i see steam got there's where's ours

The devs marked that 1.16 "update" as a development branch beta, meaning still a work in progress. It's actually making the game worse for some people on the Steam forums and, because they didn't back up their save files, can't revert back to v1.15 without starting a whole new game.

So, yeah... doesn't sound like this "patch" is ready for retail yet.

Quote from Dev in discord:
"Patch is on dev-branch to make sure there are no serious issues before it goes live everywhere."

Beautiful. Thanks for the update!

(PC) Version 1.16.1.79899 patch notes: Do., 1. September 2022 - 18:27 CEST

Version 1.16.1.79899 patch notes:
- Fixed: Performance loss in woods
- Fixed: Displaying the wrong age class of animals (new hunted animals will show correct age but those already in the hunting log will not have correct age; this will be fixed in 1.17)
- Fixed: Removing the last purchased item after loading
- Fixed: Territory pass recovery after broken save
- Fixed: Puskin (Red deer with rifle stuck in antlers) sometimes spawning without one antler
- Fixed: Incorrect wolf meat degradation even if shot with recommended energy
- Fixed: Animals disappearing when hit
- Fixed: Animals spawning next to the player during gameplay
- Fixed: Binoculars animation with FOV above 110
- Fixed: Crash on load resulting in a Fatal Error
- Fixed: Crash after an infinite reload in Photo mode resulting in a Fatal Error
- Fixed: Crash during “Ain't no cinnamon when sky's gone” cutscene resulting in a Fatal Error
- Partially fixed: Stability issues in Swamps resulting in a Fatal Error
- Fixed: Riddle me this Part III progress blocker - dialogue can be re-triggered by interacting with the photo/dialogue will play automatically after player respawn following player death or exiting the game

Known issues:
- Crashes can still occur with low probability while shooting waterfowl for an extended period of time
- Previously disappeared mission animals will not reappear. We hope to be able to bring them back in a later patch, but unfortunately, right now the only way to progress is from the beginning, by deleting the current save file.
Some players may experience certain story dialogue playing after every game load - holding Enter will skip it.
- During the mission "Not a huffle badger", badgers may disappear from the designated location. Resting until the following day should respawn them.
- Missing ladder sound

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1288320/view/3323115107434720836

But what about fixing the save file issues people are having? They're losing all their hours of progress! It's ridiculous. Bugs are one thing and lack of content another, but no one wants to keep restarting the damn game from scratch over and over again.

I don't wanna say this feels like early access... but this feels like early access.

The game was released too early with the bugs and missing content.

so 1.16.1.79899 is the latest version?

Yes. Offline Installer 1.2 is 1.16.1.79899 in-game version and the latest.