launchpad

• Launches you to a specific target destination
• Used as a quick way to travel across awkward terrain

Vertical launchpad

• Launches you directly up
• Each launchpad will launch to a different height, depending on the map and surroundings
• Negates fall-damage if landed on

Campfire

When placed, will heal all nearby players for 1 health every second for 10 seconds.

• Will ignite players if stood on while lit
• Self extinguishes on expiration

Supply Flare

When thrown, will call a supply drop at that location.

Gameplay Changes

Loot set rebalancing

We've rebalanced the loot set to account for new items and player feedback.

Tier 2 Changes

• Guarantees 1 weapon
• Guaranteed 1 piece of armor

New Cornucopia Loot Set

• Guaranteed 1 piece of armor
• Weapons are present but not guaranteed

Food Rate Increase

• No changes to food mechanics, however, we'd like to hear your idea if you feel it should have more of an impact on gameplay

Removed Grace Period Fall Damage

You will now no longer take fall damage during the grace period.

Chest Breaking

You can now break Tier 1 chests by punching them, dropping all items contained within.

UI/Message Improvements

• You are now informed of how many hearts your killer had on death
• Added team status bar (duos)

Visual Changes

Removed Custom Chests

We've removed custom chests in favor of their vanilla counterparts. This reduces the entity count which helps with client performance. Additionally, all maps have had decoration chests removed - any chest you see is now lootable.

Added Custom Fog Support

We've added support for the new Minecraft fog system. You'll see this in use in the future.

Updated Various 3D Assets

Our art team has made some visual improvements to various 3D assets.

Updated Supply Drop

• New model and texture
• Custom open animations
• Custom sounds
• New target icon on ground where the supply drop will land

Updated Cache Cow

• New model and texture

Resource Pack

• Moved many 3D assets and items to resource pack. This improves client performance and allows for a better user experience.

New Prop System

A new prop system is now available, allowing us to add more visual elements to maps. Our first prop is visible in the Flashpoint cornucopia.

Misc Changes

Gravestone Cosmetics

Gravestones are now part of the locker system. Although no new gravestones are present during the preview, we hope to add some soon.

Custom Server Options

We've added new custom server options for the new features in Survival Games.

• New launchpad toggle
• New teleporter toggle
• New loot distribution option

New Quests

We've also added new quest criteria for the new features in Survival Games.

• Use teleport quest criteria
• Use launchpad quest criteria
• Use flare quest criteria

We've also added new stats for these features.

End Podium Improvements

Kill counts are now shown on endgame podiums, so you can show just how good you are!

Feedback

We hope you enjoy this Survival Games preview. This update is still subject to change based on community feedback, so let us know your thoughts.

The Survival Games monthly leaderboards are now live!

Monthly Full Leaderboard (Top 100)

Individual Player Lookup

As a reminder, all leaderboards reset on the first day of the month, UTC time.

This is the first of more upcoming updates for Survival Games. So far we've had some excellent feedback, and we've tried to take a lot of it on board in this first patch. We'll be monitoring feedback and making further changes to loot and balancing where needed.

New Map: Northwood

Loot

• Bows are now slightly rarer
• Arrows are now slightly rarer
• Diamond Swords are very rare in Tier 2 chests
• Added Snowballs and Ender Pearls to some loot sets (could be revoked)
• Removed junk

Gameplay

• Added clear "no-teaming" message to game start
• Arrows shot at melee distance (less than 5 blocks) deal half damage
• While falling, supply drops strike silent lightning to their landing zone
• District names now show below player names in duos

Bugs

• Fixed an issue where games may not end when a player leaves during deathmatch warmup
• Fixed an issue where players could shoot bows during deathmatch warmup
• Fixed the arrow trails, all particles now render correctly

This is a abbreviated version of the full PlayHive.com article

We're proud to announce our 5th main Hive game, Survival Games! A modern variant of the 2013 Hive Java launch game, this game combines the classic 24-player Battle Royale experience with a number of modern additions.

Only interested in future plans? Skip to the last paragraph!

Overview

24 players, solo and duos mode (12 teams). The game is won by eliminating all other teams.

Players spawn in the cornucopia, on 3D pedestals. After the initial countdown ends, players are unfrozen and can start looting chests and scatter around the map. PVP is disabled for 30 seconds (grace period), after which players can damage enemies.

After 15 minutes have passed, or only 4 players remain, the game will start a deathmatch countdown. At the end of this countdown, players are teleported to the deathmatch arena. A short 5 seconds countdown keeps them in place, once this countdown ends players are once again unfrozen with PVP enabled.

Hunger

Survival Games uses a non-vanilla style hunger system. Hunger depletes at a lower rate than vanilla, and does NOT impact health regeneration. Low hunger WILL prevent sprinting.

Loot

Tier-1 chests provide basic loot at randomized locations. Better loot can be found in fixed-position Tier-2 crates.

Top tier level loot can be found in so-called Cache Cows: these pinata-style cows, of which 3 are randomly spawned each round, can be punched to reveal their high level loot inside.

Additionally, supply drops come falling down from the sky every 2 to 3 minutes, with a maximum of 3 drops per round. You can wait for the drops to fall down, or shoot them down with a bow and arrow. Supply drops are filled with high-tier loot.

When a player dies, their body falls down on the floor and becomes a Lootable Body. These act like a virtual chest.

Cosmetics

30 levels are available at this time. This includes:

• 6 global avatars
• 5 hub titles
• 1 costume
• 3 arrow trails
• 11 pedestals
• 11 kill phrases

The future

We intentionally launched Survival Games as a Beta gamemode. We will be making tweaks to gameplay and lootsets where it makes sense. These will be announced on this website as and when they happen.

20 extra levels will be added in a quickly following Game Update 1. This will include never before seen cosmetics, such as a new hub title: StatTrack Hub Titles. These hub titles allow you to show your all-time leaderboard stats in a game as your hub title.

We plan to launch extra variants of Survival Games in the near future.

Monthly leaderboards will launch after the beta period ends. This will be announced at that time.