Headlands and Pass creature guide for Honeycomb — Strider horn routes, Bronze Wox packs, Azurite Lonebid, and the Thessalika Nango.
Two zones, two very different rulebooks
Once the Valley stops being a challenge, Sota7 opens up in two directions that could not feel more different. The Headlands is classified by the developers as "Mixed danger. Recommended for experienced field teams," and it is structurally the heart of the game: the official Zone Classification log calls it "the bulk of Sota7's accessible surface area," where "most of the planet's research yield lives... alongside most of its risk." Expect stone formations, constructed remnants, canyon passages and predators that are more present and more assertive than anything in the starter zone. The Pass, by contrast, is the endgame pocket: smaller, denser, and flagged "Extreme risk. End-of-progression zone." The survey log's own phrasing is that it is "not a place to start. It is a place you work toward."
That distinction matters for how you use this guide. The Headlands section is about working safely in a zone you will visit constantly — farming shed Strider horns, dodging Wox packs, hoovering up easy database entries. The Pass section is about preparing for a handful of heavyweight encounters that feed, in the developers' words, "the most advanced systems your research will demand, including hybrid species that are not available anywhere else on Sota7." Everything below comes from Field Survey Logs #3 and #4, launch-week player threads, and the achievement list. Where the community is still guessing — and on Pass content, it mostly is — the guide says so.
Imperial Strider: horns worth the hike
The Imperial Strider is the Headlands' signature ungulate: a deer-like animal with a bi-colored coat that runs from deep chestnut brown on the forequarters to pale cream behind, white speckles on the shoulders and legs, upward-sweeping horns, a short dark mane and a long tufted tail. The survey log calls it graceful and cautious — it flees swiftly when threatened, so the standing advice is to approach slowly and give it room. It nests within the zone's stone formations for cover, and here is the economically important part: its horns are shed naturally, and the log says they are "worth collecting when found," with confirmed value in crafting recipes.
Launch players have already mapped the practical route. In a Steam discussion about fertilizer ingredients, the community answer is that horns lie on the ground around the natural nests of "the goat like species the striders," with nests reported near the volcano in the middle of the map — and that striders are "non hostile, just don't like you getting close right away." The same thread distinguishes natural nests from "artificial" ones, which strongly implies player-built shelters or nests exist for ranching, though the mechanics are not documented yet. One more confirmed detail: a "strider snack" item exists for feeding, but players report the placement is unintuitive — the inventory only offers "Hold in Hand," with no obvious Drop button. If you are stuck there, you are not alone; it is a known launch-week confusion, not you missing a tutorial.
Bronze Wox: the pack problem
The Bronze Wox looks harmless and is not. It is a small caniform — stout elongated body, short sturdy legs, warm bronze coat fading to cream on the back, paws and face, a short grey mane running head to spine — and the survey log itself reaches for "weasel-like." It burrows near the Headlands' stone formations. Individually it is skittish. The danger clause in the log deserves a careful read: when threatened, the wox "becomes dangerous... coordinates with its pack in ways that can catch an unprepared researcher off guard." This is the game's first coordinated pack threat, and the official counterplay is as blunt as it gets: observe from a distance.
The launch-week evidence lines up with the warning. The day-two player thread about immediately hostile wildlife describes "some weasel thing" that would not let a new player get close enough to scan — almost certainly a Bronze Wox defending its ground. Worth noting for veterans of pre-release coverage: a 2023 devlog described woxes as aquatic creatures that "thrive in an aquatic environment," while the 2026 survey log puts the Bronze Wox in burrows by the rocks. Either the design changed or multiple wox subspecies exist; nobody has confirmed which, so trust what you see in your own game over any older footage. If you need its fur — the log confirms recipe value — the safe play is to work the edges of a burrow area, never the middle, and to back off the instant one wox stops fleeing and starts holding position.
Woodback Tortoise and Flux Beetle: easy database entries
Not everything in the Headlands wants to test you. The Woodback Tortoise is the zone's gift to researchers: slow-moving, docile, and running on predictable patterns that the survey log calls "one of the more cooperative subjects in the zone." If you are still learning the scan-approach-sample loop, or you want to observe animal behavior without a clock running, the tortoise is your practice dummy. The log lists no material yield — its value is research progress, which is progression in this game, so scan it anyway. The Flux Beetle is even simpler: a harmless insect found across the Headlands whose presence, per the log, signals a functioning ecosystem. Documenting it "rounds out field notes" — completion fodder for the database achievements like Zoologist.
Do not let the two pushovers recalibrate your threat sense, though. The Zone Classification log is explicit that in the Headlands predators are "more present here, and more assertive," and the survey series never names all of them. Players wandering off the beaten path at night have reported running into hostile packs with no way to defend themselves — one refunded review describes exactly that during the early titanium errand, with the species unidentifiable in the dark. So the Headlands rule of thumb: named species have documented temperaments you can plan around, unnamed movement in the dark does not. Scan everything in daylight, and treat the zone after sunset as a different, meaner map until you know its rhythms.
Azurite Lonebid: big, blue and gentle
The Pass opens with a pleasant surprise. The Azurite Lonebid is a large caniform — muscular frame, powerful clawed forelimbs, deep blue coat with pale irregular spots — that reads like the zone's apex predator and behaves like the zone's gentle giant. The survey log calls it "curious and gentle despite its size," which is a genuinely rare combination in an extreme-risk area. The catch is its hearing: the log warns it "will know you are there long before you get close," and the official approach advice is a single word of calibration — steadily. No sprinting up for a quick scan, no sudden direction changes. Pick a line and walk it.
Its fur is confirmed as worth collecting for crafting, which gives you a concrete reason to make the approach work rather than admire it from a ridge. Practically, the Lonebid is also your calibration target for the whole zone: if you cannot manage a slow, committed approach on a gentle animal that merely avoids you, you are not ready for the Pass's genuinely contested encounters. The log describes Pass species as "not abundant... deliberate, often contested," meaning every sighting is an appointment rather than ambient noise. Treat the Lonebid as the zone's entrance exam. Pass it, and you have the movement discipline the rest of this guide assumes.
Thessalika Nango: the long game
The Thessalika Nango is the creature the whole progression curve bends toward. It is a heavily scaled quadruped that "reads as reptilian but is classified as a mammal, within the same order as pangolins" — armored plates across the back and shoulders, a short spined crest running head to neck, and what the survey log calls an "unmistakable dragon-like quality." Temperament: solitary and not easily won over, with the log adding that "building trust here is worth the effort." That phrasing strongly implies a trust or taming track, and the achievement list confirms taming exists as a system. Its shed rigid scales have confirmed crafting value, and true to the game's design, shed means collected off the ground — no violence required.
The Nango has history. Frozen Way teased it in August 2025 as "this big ball of scales," sharing only the name Nango, then confirmed in the delay announcement two months later that "the Nango is officially joining all the other fauna." The release-build formal name is Thessalika Nango — and Thessalika matters, because the achievement "Animal Whisperer" asks you to "tame the most ferocious creature of Thessalika." Two days after launch only 2.3% of players hold it, which tells you the Nango line has a ferocious variant and that taming it is a genuine endgame project. What nobody has published yet is the actual method — feeding, proximity time, a minigame, some sequence — so treat any step-by-step Nango taming guide you find this week as speculation. Bring snacks, bring patience, and expect to be the first to figure it out.
Skittertail and Pass logistics
The Skittertail rounds out the named Pass roster: a small lizard-like microfauna of the rocky terrain and open surfaces, officially passive and not a threat, offering what the log calls "accessible biological samples for ongoing research." In a zone where every other encounter carries weight, the Skittertail is your free sample — scan it, sample it, and take the easy research progress. That matters more than it sounds, because the Pass log is explicit that its species tie "directly to late stage progression and hybrid development," including hybrid species unavailable anywhere else. The Pass is small and dense by design, "designed for completion," so the efficient play is deliberate route planning rather than wandering.
Sustain yourself properly before you commit to those routes, because the Pass's flora tells you what the zone expects. Earth Filoy — an orange plum-like fruit from the clay-rich uplands and lake shores — is safe raw and described as dependable sustenance for extended operations, making it your default field ration there. The Prism Nut is the trap option: dense, fatty nutrition with a bitter taste, but "consumption rapidly induces thirst." Eating Prism Nuts without water reserves is how a productive survey run turns into an emergency retreat. Pack processed water or know where the zone's sources are, keep your Immunity Pump situation sorted for long expeditions, and remember the zone's own summary: every encounter carries weight. There is no filler in the Pass except the lizard.
One more preparation note, because the Pass punishes casual visits harder than anywhere else. Go in with a full med kit — the sprained-leg and bleeding status effects players report are run-enders this far from base — and with your knockout plan already decided: if you black out in the Pass, your loot bags will be sitting in the most contested terrain on the planet, so the margin for sloppy approaches is thin. There is no confirmed fast travel anywhere in the game; the hoverboard is the overland tool, and fan-wiki testing suggests it struggles on exactly the steep, broken ground the Pass is made of, so budget real time for the walk in and out. The developers designed this zone as the capstone — "designed for completion," not exploration — and the players who thrive in it will be the ones who treated getting there as half the encounter.
What we still do not know
The honest gap list, as of day three. The full subspecies roster is unresolved — the developers described nine species with sub-species at GDC 2025, while the survey logs name eleven species, and no datamined bestiary exists yet. Several creatures from 2023 devlogs are unaccounted for in the release build: a swift unnamed feline predator, a docile bear-like animal, a fish-eating mustelid, plus an unnamed creature teased "prowling along the beaches" in June 2026 and a species called Zhalo shown in a feeding animation. Any of them could be Headlands or Pass residents under new names, or cut, or coming later — nobody knows. Whether tamed or hybrid animals can be released into the wild is likewise an open question the developers themselves once posed without answering.
Also unverified: the exact mechanics of artificial nests and animal shelters that players have stumbled into, the recipe list behind every shed material, and whether the Headlands' unnamed predators are variants of known species or something the survey logs deliberately left out. One sourcing warning before you go research-hunting: multiple wiki farms that appeared at launch invent biome names wholesale — anything referencing "Amber Plains," "Crystal Caverns" or "Tide Pools" is fabricated and contradicts the official Valley/Headlands/Pass structure. Cross-check against the Field Survey Logs on the Steam news hub, contribute what you verify, and enjoy the part of a game's lifecycle where the map still has blank spots.
Sources & verification
This article combines cited facts with practical editorial advice. Follow the version and uncertainty notes before applying an older route.
