BIRDS TYPES

[ijkdenem]

we need more variety in birds. both the edible ones we can hunt/raise for food and just wildlife in general. would make the wilds a bit more lifelike. also hearing the bird calls would sound pretty cool.

[ijkdenem]

would love to see these in game in ANY form.

[Dark Thoughts]

Flying ones in particular, aside from you know which one. From predators who may even dive down to hunt for small critters to little singing birds that sing in trees to ravens and crows watching you.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

On 2/26/2026 at 5:26 PM, ijkdenem said:

we need more variety in birds. both the edible ones we can hunt/raise for food and just wildlife in general. would make the wilds a bit more lifelike. also hearing the bird calls would sound pretty cool.

The game is oddly devoid of birds aside from chimkins

[Bruno Willis]

I'd like to see geese in the sky signaling seasonal changes, and little birds singing around ripe fruit trees and berry bushes, and falcons circling above corpses that haven't been harvested yet. 

[ijkdenem]

16 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The game is oddly devoid of birds aside from chimkins

 

9 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

I'd like to see geese in the sky signaling seasonal changes, and little birds singing around ripe fruit trees and berry bushes, and falcons circling above corpses that haven't been harvested yet. 

 

17 hours ago, Dark Thoughts said:

Flying ones in particular, aside from you know which one. From predators who may even dive down to hunt for small critters to little singing birds that sing in trees to ravens and crows watching you.

hell yeah i wanna see all of these things. maybe even biome specific birds like vultures/buzzards in the savannah/desert or penguins in the artic places. cranes in the swamps maybe. hawks/eagles in the mountains/forests.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, ijkdenem said:

 

 

hell yeah i wanna see all of these things. maybe even biome specific birds like vultures/buzzards in the savannah/desert or penguins in the artic places. cranes in the swamps maybe. hawks/eagles in the mountains/forests.

Being able to train corvids would be cool, especially if they are trained to bring you rusty gears.

[ijkdenem]

1 minute ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Being able to train corvids would be cool, especially if they are trained to bring you rusty gears.

yeah we give them bushmeat and maybe some grain now and then to lure then in then after a while we get an adorable crow/raven buddy. maybe put the food offerings on a half slab or wooden bowl on top of a post. maybe make a birdbath to entice them to hang around the area. get that chizel out guys we got birdies to impress!!!

[ijkdenem]

or maybe add an actual bird house we can craft to the game for the birds.

[Bruno Willis]

12 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Being able to train corvids would be cool, especially if they are trained to bring you rusty gears.

Corvids would really suit the V.S. tone. The tropical version could be parrots, since they can be similar sized, and are also smart and curious and can learn to talk. 

[ijkdenem]

15 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Corvids would really suit the V.S. tone. The tropical version could be parrots, since they can be similar sized, and are also smart and curious and can learn to talk. 

i agree, a corvid in most areas and a parrot in the more exotic areas.

[ijkdenem]

if we had ostriches we COULD technically get an alternate source of mounts or eggs/birdmeat

[ijkdenem]

ostriches also are powerful fighters so maybe not easy to kill by bears or wolves if left alone?

[LadyWYT]

15 minutes ago, ijkdenem said:

ostriches also are powerful fighters so maybe not easy to kill by bears or wolves if left alone?

I would say make them tier 1 damage and roughly similar to boar regarding health BUT able to easily outrun the player. In that case, the player isn't going to be able to rely on kiting them around in order to kill them, nor is the player going to be able to easily escape such a big angry bird.

[EnbyKaiju]

If we're going for dangerous fight birds let's not stop at ostriches. Let's do this properly...

Vintage Story needs to add cassowaries to warmer climates
The closest thing the modern world has to a terror bird, and I need it, lol

[ijkdenem]

will add to the tags

6 hours ago, EnbyKaiju said:

If we're going for dangerous fight birds let's not stop at ostriches. Let's do this properly...

Vintage Story needs to add cassowaries to warmer climates
The closest thing the modern world has to a terror bird, and I need it, lol

 

[Snarrlord]

I always felt owls would be an appropriate addition to the game given their mysterious and somewhat haunting nature. Being able to see the reflection of light on their eyes in the dark forest would be quite neat. I am not a game developer but I imagine they might be quite difficult to implement in a satisfying way. Birds overall would make the world feel a lot more alive in my opinion and I hope they add a wide variety in the future. 

[Shoom]

I agree, the game lacks birds, having small birds flying around and landing on tree tops/houses, hawks and eagles circling around in the sky would be awesome.

I'm sure the devs have considered it. Remember we only used to have one type of fish and soon we'll have 40+. 

[Zero_]

Birds and bird's nests would be cool. I'm imagining a variety of different colors and sizes of yummy eggs.

 

[LadyWYT]

7 hours ago, Shoom said:

I agree, the game lacks birds, having small birds flying around and landing on tree tops/houses, hawks and eagles circling around in the sky would be awesome.

I'm sure the devs have considered it. Remember we only used to have one type of fish and soon we'll have 40+. 

The biggest hurdle to get over, I think, is on the technical side. Birds do fly, yes, but they don't spend all their time in the air either. Likewise, even some birds that are predominantly ground birds(like turkeys and chickens) are capable of limited flight. Then you've got birds like penguins, who can't fly but can swim, and ducks, which can fly but can also swim, both above and below water. 

Some corners could be cut, of course, but the general behavior changes depending on the bird in question. For a game like Vintage Story, in where realism features more prominently when possible, it would be strange to have birds like ducks and geese restricted to only land and water, or birds like chickens, peafowl, and other ground-dwelling game birds be restricted to just the ground without the ability to fly short distances when startled. Though to be fair, flight would be pretty hard to balance for tameable livestock like chickens, since it's not ideal to force the player to seal them into a building but it's not really ideal to allow them to fly out of a pen easily either.

[Shoom]

19 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The biggest hurdle to get over, I think, is on the technical side. Birds do fly, yes, but they don't spend all their time in the air either. Likewise, even some birds that are predominantly ground birds(like turkeys and chickens) are capable of limited flight. Then you've got birds like penguins, who can't fly but can swim, and ducks, which can fly but can also swim, both above and below water. 

True, there would definitely be some technical difficulty to implementing them and getting them to act naturally, I think they would require their own unique code separate from other animals, easiest would likely be small backyard birds like sparrows and woodpeckers, they could function similar to how butterflies and bees work, as in a nest spawns in a tree during chunk generation and they just stay in the vicinity of that nest, flying out and returning to the nest - the birds themselves aren't really interactable but the nests could contain some lootable eggs, sticks and feathers.

Predatory birds such as eagles and hawks could work in a similar vain but their nest could spawn on higher altitudes, on cliffs and such. I wouldn't expect them to actually go out and actively hunt or have any complex behavior, just a visual treat to add some extra life.

Aquatic birds and ground-dwelling birds would be a bit tricky like you mentioned, I think chickens should remain like they currently are since they are tamable, maybe other similar birds could just have the added ability to fly away in a straight line if startled.. But yea, at this point we're at 4 different "bird systems" and I think I'm starting to see why we don't have birds.   But perhaps one day!

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Shoom said:

I think chickens should remain like they currently are since they are tamable, maybe other similar birds could just have the added ability to fly away in a straight line if startled..

I dunno. I'd like to see them have limited flight, in some ways. There was an old game I played on N64 that let you chase chickens around. They'd remain mostly on the ground, but they would fly up briefly in a panic if you disturbed them too much, though they did attempt to remain in the same general spot.

[DinoHazard]

The lack of any kind of even sign of bird presence (like birdsong sound effects and such) besides chickens in this game made me actually wonder if there's some kind of lore explanation for extremely declined bird populations, hah. Once you notice it it's really hard to ignore. I'm used to birds in videogames being a lot less chatty than real ones but this kind of complete absence feels really out of place in a game so focused on the natural world. I couldn't come up with a gameplay reason for small songbirds to be actual entities in the game though, and I really like the idea of them being an indicator of time/season! (well, a sound effect would still work just as well for that, I guess) It might not be super useful, with every player having a precise internal clock and calendar, but I don't always remember to check that, so it would be nice to have a reminder lol. The option to build bird baths and bird houses would be so cute too... That one definitely is not useful though, I just really like birds

[ijkdenem]

useful for attracting birds. also if we do get insect pests for the crops later we will be glad for the birds cuz they may eat them.

[kiuru]

Good idea. 

Migratory birds, geese and waterfowl were a huge source of meat eggs and feathers. Especially birds like geese flock seasonally in their thousands in suitable places.

Goldeneyes, ducks and other waterfowls have been used to harvest eggs and articial nests have been built because they keep laying to replace the loss. Chickens originate in SE asia, maybe this is a more climate suitable option in some biomes? 

Magpies could be a slow but cool way to get metal nuggets/gems that they store in their nests.

Pest birds like thrushes, fieldfares, crows and jays would disincentivize players from leaving berry bushes unharvested for too long / to use straw figures to ward them off (exists ingame).

Eagles, large hawks and ospreys could be early game enemies but also swans, capercaillies and turkeys are large and territorial enough to become a threat when provoked.

Birdsong could be a fantastic way to incorporate atmosphere in the game, it should be season or even month specific with most noise in the spring-summer. Other seasons you could hear crows croaking and woodpeckers knocking. If taken to the extreme, many birds have warning calls when a player/ predatory animal is nearby.

Would love to see awebos too.