Hive: rewards, sound and gear on your character

Two big changes in the Hive. You can now hear and see your rewards: each one has its own sound, and big moments get fireworks and a screen shake. And your gear finally shows on you: your bag hangs on your back as a backpack, the hat, shoulder guards, belt and boots are worn on your character, and your tool sits in your hand as a 3D model.

The Hive has sound

Sound now plays in the Hive worlds even if you never turned on Game sounds in the settings. If you turned them off yourself, your choice wins. We picked the reward sounds from scratch: we listened through recordings from large free sound libraries and kept the 18 best.

Big moments

Beating a boss, a new record, a legendary egg, a new land: moments like these no longer slip by. You get a big title, a sound, fireworks, a flash and a light screen shake. When your swarm grows enough for a new land, you see “Unlocked” with its name and a card with a Way button. This works in the High Meadows too.

Gathering has sound as well. Each swing makes a soft sound that gets higher the longer your streak lasts; a crit rings and flashes a ring; a full bag answers with a sound and sparks. Honey reaches the hive with the clink of coins, and a big trip or a trip record gets a title, fireworks and a shake.

Tokens are picked up by touch

You pick up a token on a field only when you walk right into it. At that moment it hops, flies to you, bursts into sparks of its own color and chimes, and each next token in a streak chimes a little higher. You see what you got above your head. Even with high ping, a token is collected the moment you reach it.

The Reward Chest by Grandpa Timofey

Your gift of the day no longer gets handed out on its own a couple of seconds after you join, before you even know what it's for. The gift of the day and the rewards for daily and weekly quests, badges and achievements now wait in the Reward Chest, which stands next to Grandpa Timofey. When a reward appears, you get a card with a Show the way button, and above the chest you can see how many rewards are waiting for you.

Click the chest: the window says what each reward is for and what's in it. Take them one by one or all at once. Nothing burns out: a streak day counts when you join the game, not when you open the chest, and gifts you haven't taken pile up. On day seven of a streak you get a big gift with fireworks.

Hatching and merging

Hatching now has sound: each crack clicks higher than the last, then comes a hum and the hit of its rarity. While the egg charges, the light from the cracks glows one rarity higher (“could it be epic?”) and shows the real rarity a split second before the flash. Legendary and above come with fireworks. A gifted monster gets its own Gifted label, a ring and its own chime.

When you open a batch of eggs, the game pauses for a moment before an epic or rarer one, and the other slots dim. The batch summary shows the best of the batch, how many new species you got and how far you are from the next collection milestone, and if a set of three is ready, a Merge button. Merging has sound too: each tier has its own hit.

Fights and bosses

When a boss falls, the fight freezes for a moment: the boss flashes white, “VICTORY” lights up at the top, then comes an explosion and fireworks. Beating any boss gets one big title with sound. After a shared fight, a card shows your place, your share of the damage and the top three. If you didn't deal enough damage, the card tells you how to make your swarm stronger.

A personal record in trials and events gets its own title. Before a race there's a “3… 2… 1” countdown, and during the race you see above your head which place you moved up or down to.

The Hive screen

We redid the mode's screen in one style: cards. Big titles about a new land, a victory or a new level show up as a card under the honey and bag counters instead of bare text in the middle of the world. The hint about what to do next is a narrow card under them. Messages are cards on the left. Key hints are buttons in the bottom right corner, and they fade after a minute. The center of the screen and the space above the hotbar stay clear.

• A long event line wraps instead of being cut off, and big numbers are written short, like “179.1M”.
• Items on display no longer spin; they stand facing you. Items worse than the one you have get no label.
• When a quest reaches 100%, its panel flashes.
• If there's no room for an egg, Honeycomb and Merge buttons appear next to the message.

Backpack and gear on your character

Before, you couldn't see a Hive bag or gear on a player at all. Now your bag hangs on your back as a backpack, and the hat, shoulder guards, belt and boots are worn on your character. You see them in third person, other players see them too, and they change the moment you buy something new.

Each of the nine gear tiers is clearly cooler than the last, not by color but by shape and detail. Honeycomb appears at tier five, glowing stars at tier six, leaves and flowers grow out of the gear at tier seven, clouds and small wings come at tier eight, and tier nine has big wings, a crown and a glow.

Tools in your hand

All 13 gathering tools, from the Scoop to the Skyvault, are now items of their own with a 3D model: what you hold in your hand is what you see on the icon. We made three versions of each item and kept the best one. The icons in the Pantry, in the Gear window and in the lists of tools and bags are taken straight from these models.

More about the mode in the Hive wiki.