Hello again! It’s been a while since our last update, but as we talked about in the previous one much of the team was out on vacation. As of today, however, most people are back; which means we’re able to put some finishing touches on the August update. While not as big as our June update, it does contain some good stuff that we hope you’ll enjoy.
Alright, you’ve been telling us that you wanted a way to store your items - for a multitude of reasons - and we definitely heard you. This month we’re happy to roll out storage boxes that will help you hold all of your excess goodies! Whether you are a collector, someone who likes to plan ahead, or a hoarder - you’ll now be able to hold on to a lot more of your stuff than before. Storage boxes will be available at every safe house and can also be accessed by all the characters you have created.
Also in the August update we’re giving attention to Side Missions in the same way we did for Main Missions. Primarily this results in Side Missions not getting caught in an uncompletable state, but also adds some clarity tweaks as well. So if you had some stuck Missions previously, you should be unstuck and can continue progressing after this update. From here on out we’re done with major changes to the Mission system and instead will focus on smaller, individual bugs that may pop-up with them as time goes on.
That’s all for now! We’ll see you shortly when it’s time for the update to roll out. So in the meantime please keep the feedback coming as we look ahead to more game updates. Speaking of, you can help out right now by taking our latest survey! Thank you!
//The Generation Zero Team
Letter from the Development Team - July 19th
Hello everyone! First of all, a warm welcome to any new players joining us as summer rolls around. Summer means some people have more time for games, and we’re happy to have you with us!
Speaking of summer, we’re now in the middle of the Swedish summertime period which means people across the country are headed out for their vacations. And that means we’ll be at a reduced number during this time as well. So, what does that mean for Generation Zero? With the team being down to a skeleton crew, it means that we'll not have an update this month, but will instead focus our efforts into ramping up for the next content update once we're back.
That doesn’t mean that work has completely stopped in July. The team members still at the office have stuff on their plates that they’re working on to move us forwards for the next update. What things you ask? You’ll have to stash that question away for now, but it is a feature that has often been requested. We’ll have more info as we get closer to releasing it.
During these summer months we’ll still be tweaking things in the game to continually improve the experience. For the next update we’re giving the Side Missions the same treatment we gave Main Missions. This means clearer direction when undertaking Side Missions, as well as better consistency of Missions not getting caught in a bad state. After this, we will be done with the major updates to the Mission system and can then just catch the odd bug here and there individually, rather than playing whack-a-mole with systemic issues. So if you find anything, do let us know!
That’s it for this week - we’ll be back soon but for now please keep the feedback coming! Thanks and enjoy your summer!
//The Generation Zero Team
Hotfix Deployed
We have just released a small update that will correct a recently introduced crash that could occur when using fireworks. You should see the update appear for download shortly.
Schweet Vanity Pack Available for Purchase Now!
The new "Schweet Vanity Pack" customisation is now available for purchase ($4.99/€4.99 or local equivalent) here on the Steam store. Containing four customisation clothing sets, (Explorer, Miami, Tourist, and the VERY Swedish Midsummer set) the machine-apocalypse has never looked so good!
Hello and welcome to our June Update! We'll first cover some of the features and improvements that we wanted to go into greater depth on, and after that are the rest of the patch notes. As always, please let us know your feedback - enjoy!
Bikes
The team is excited to bring you our second new feature to the game - Bikes! An iconic part of 80’s culture and a great source of transportation, Bikes will definitely change how you make your way across Östertörn. Available at every safe House, players can now interact with the Bike station to spawn their own “Cykel” Bike. This model comes in three different colors, with Sky Blue available immediately and the Emerald Green and Ruby Red variations unlockable by destroying certain machine types.
You’ll notice that this particular Bike performs better on the road than off it, so keep that in mind when planning your routes. And beware of machines, they still can and will attack you on sight! Lastly, as this is our first step with Bikes in Generation Zero - our plan is to continue to iterate and improve them over time based on your feedback.
Main Mission Improvements
As discussed in previous communications, in this update we set out to take a long look at Missions, based on feedback and data that showed that they were not working as expected. After digging into things, we decided to make some alterations “under the hood” to the Mission system to improve the experience for players now and in the future.
So, what does this mean for you? Primarily we’ve sorted issues where Main Missions (previously called Warboard Missions - Payback, Safety, & Answers) could get stuck in an uncompletable state. Therefore, if you are currently stuck or were at risk of becoming so, this fix will solve that. This means that players will now be able to finish the core game story without fear.
Of note, this fix does come with some quirks. One is that this update has the side effect of us resetting progress on your current Missions back to the first step of that Mission. Again this only affects players that are part-way through a Mission, so if you are at the first step you’ll see no change. Doing so was a necessary step to improve the system for now and the future - We apologise for any inconvenience it might cause in the short term.
Secondly, if you are someone who is currently stuck on a Warboard Mission from the region you logged out in, the Mission will disappear from your Log - But it’s not really gone! You’ll just need to fast travel out of that region then back for it to reappear. This is a late discovered bug that we’ll look into fixing for a future update.
Another benefit of looking into the Missions system is that we’ve improved some of the HUD / Map elements to make things clearer and easier to understand. For players, this means that your current Mission objective will now appear in the upper left of the HUD (which can be turned off in Settings). Additionally there are now more icons on the in-game compass at the top of the screen to help guide you to where Tracked Mission items are.
Our aim is that through all of these combined improvements, players will have an easier time getting through the game. Please let us know if we hit the mark or not!
Game Balance Tweaks
Based on player feedback from the last patch, we identified a few areas that needed to be touched up a bit as the changes we made didn’t quite land the way we intended. Please keep the feedback coming on these items as we continue to improve the overall game experience.
Explosive Damage We heard from you that the tweaks we made to how explosive damage vs. machines was calculated made the difficulty swing too much the other direction. After looking into it, we’ve increased the explosive damage for all weapons, gadgets, and environmental objects.
Loot Containers No more empty spawning loot containers! You reported some bugs but also mentioned that in general this just didn’t feel good, so we they’ve now been tweaked to prevent them from being empty when they’re spawned.
This means that any loot container that you have not looted within 4 hours of gameplay should contain at least one item when you open it. Keep in mind that loot is saved locally - which means that loot containers looted in single player will remain looted if you join a multiplayer game within the cool down period.
Machine Loot Just like with loot containers, we wanted to make looting machines feel better. To that end we’ve made some more tweaks which we think are an improvement.
The biggest change is how much ammo will drop for all enemy types. We want the amount to better reflect the ammo cost of defeating them. This means that on average you should get back as much ammo as you used to best the machine you fought. On top of that, all machines can now potentially drop health items!
To round things off, all Tanks and Harvesters now have a chance to drop bonus items such as weapons and attachments. Item rarity is tied to machine class with C-class variants dropping the best items
Bug Fixes
Main changelog continues below:
Missions
As mentioned, all Main & Warboard Missions have received retroactive fixes for stuck Missions. We want to specifically call out a few below as they were the ones with the most reports:
“Flying Objects”
“Flying Blind”
“Spiking the Guns”
“The Girl Who Cried Wolf”
“Minken Bunker”
“Uttern Bunker”
“On the Road” is no longer blocked by claiming the safe house before destroying machines in the area.
“The Hunter” now correctly triggers machine spawns as intended.
“The Hunter” will no longer cause Mission items to respawn when reloading a save whilst on the Mission.
“The Hunter” now has improved Mission description to make objectives clearer.
“Flying Blind” will no longer have a chance of the bunker doors remaining locked after completing the Mission.
“Flying Blind” has received an adjusted Point of Interest marker so that it is now correctly located on the bunker entrance.
“Spiking the Guns” will no longer erroneously show two tracked waypoints.
“Beachhead” received a rework of the Mission objectives to make them clearer.
“Behind the Curtain” has corrected an issue that could prevent progress via a locked door if the session was restarted mid-Mission.
“The Home Team” no longer has an issue that could prevent players progressing past this Mission.
“Loud and Clear” has corrected an issue that could prevent Mission completion.
“Loud and Clear” now has thetick jammer correctly located on the circuit box.
“Break of Dawn” will now have correctly update Mission progression
“Gas Run” can now be completed even if the gas station was destroyed before acquiring the Mission.
Corrected issue that could remove the current objective message and place of interest marker when a player respawns.
“The Old Guard” now correctly spawns machines related to this Mission inside the bunker, rather than on top of it.
“The Old Guard” now correctly tracks Mission progress when carrying out objectives.
“Courage, Power, and Resilience” now correctly tracks Mission progress when carrying out objectives.
“Lost and Found” now correctly tracks Mission progress when carrying out objectives.
“Over and Out” no longer has a blank Mission item.
“Strength in Numbers” has a clearer Mission objective where it now states where machines need to be eliminated from.
Updated appearance of Place of Interest markers.
Corrected issue where displayed total number of tracked Mission objectives could be mismatched with actual total.
Multiplayer
“Break of Dawn” now correctly appears in Mission log during Multiplayer.
“Break of Dawn” will now have correctly applied Multiplayer progression.
An issue was corrected that could in some cases block Mission progression when ending a session part way through.
“The Girl Who Cried Wolf” no longer has a mismatch between single and multiplayer progression.
When playing co-op as a guest, Mission progress will now correctly carry over to your single player game if you were on the same Mission step (or beyond) as the host in a Multiplayer game when you joined them.
Animation
Corrected animation mismatch with pump shotgun when viewed from third-person.
Improved machine “powered down” animations to better signify their status when EMP’d.
Various improvements to machine movement and idle animations.
Audio
Corrected issue that could prevent audio settings from saving correctly.
The public emergency alarm will no longer loop continuously.
Combat
Environmental gas no longer incorrectly causes damage to machines.
Made improvements to prevent Hunters jumping through walls/ceilings/objects.
Environment
Corrected collision on “platform” asset so players/machines can no longer clip through it.
Corrected “shed” asset so that players no-longer need to jump to cross the threshold.
Removed invisible collision area in the middle of picket fence gate.
Corrected various locations where players could potentially get stuck in terrain.
Corrected issue that could cause bunker doors that were tied to power activation to re-lock after starting a new game session.
Various floating world objects corrected.
Experience
Corrected issue that could result in less experience than intended being rewarded when destroying machines via explosive damage, such as:
Exploding components, e.g. the fuel tanks on the runners
Using deployed explosives, e.g. mines and gas tanks
Explosive weapons, e.g. Granatgevär and hand grenades
Graphics
Decals should no longer flicker on machines
Performance improvements via decreasing the time of machine wrecks despawn from the world.
Fixed a bug where Ticks spawned by other machines could live forever, bogging down performance.
Items
Field radio should no longer jitter in place when associated relay beacon is destroyed.
Large EMP cell now reacts more consistently when hit with bullets.
Key Bindings
Multiple improvements to key-binding menu.
Photo Mode
Corrected misalignment of UI features when used in Windowed mode.
Text chat will no-longer incorrectly display when using Photo Mode.
UI
The Multiplayer menu now correctly gives feedback when applying settings.
AR and SMG barrel extensions no longer incorrectly show the suppressor icon in inventory.
Made it easier to interact with “sitting corpse” asset when looting.
Corrected issue that could cause “The Farm” objective icon to remain even after completing progress.
Weapons
Green dot sight markers should no longer cause vision to be obstructed when used.
Corrected issue that could cause trace effects to display long after weapon has been fired.
Corrected misplaced muzzle flash for Granatgevär.
Thank you for reading!
/The Generation Zero Team
[FREE DLC NOW AVAILABLE] Hunters Become the Hunted Reward
As we informed you yesterday, the community managed to hit our goal for the "Hunters Become the Hunted" event, Congrats! Please check the link below to activate and download your FREE DLC, the "Tubular Vanity Pack"
A big congratulations to you all on absolutely acing our "Hunt the Hunters" event! Check the Steam store page tomorrow for the FREE customization DLC (Available to ALL players, even if you couldn't make the event).
[COMMUNITY EVENT] Hunters Become the Hunted
The "Hunters Become the Hunted" event is now LIVE! Get out there and destroy any category of "Hunter" machines to progress to the 150k combined total community goal. Your reward? FREE customisation DLC for the entire community!
Reminder: If you can't get involved in the event you don't need to worry about missing out, the reward goes to anyone who owns Generation Zero.
Information about how/when your reward will be credited will be sent out next week.
/The Generation Zero Team
[STREAM] Community Event Reveal
Join Graham and Mat for tomorrow's stream as they unveil a new community event where you can all work together to earn some free DLC content for Generation Zero! (Don't worry, you can still take part if you miss the stream, more info will follow) Wednesday June 5th, 16:00 CEST twitch.tv/generationzerogame
May Update Now Live
Hello and welcome to the change list for our May Update. The first section covers some features and improvements that we wanted to go into a little more detail on, but continue reading for the full patch notes!
Photo Mode
We’ve received tons of comments about how great the world looks, and Photo Mode allows you to really make the most of it. This has been in our heads for some time and we’re happy to bring it to you now! Please feedback and let us know how we can improve on it. And don’t forget to share your new photos!
Photo mode can be open either via the emote wheel or main menu.
Skill Screen Revamp
We improved the look and feel of the page, as well as made the skills more easily understood at a glance.
Intro Island Improvements
We’ve taken a look at player feedback, as well as our own data, and saw a lot of people were not getting a good feel for the game during their initial experience. We’ve gone back and looked at ways to improve the feeling of the starting area to give new players a better understanding of the variety the game holds later on. We’re evaluating how these changes affect player behavior in this limited capacity as we know that the denseness of the experience in the game is something that is called out by all players. Going forward we plan to explore other ways of filling up the world, so consider this the start. The main changes to mention are:
Scenes
As you explore you’ll come across small “set pieces”, each telling a small visual story about the moments as the machines took over. Oh, and there’s loot to be found for your efforts! World Simulation Tweaks - Machine spawns have been tuned and now include more variety
Sprint Run Toggle PC (Community Feedback)
We’ve worked to make sprinting a bit easier on the fingers. You can now toggle sprint on so you don’t need to hold down shift as you run.
Head-Bobbing Toggle (Community Feedback)
There is now a toggle to stop head-bob as it was negatively affecting some players
Pansarvärnsgevär 90 (Pvg 90) Iron Sights
Every weapon should be able to use iron-sights if you don’t have a scope. Happy hunting!
Tick Spawn In Building Interiors
Adding some suspense and surprise into the world!
Explosive Damage Tweaks
Explosive damage wasn’t behaving properly when it came to machines and their components. As of now, the damage will be applied correctly and should make explosive weaponry feel much more consistent.
Sprinting Heartbeat (Community Feedback)
We’ve heard the feedback on the heart beat sound being too loud and staying on the entire time you sprint. In response we’ve lowered the sound and re-worked it so that the sound gets quieter over prolonged running.
Sound Improvements
- Hunting Rifle silencer shots re-designed - Loot pick-up sounds now play immediately
Save Game Backups (PC only)
In an attempt to help protect against lost save games, we now create both a savegame and a savegame.bac file. If the main savegame file becomes broken or corrupted the game will instead load from the .bac version. When this happens you’ll see a notification when launching the game. If this backup system should be needed a small amount of gameplay may be lost, but this will be extremely minor, perhaps just a few minutes. We are also investigating this feature for consoles, but have no ETA at this time.
Persistent Loot
- Single items - Items outside loot containers, such as weapons and medpacks found at some safe houses, can now only be looted once per player - Containers - Will no longer respawn immediately on relog/fast travel. You’ll need to move between areas to loot efficiently. Loot will however begin to spawn again in cleared areas once a few hours have passed.
Loot Balancing
We’ve tweaked the amount of loot depending on region. Harder regions offer more loot while easier regions/starting area offer less loot. Our intent was to not overwhelm new players, while allowing players who have advanced farther to get their hands on more things that will help them against the increasing Machine threat in later regions.
Location Loot Counters
Location summaries no longer include loot boxes as it created a sense that you had to loot all the random containers in an area. It was confusing and didn’t offer much to the experience.
“Locations Discovered” and “Locations Completed” We’ve fixed how these sometimes showed the incorrect numbers.
Main Changelog continues below:
Community Feedback
These are various changes across different categories that were taken directly from community requests
Interaction radius for dead machines has been improved, they are now easier to loot.
Display setting changes now require an “apply” click for the change to take effect
It’s no longer possible for uninvited players to join your game with the “Invite Only” setting turned on.
The stealth indicator will now disappear once you’ve engaged in combat.
Auto-aim assistance will no longer lock onto the components of destroyed machines
The silencer will no longer block the front sights of hunting rifles when used without and attached scope.
Achievements / Trophies
Those who have completed the requirements for the “Elementary” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You” will receive credit for these when you log-in after updating.
Animation
Weapon-change animations will now sync correctly when viewed from the third-person (in multiplayer etc.).
Audio
Destroyed machines will no longer continue to play sound effects.
Fired bullets that land out of audio range will no longer “hang around” that location until you move to it.
Moving through foliage will properly play sounds again.
Character
The third-person pose shown when holding a Sjöqvist shotgun has been fixed to show the correct one.
The character preview when starting a new character sometimes did not accurately reflect the options that were selected
Environment
Improvements made to lower the amount of floating props/objects/textures both inside buildings and around the world in general.
Various terrain “tears” fixed.
Corrected placeholder title on the newspaper prop in the Hunter’s Lodge at Björknäs.
Corrected issue that could cause players to become stuck in tent openings when entering them.
Various fixes to overlapping assets that were causing areas to be blocked (for example in Skvadern Bunker).
Hardware
Holding down the fire button while switching weapons / items no longer automatically fires the item that was switched to.
Inventory
Apparel now properly stacks within a type.
The preview and text description will no longer stick around after an item has been dropped.
Loot
Removed deprecated item that could sometimes be looted by players (you may have seen it before as marked with a crosshair in your inventories).
Corrected non interactable loot location at Tokeröd Farm.
Various loot objects that could not be reached corrected.
Machines
Tanks were in some cases not using their full complement of available weaponry, they’re now a bit more dangerous!
Ticks now correctly deal melee damage.
Harvesters and Tanks will no-longer take damage from their own gas attacks.
Machines that are spawned via Mission triggers will now correctly keep their accumulated damage during the game session.
Tanks should no longer continue to collide with buildings after being rag-dolled.
The Tick “container” on Tanks has been corrected to use the correct one.
Improvements made to lower cases of machines leaning at odd angles when traversing terrain.
Improvements made to Runner animations.
Map
Discovering the “Fiskebäck” settlement will now correctly add a map icon.
Resolved UI issue on Map screen.
Menus
Clothing stats now display correctly.
UI corrections to Key Binding menu.
Missing art has been added to mixtape collectibles.
The main menu now has its original background image.
Missions
Some of these mission fixes will correct issues for those attempting missions for the first time or those who are playing a fresh save. We understand how important these fixes are for currently stuck players and we’re working to correct these retroactively in our next update. By re-working our Mission system under-the-hood, we will be correcting current issues and helping to future-proof new missions.
“Calling for Help” can now be completed.
Fixed issue with Minken Bunker warboard that could occur if objectives were completed out of order.
Corrected some mission descriptions to offer more accurate instructions.
Fixed issue where players could needlessly loot the same mission object multiple times.
Corrected misleading mission text for “The Farm” mission. Additionally, corrected waypoint marker locations.
Increased variety of enemy types inside bunkers related to Warboard missions.
It is no longer possible for progress in “Road to Salthamn” to be blocked by picking up mission triggers early.
Improved “Sanctuary” mission to make objectives clearer.
“The Girl Who Cried Wolf”, corrected inconsistency with mission markers and mission item. Added new waypoint markers where appropriate.
Multiplayer
Options for Multiplayer (Invite Only Vs. Open etc.) will now persist when switching characters.
The game will no longer generate an infinite black screen when trying to connect to a game session that is no longer present.
It is now possible to correctly join a multiplayer game from a single player session when using the Steam overlay.
Progression
Fixed issue that would prevent players reaching level 31.
Skills
The Hacking skill when used on out-of-combat enemies will no longer cause them to become entirely docile.
Stability
Various crash fixes
UI
Removed VoIP Icons that were incorrectly displayed on PC version of the game.
Missions requiring interaction with answering machines now display the correct icon on the mission log item entry.
Corrected issue that could occur when attempting to re-bind left-click.
Weapons
In some cases aiming down sights could shift your aim to the right, this has been corrected.
Placed objects will no longer despawn early when players move away from them.
Animations now sync correctly when firing after sprinting.
When reloading the Granatgevär it should now longer cause a floating projectile to display when viewed from third-person.
Fixed issue that could result in camera raising too fast when firing weapons on full-auto.
Experience
Due to the way experience was counted for destroyed machines players were often credited with unreasonably low amounts, this has been corrected.
Thank you for reading, and now we'll get straight on to working on our June Update!
