Jungle

A dangerous tropical forest area, full of lush vegetation. Bandits in this area are much more aggressive and deadly. Assassins will hide inside the bushes. Giant Flies will shoot out maggots that swarm your position, damage you, and act as a distraction.

The difficulty of this area is the same as in regular 5-2. After clearing this area you continue to 5-3 in the Frozen City, which means you skip 5-2 and the game's difficulty increases at its normal rate.

 How to enter the Jungle

If you have Last Wish as one of your mutations before entering the Frozen City, a Frozen Corpse Flower will appear in 5-1. Walking over the flower will give the prompt to press E to "Feed," which will cost 1HP every time and must be done four times. Once the flower has been fed, a portal will open, killing all the remaining enemies. Be careful, as even though the flower is quite durable with being able to take 300 damage, it can be destroyed (especially if the level end portal spawns too close to it), denying you access to Jungle and redeeming your Last Wish.

Entering the Jungle will remove Last Wish from your character's mutations, and lets you choose a perk from the same selection as your most recent level-up, with Last Wish replacing the one you chose and able to be picked again should you wish so. As long as there is at least one level-up between you choosing Last Wish and entering Jungle, this can be used as a sort of a re-roll if the selection containing Last Wish didn't have anything desirable.

Trivia

 * As a red herring, the Jungle was ironically added in update #77 titled: "This is not the update in which we add Jungle."
 * Jungle was designed as a "hardcore version of the Desert, where the Giant Maggots grew up and the Bandits had some guerrilla warfare training."
 * This area's Corpse Flower props are based on Rafflesias, tropical plants that look and smell like rotting flesh.
 * The character Plant comes from this area, but the player unlocks Chicken here.
 * The Jungle music was made by Jukio Kallio and Daniel Hagström.
 * The Jungle's main theme is "So Green".
 * The Loading Screen Tip that says "Heart of Darkness" that can appear while entering the Jungle, may be a reference to "Heart of Darkness", a novel written by Joseph Conrad.