We would like to thank all of our current users for their patience while we finalized our new level, Leap of Faith. Due to its size and complexity, as well as the fact that it is our first outdoor level, we encountered a number of performance issues that caused us to delay its release. In addition to this, because we were excited to get this level out, we rushed our development process, which ended up causing more problems than anything. We have since reviewed what went wrong and have outlined how we plan to improve our development pipeline for future releases, in order to avoid encountering such issues and delays again. We hope that you enjoying exploring the new environment and experimenting with the mechanics that the level emphasizes!
In addition to the new level, this update contains two new graphics options that should enable users with less powerful graphics cards to achieve much better framerates and have a better overall experience while playing the game. Furthermore, our next update will contain several other performance improvements, which will drastically improve gameplay for all users.
While a significant portion of the next update will focus on performance, we will be including a few new features and another level as well. Unlike Leap of Faith, the next level release will not be another mission, but rather a challenge map, which will also serve as a PvP map in the future. To get an idea of what’s in store, check out the teaser below!
A note to WMR users:
We are aware that there are various rendering issues that occur when playing our game using some WMR headsets. These bugs appear to have been resolved in Unreal Engine 4.19; however, when we upgraded to UE 4.19, we encountered a number of game-breaking bugs that prevented us from being able to incorporate it into this update. We are actively working on this and apologize for the inconvenience. We appreciate your patience and hope we can get the update out to you soon.
New Features
- New Level: Leap of Faith
- After being extracted from the government training grounds, Escha is brought by her companion to a government outpost. Intel has reported that at the top of the antenna, evidence of a government driven terrorist attack can be intercepted and brought back to headquarters.
- The level introduces time dilation and multi-gravity verticality.
- After being extracted from the government training grounds, Escha is brought by her companion to a government outpost. Intel has reported that at the top of the antenna, evidence of a government driven terrorist attack can be intercepted and brought back to headquarters.
- New Enemy: Sniper Sentinel
- These deadly marksmen are similar to regular Sentinels in terms of their strength, but they are equipped with a sniper and are highly accurate shooters, making them an extremely deadly enemy to an unsuspecting Paragon.
- These deadly marksmen are similar to regular Sentinels in terms of their strength, but they are equipped with a sniper and are highly accurate shooters, making them an extremely deadly enemy to an unsuspecting Paragon.
- Added Steam Cloud Support!
- Steam cloud support has been enabled for save game files and configuration files.
- Steam cloud support has been enabled for save game files and configuration files.
- Main Menu Web Browser
A web browser displaying the latest patch notes has been added to the main menu so that players can view the latest changes in-game.
Minor Updates
- Added a graphics setting that enables player to adjust the VR screen percentage, which is used to determine the resolution to render the game at for a given HMD screen.
- By default, this is set to 100%.
- Increasing the screen percentage will improve resolution, but may impede performance if your graphics card is unable to handle it.
- Conversely, decreasing the screen percentage will diminish resolution, but improve performance.
- By default, this is set to 100%.
- Added a graphics setting that enables the player to choose the anti-aliasing method used for rendering.
- By default, this is set to FXAA (Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing) to improve performance.
- Players can choose to disable anti-aliasing altogether, or set the anti-aliasing method to MSAA (Multisample Anti-Aliasing), which is of higher quality but more costly than FXAA.
- Both FXAA and MSAA can also be set to low or high quality.
- By default, this is set to FXAA (Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing) to improve performance.
- The airship that comes to assist the player now has awesome fire effects.
- This is to make it more obvious that the ship is active and moving, and because it’s awesome.
- This is to make it more obvious that the ship is active and moving, and because it’s awesome.
- The reloading tutorial has been improved to make it more obvious to the player where the reload pin is.
- When the hint explaining how to reload appears, the player’s gun will become holographic, but the reload pin will remain metallic and will be outlined with a yellow highlight.
- When the hint explaining how to reload appears, the player’s gun will become holographic, but the reload pin will remain metallic and will be outlined with a yellow highlight.
- When the player’s gun runs out of ammo and contains a spare clip, the reload pin will be outlined with a yellow highlight.
- This is to assist the player in remembering how to reload, and to make it more apparent that the current clip has been emptied.
- This is to assist the player in remembering how to reload, and to make it more apparent that the current clip has been emptied.
- The UI displaying the payload’s status and the player’s score in Blitz no longer requires a button press to appear.
- Instead, it will automatically appear next to the player’s left wrist when they raise their left hand to their face.
- Instead, it will automatically appear next to the player’s left wrist when they raise their left hand to their face.
- The sniper now has an ammo counter.
- This gives the player a better idea of how many bullets remain in the sniper.
- This gives the player a better idea of how many bullets remain in the sniper.
- Increased the lifetime of the sniper’s bullet trail.
- This is to assist the player to locate sniper Sentinels when taking fire.
- This is to assist the player to locate sniper Sentinels when taking fire.
- Added a comfort setting that enables players to disable the view blackout that appears when aiming through a sniper’s scope.
- Shift pads now have a maximum shiftable distance limit.
- If the player is too far from the shift pad, they will not be able to shift to it.
- This distance scales proportionally with the size of the shift pad (i.e. the larger the shift pad, the further the player can shift to it from).
- If the player is too far from the shift pad, they will not be able to shift to it.
- The current version number is now displayed in the top-right corner of the main menu.
- Stealing a Sentinel’s weapon now awards the player a score for disarming them.
- This is the same score the player is awarded for disarming a Sentinel by shooting their weapon out of their hands.
- This is the same score the player is awarded for disarming a Sentinel by shooting their weapon out of their hands.
- The items held by the player in their hands are now hidden when the game is paused.
- Difficulty settings have been implemented.
- This currently only applies to Primer, Extraction, and Leap of Faith, as Blitz’ difficulty scales proportional to the player’s score.
- This currently only applies to Primer, Extraction, and Leap of Faith, as Blitz’ difficulty scales proportional to the player’s score.
- Modified the portion of the tutorial that teaches the player how to dash.
- This is to ensure that the player actually performs a dash and learns how to use it.
- This is to ensure that the player actually performs a dash and learns how to use it.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug that was causing audio options to not be saved.
- Fixed a bug that prevented drones from moving if the player did not move after first being spotted by the drone.
- Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash if a drone left its navigation volume.
- Fixed a bug causing the lines indicating weapons’ gravity direction to be incorrectly oriented in weapon racks.
- Fixed a bug causing the Friends and Global leaderboard tables to appear one after another when both leaderboard buttons were pressed in quick succession.
- Fixed a bug causing turrets to spawn in the current room immediately after a door has been hacked and the payload has gone through in Blitz.
- Fixed a bug that allowed dead elite Sentinels’ shields to regenerate.
- Fixed a bug that was causing ‘+0’ to appear around the player’s waist after they died.
- Fixed a bug that prevented the pistol’s overheat flames from appearing if the pistol was held too close to the player’s face.
- Fixed a bug that was causing turret fire and footsteps to interfere with music and other game sounds.
- Fixed a bug that caused fallen Sentinels to occasionally get up even when in mid-air.
- Sentinels that have fallen should now only get up if they are on a valid surface.
- Sentinels that have fallen should now only get up if they are on a valid surface.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Gravity Slam Gun to fire after resuming the game if it was held when the game was paused.
- Fixed a bug that caused the top 5 ranked players to appear twice in the leaderboard table in Blitz.
- Fixed a bug that made it possible to dash anywhere on the connected surface when the player was standing on a shift ramp.
- This made it possible to get to areas that were not meant to be accessed.
- Now, the player can only dash straight out from the shift ramp on the connected surface, up to the maximum dashable distance (unless obstructed by some other object).
- This made it possible to get to areas that were not meant to be accessed.
- Added attenuation settings to the turret’s voice lines.
- Thus, it is not longer possible to hear a turret from everywhere in a map; the volume of the turret’s voice will scale down proportional to the player’s distance from it.
- Thus, it is not longer possible to hear a turret from everywhere in a map; the volume of the turret’s voice will scale down proportional to the player’s distance from it.
- Fixed a bug causing the player to be awarded a disarm score when a Sentinel accidentally shot another Sentinel’s weapon from their hands.
- Now, the player is only awarded a disarm score if they shoot the weapon from the Sentinel’s hands themself.
- Now, the player is only awarded a disarm score if they shoot the weapon from the Sentinel’s hands themself.
- Fixd a bug causing the controller that appears when displaying a hint to the player to become visible after pausing the game.
