Hawthorn Resources

The Winter 2025/2026 development update is unusually specific about resource placement, and the detail matters for planning:

• Most pickups are implemented and look more natural and engaging to interact with than the earlier version.
• Placement is procedural, with systems set up so resources can be integrated into gameplay systems.
• Placement reacts to world events — the team built “fine-tuned control over where these resources appear dynamically based on events in the world”.
• Performance was a stated concern, with significant effort spent keeping it fast.

The practical consequence: foraging routes expire. This is a meaningful departure from games with fixed nodes, and it is the reason the Explorer role exists in co-op — re-scouting is ongoing work, not a one-time task.

Gathering speed rarely limits a village sim. Hauling does. Hawthorn makes you drag resources with a rope, and dragging was improved in the Winter 2025/2026 build — meaning the team considered it important enough to revisit.

Three rules follow, none of which need unpublished numbers:

• One storage destination. The most common self-inflicted problem in this genre.
• Short routes over optimised routes. With procedural placement, route efficiency decays; shortness does not.
• Wide gaps. Test hauling through your layout before you commit to it.

More in Village Building.

• Respawn timers. No published rate for any pickup.
• Node types. “New plants and resources to gather” is the most specific statement available.
• Season exclusivity. Unknown whether anything is season-locked.
• Tool requirements. Whether gathering needs tools or upgrades.
• Timber and mining. Not confirmed — see the open questions on the records above.