Once Human received update 3.0.5 on 2 September 2026. It brings storage search, reworked outfit dyeing, portable crafting in the wild and a solid batch of Deviant balance changes. After release, though, several more hotfixes followed that rewrote the original patch notes in a few places, and one of them even explains why the developers won’t roll back a fix that took away some players’ favorite dungeon shortcut. This article gives you the current state of every change, including what’s coming in the 16 September update.
Storage search and crafting without a trip to base
Storage crates and terminals now have a search field. Just type part of an item’s name and the game shows you which crate in your territory you stored it in. No more digging through dozens of boxes by hand.
The second new feature concerns the Raid Zone: the new Portable Crafting function lets you craft straight from your backpack, anywhere in the wild, without having to go back to camp. It works the same way as the workbench at your base. The camp hasn’t gone away; it still serves as a respawn point and a place to cook. According to the developers, portable crafting will gradually come to other game modes as well.
Outfit dyeing got a proper update
The fashion dye system went through a complete upgrade. Items that can be dyed now have an icon in the top left corner, so you can tell at a glance what’s customizable. There are also visual indicators when you have a color preset applied to an outfit piece, and new bulk management: in the fashion set tab, one click recolors the whole outfit at once. On top of that there’s a new “simple mode”: with expert mode turned off, you dye the selected part of the outfit as a whole, without fine-tuning it section by section.
After this update you can recolor these sets: Tradewind Ace, Winter Serenade, Ember Reaver, Furutaka Demeanor, Dino Strike, Combat Medic, Blazing Speed, Heat Storm, White Reaper, Human Barricade Academy, Scarlet Dragon, Teddy Warrior, Crimson Fantasy, Wasteland Sheriff, Artiste, Punk Puppy, Radiant Abyss, Brave Gladiator, Aerial, Nightmyth Graffiti, Swiftwing Ranger, Golden Years, Steel Claw Raid and Black Rhinoceros. More sets with dye support are set to be added gradually. Gloves also got their own section split on the Tideborn Dream, Stellar Elite, Midnight Kiss, Gilded Summer and Stardust Mayfly sets.
Balance: Whalepup loses its extra perk, Soul Summoner gets more fine-tuning
Whalepup was a Status DMG Deviant by design, but in practice it also gave 15% Weapon Vulnerability, a perk it wasn’t supposed to have according to its concept. After this update that part of the effect is gone and Whalepup’s vulnerability is unified: all damage it deals now applies 40% Status Vulnerability to the target for 5 seconds. This is the second step in adjusting this Deviant. In the previous hotfix (26 August) the developers only fixed the wrong description of its ability; now they went after the mechanic itself.
The second tweak concerns Soul Summoner. The cooldown for releasing Phantom Radiance Sparrow had already been adjusted once in the August hotfix; now the developers fixed a bug in the cooldown calculation and set it to 0.5 seconds, so the proc frequency should finally match what was planned from the start. You’ll find an overview of all Deviants and their current strength in the Deviants article.
What’s coming on 16 September: MG4 and Treacherous Tides
On 10 September the developers published a dev blog with preliminary numbers for the next update. The two biggest changes:
- MG4 – Conflicting Memories gets a lower threshold for triggering Shrapnel (from 12 hits to 6) and a new area effect, “Memory Storm”, which activates after a reload or after collecting 12 hits and hits multiple targets with shrapnel at once. For every proc you also gain 0.5 seconds of Super Armor, and the effect stacks. In exchange, the old bonuses tied to magazine size and the +40 magazine capacity are removed.
- Treacherous Tides Set stops scaling its damage bonus with sanity and starts scaling with HP instead, so you’ll no longer have to artificially keep your sanity low, just watch your health. The 2-piece bonus drops from 12% to 10% weapon/status damage below 70% HP, the 3-piece bonus loses its flat +10% damage but scales up to +28% when HP is below 60% (you used to need sanity at 30% for the same number), and the 4-piece bonus gets a bigger shield: 30% of max HP instead of 20% when HP is below 40%.
The developers point out that these are test values and may still change slightly before going live. You’ll find more on the current meta in the builds and weapons overview.
Custom servers: new Excellent status and an uncapped event
Operators of custom servers with an average daily engagement score of 200–599 over a month get the new Excellent status, which comes with a free 30-day server extension. From 2 to 29 September there’s also an incentive event for server hosts with no upper cap on rewards: the more your engagement score grows, the bigger your share of the bonus pool. At the same time, from 3 to 16 September, there’s a challenge for players: join 3 different custom servers in total and you get Avatar: Prayer. More about multiplayer and servers in the dedicated article.
Small things that make playing nicer
- The sign-up lock period for scenario servers was shortened from the previous limit to 4 hours, so you have more time to pick your preferred server.
- In the Way of Winter scenario, the point cap for turned-in Chaosium Hearts was raised to 200.
- In the Prismverse’s Clash scenario, your Faction War rating goes up by 25 points for every 50 Prism Energy gained, and the point cap for defeated players was raised to 150.
- In first person, the shading of the character holding a weapon was fixed.
- Parking spots in the wild have a higher chance of spawning large garage structures.
- Vending machines can now trade facility-type items too.
- On console there’s a new “Y” shortcut for quickly upgrading your territory from the territory hub interface.
- The pillow interaction prompt no longer disappears right away but stays visible until you leave the pillow.
New items in the shop
The themed Lightforge Loot Crate Duskfire Breaker brought the legendary vehicle skin Shadow Trace, the legendary fashion set Sigh of Ember, the legendary group action Thug Overture, the legendary backpack cosmetic Crimson Thorn and the epic melee weapon skin Molten Heart. Also available in the shop for a limited time are the rare fashion set Renegade Era and the Pure White Courtyard facility cosmetics set (a fence, half fence and gate in the same style). Since 9 September, the Mirror Knight Combo Crate has been running with the epic set Prism Mirror, the deviation cosmetic Before the Frost and the duo action Cipher. It uses a draw system that guarantees the grand prize after a fixed number of pulls.
Bug fixes and what the post-release hotfixes brought
As part of update 3.0.5 itself, the developers fixed, among other things, flickering lighting on custom-built furniture, animals passing through doors and door frames in your territory, traits not showing when picking Deviants from a vending machine, wrong key icons in the Survival Manual and a few game crashes on specific mobile devices.
The 4 September hotfix resolved a faulty coupon from the Wish Bazaar opening (a replacement discount coupon reached everyone by mail) and a button conflict between leaving a pillow and recycling a facility. The 9 September hotfix then fixed an issue where progress on the permanent server’s monthly challenge didn’t count for some players (the fix actually went in on 6 September) and a bug that could freeze the game when buying from the shop preview.
More interesting is the explanation the developers added to the same hotfix: the 3 September fix, presented as a minor combat system safeguard, also incidentally fixed an exploit that let you skip some dungeon mechanics if your damage was high enough. This hole gave top players an unfair advantage, and although the developers originally planned to deal with it later this year, they decided not to bring it back, reportedly for the overall security and stability of the combat system. They promise further dev blogs on combat balancing and stats.
The complaints about the Legendary Mod Crate from the Gravity Integrator mode were also cleared up. According to the developers, most of the reported cases did actually get the reward, just in a confusing way: the mode has a weekly reward claim limit, and once it’s used up, only progress toward the guarantee keeps counting. If the guarantee triggers after the limit is used up, the Legendary Mod Crate doesn’t arrive immediately but is delivered by mail within about a day, so it’s best not to switch to another server in the meantime. The developers promise clearer feedback for this reward in October.
FAQ
Update 3.0.5 came out on 2 September 2026 at 16:00 PT. The next big update is scheduled for 16 September 2026, bringing, among other things, the rework of MG4 – Conflicting Memories and the Treacherous Tides Set.
You open your backpack and craft just like at the workbench at your base, without having to go back to camp. For now it works in the Raid Zone, and it’s set to come to other game modes in the future.
Yes. Update 3.0.5 removed its 15% Weapon Vulnerability completely and replaced it with a fixed 40% Status Vulnerability for 5 seconds on any damage it deals. The previous hotfix only fixed the ability description; this is an actual mechanic change.
Yes, if they’re on the list of sets that update 3.0.5 added to the dye system, which you’ll find earlier in the article. According to the developers, more supported sets will be added gradually.
First check whether you’ve used up the weekly reward claim limit. If you have, only progress toward the guarantee keeps counting, and once the guarantee triggers, the reward arrives by mail within about a day. Until then it’s best not to switch to another server.
No. The developers confirmed they will keep the fix for the overall security and stability of the combat system, even though it took away an established shortcut from some players.
Information verified as of 10 September 2026, after the 9 September hotfix and the dev blog on the upcoming 16 September update. You’ll find the previous big update, 3.0.4, in a separate article; the current Deviant balance is summed up in the Deviants overview and recommended builds in the builds and weapons overview. Learn more about custom servers in the article on servers and multiplayer and about the Way of Winter scenario in a separate guide. The full overview of the series is on the Once Human hub.