The Anacrusis Has Versus Mode and Is On Sale for 50% Off!
Just wanted to let you all know that The Anacrusis is on sale during the Steam Summer Sale for 50% off! Grab it now and get in on the Versus mode craze, experience the beautiful majesty of Summer Lance (available exclusively in Steam Workshop), and save the Isolode from the Alien hordes.
We'll also push Update 39 live tomorrow morning, with the following bugfixes and adjustments to Versus mode.
Downed players are now properly rooted in place. Once you are down, you can’t be knocked off of ledges by Brutes or Gooper explosions
A reduction to Flasher melee knockback. The flasher’s melee should be a harrying attack, not something that will knock Survivors off a ledge from 10 feet away
When you’re spawning as an Alien in Versus, you can press crouch to increase gravity and make yourself land more quickly. If you use Toggle crouch, you’ll have to hit crouch a second time in order to jump again
Players knocked at the moment the episode ends should now count as alive for the ending bonus scoring, but will show up as skulls on the progress bars
Aliens in Ghost mode who are looking for a spot to spawn will now warp between elevator endpoints. This should prevent the “Alien ghosts get stuck in the ceiling” problem
Removed inadvertent duplicate item spawns in the first level of all episodes in Versus mode
Friendly fire against bots is turned off in Versus mode. You don’t have to worry about accidentally knocking Liu-bot if you’re a bit overzealous when she gets gooed
We’re starting the work required to add pre-game lobby matchmaking to The Anacrusis. We’ve added the ability to search for either in-progress games or start a new game to the menu. Next update we expect to have pre-game lobby matchmaking available for players to test
Update 38
Fixed a problem where settings in Private lobbies weren’t taking effect.
Fixed Toggle ADS not working
Aliens can no longer trigger the “teleport nearer the survivors” function when they’re in the air.
Update 37: Versus Adjustments and Tutorials
Highest scoring team plays the survivors first in versus. Because the items spawns and MC locations are the same for both teams, the team that plays humans second has a slight advantage if they pay attention to spawns
Grabbers can grab from more areas now. Notably the central pillar in the Ep1 finale and the gantries above most corridors are available for grabs now.
Grabbing should feel better than it has previously
Spawners can spawn turrets in more areas now. Notably the central pillar in the Ep1 finale and the gantries above most corridors are available for spawning turrets now.
The melee range for the Flasher, Brute, and Grabber should be more consistent now, bringing the Flasher in line with the other two melee classes
Fixed Medkit spawns have been removed from the event space in the Mall
Updated tutorial icons for Versus mode tutorials
If you play a private versus game with just one player, it will skip the human team’s turn now. This means you can practice playing as the Aliens privately before you jump into public games
Update 36
Fixed several bugs that will affect players who had problems loading into games or rejoining games.
Fixed a crash when transitioning levels in campaign mode.
Fixed a bug when reconnecting to a game that puts players in a limbo state when they are forced to spectate an infected.
Made some minor improvements to the improved German localization.
Update 35: Welcome to the Summer of Versus!
Play as the Aliens in Versus Mode
Versus is a life-and-death PVP struggle between the Survivor and Alien teams. The rules are simple, Survivors need to reach the end of each map and the Aliens just have to stop them. After each round, the teams switch sides.
Scoring is based on each Survivor team’s progress through the level. Nothing else matters. Getting a perfect grab or gooping the player running ahead won’t score you any additional points, but it will net you bragging rights.
Take Control of Alien Specials
There are currently five different alien specials in the game, with more in the works.
Grabber - The grabber’s primary attack can incapacitate a single player, but doing so leaves them open to attack by the other survivors. The Grabber’s secondary fire is a quick melee swipe.
Gooper - The Gooper is a triple-threat, it’s primary attack is a long-range, area denial goo bomb able to slow the entire survivor team. A direct hit on a single Survivor incapacitates that player for additional chaos. But the Gooper’s secondary is it’s secret weapon. Get up close and start the happy dance to spawn multiple goo balls and do massive area damage.
Brute - With a massive lunge for its primary attack and a hard-hitting punch as the secondary, the Brute can do massive damage to the Survivors. Press and hold primary attack to see the landing zone, but know that anyone between you and your target will get knocked away.
Spawner - The Spawner builds an army of turrets to harass and annoy your enemies. To spawn a group of three turrets, put your crosshair on a Survivor (you don’t need line of sight, you can spawn turrets through walls) and left click. Note: We’ll add a secondary attack to the Spawner in a future update.
Flasher - The Flasher is a one-two punch of problems for the Survivors. Its primary attack is a quick punch with a short cooldown. The secondary attack summons nearby common aliens, keeping them from aggroing and attacking nearby Survivors until you release your attack. And the Flasher’s Survivor-blinding light is in full effect in Versus.
We’ll have more specials coming soon. We have more specials in the pipeline now, including [redacted], more Gooper variants, and much much more…
Tuned for Different Team Sizes
We’ve tuned Versus to play well with different team sizes, the default public versus games are playing great in 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 modes. Or you can set up a private game and play however you’d like.
If you just want to take time to learn to play the Aliens, load up a private game and turn AI humans and AI Aliens off, set the spawn rate to Instant, and fire it up. (You’ll want to open the console using the ~ key and use the console command wingame on your turn as the Survivors though). We’ll automate this process for Xbox players in an upcoming patch
We’ve included private mode settings for 1v1 as well, but it’s not quite where we’d like it to be yet. If you have ideas for the 1v1 mode, we’d love to hear them in the Discord
This Is Just the Beginning of the Summer of Versus
This is just the start for The Anacrusis’s Versus mode! We know there’s a lot of work left to do on Versus, but we wanted to get this out as soon as it was fun so we could start collecting feedback from the players. Here’s what we have in the pipeline before the game hits 1.0 status this fall:
Team selection
Dances and taunts for the Aliens
More playable Aliens
Scoring changes that will let teams that fall behind early have a chance at mounting a comeback
Better communication tools for both teams, including team chat, a team comms wheel, pre- and post-match chat, and more
Join the Discord to share your feedback and check the Roadmap on Trello to find out what’s coming next!
Episode 4 Updates
We’ve been hard at work on Episode 4, integrating changes based on feedback from the changes in Update 32. We’ve completed the art and polish pass on the first two levels of Episode 4, and done a significant redesign on the Episode 4 Finale. Additionally, we’ve optimized performance throughout the episode.
Performance Improvements
This update includes significant performance improvements that should improve perf on all systems, especially those with lower-spec CPUs.
Optimized AI system to reduce framerate sag during large hordes
Reduced the impact of the Flasher effect, especially during large hordes
Steam Deck users should see significant performance improvements as well
Reduced the disk storage needed for the game by removing redundant assets and compressing the rest. We've gone from a 40GB install to a 16GB install
Added Mixed Input Controls
We’ve added the ability for PC players to use multiple input types simultaneously in The Anacrusis. For example, you can use the gamepad for movement and a mouse (or mouse-like device, like a controller gyroscope) for aiming simultaneously. Steam Deck, PS4/PS5, and Switch Pro Controller users using the Steam Controller setup menus.
This should work with any input devices that mimic gamepads, mice, keyboards, etc. Please let us know how this works for you, especially if you have problems with hardware that you’d expect to work but does not.
To enable Mixed Input mode, go to the Settings / Gameplay menu, then flip the toggle for Enable Mixed Input in the Accessibilty section. For this release, the glyphs that indicate button presses will behave unpredictably when you’re in mixed input mode, but we’ll address that in a future update.
Bug Fixes
Created and fixed a bazillion bugs we discovered while building Versus mode
Adjusted the navmesh in most episodes to reduce pathing errors
Fixed areas where bots and aliens would get confused in Episode 4
Fixed areas where alien common would get stuck in spawns, which created quiet periods where there shouldn’t be quiet periods
Fixed some cases where player bots wouldn’t save players from grabs or goops
Updated the German localization based on feedback from German players. Danke schön!
Update 34 is Live!
This is a minor update that should fix a major problem with matchmaking. If you've had problems joining lobbies and being disconnected when the game starts, this update should fix them. It's a small bugfix while we put the finishing touches on VERSUS MODE, which we expect to release soon!
Update 33 - The Intenser Update Hotfix
This is a small update to fix the following minor issues with The Intenser Update.
Fixed a bug where the host would end the party upon finishing a campaign
Fixed a bug with the Emote Menu being out of sync with the selection
Fixed a bug with party states getting reset when someone joins the party
Fixed a bug where demo playback would cause you to join a "ghost party"
Fixed a bug where the main menu would get into a weird state as party leader
Mods downloaded during gameplay from other players will no longer show in loadouts unless you are subscribed to them
Update 32 - The Intenser Update
It’s finally here, The Anacrusis Update 32, now with even-more-intense Intenser Mode! What is Intenser Mode? It’s our new, higher difficulty mode. Intenser Mode is designed for teams who work well together and would like to face a higher degree of challenge than the current Normal or Intense modes offer. To ratchet up the difficulty, we’d done the following five things (plus a few more we’ll let you discover on your own):
Added friendly fire to this difficulty setting. Don’t shoot your teammates
Removed player outlines and player names. Staying together is super important now
We’ve disabled the health stations in airlocks and removed Healing Goo and Overheal from the Matter Compilers. If you see a health kit in the game, you’ll probably want to pick it up
We’ve increased the intensity of spawn events and the likelihood of multiple specials spawning at once
We’ve increased the relative aggression level of the common aliens
Because this mode is designed for players actively communicating with each other, it won’t be available in the Quick Play playlist. If you want to play games, you either need to get four friends together to play with or select the Intenser difficulty in the Episode you’d like to play manually.
We’re On Sale!
Because the new Intenser mode is designed to be played with friends, we’ve put The Anacrusis on sale for $15 during the Steam Spring Sale. You should tell your friends! (We’re also available on the Humble Store now at the same price, if that’s more your jam for the same price.)
Changes To Player Bots
We also know that a lot of you like to play the game with your bot friends, Guion, Nessa, Liu, and Lance. To that end, we’ve change the way bots work with this update. First, and most importantly, bot characters will now wear the skins and accessories the host has selected in the Loadout screen. For Steam users, this includes mods from the Steam Workshop too. If you only play with bots, this means you’ll finally be able to “enjoy” everything the Steam Workshop has to offer.
We’ve also fixed a long-standing bug that limited the maximum intensity for games that included any number of bots. If you play with 1, 2, or 3 bots you’ll find that the game plays more like it does with 4 human players.
Episode 4 Updates
We’ve had Episode 4 out in beta for a few months now, and have collected lots of good feedback from players about the beta. We’ve been hard at work incorporating that feedback and are ready to show off a major update to the first two levels of Episode 4. We’ve added directional lighting to areas that lacked it before, balanced the intensity of combat and spawns across both levels, done a major art pass to reflect the damage the Isolode has taken due to the alien attack, and reworked several large areas to make them more fun to traverse. We’d love to know what you think in the Steam forums or the Discord. (Don’t worry, the finale will get some much needed love in an upcoming update.)
Text Chat + Emote Wheel
You asked for it, and we delivered. Steam and Microsoft Store players can now communicate to other players in their game using typed text. Steam and Xbox users can opt-out of the text chat in Settings. Xbox and Microsoft Store players will also have text chat disabled if they’ve opted out out in the system-wide communications permissions.
We’ve also added an emote wheel to allow players to use any of the emotes they’ve unlocked or subscribed to in the Steam Workshop at any point in their games. To access it, press and hold the button you have bound to trigger emotes in the game.
The Mall Holdout
This update also includes an experimental Mall Holdout map. Instead of focusing the combat in a single, well-defined arena, players need to traverse the map and explore the entire Mall to capture four points before taking on Mr Brute. And for once, the elevator actually works.
And the Rest
At the end of a game, when the host returns to the lobby, the people playing in that game will return to the lobby with them. Players who want to leave before the host will return to their own lobby
We’ve exposed a new setting that allows players to choose how long dead aliens linger on screen. In the Gameplay Options tab, look for the Max Ragdolls slider
In two player games, the host is now able to kick the second player, if they choose
Weapons no longer show for certain players when other players trigger emotes
Network performance should be generally improved for all players
The matchmaking engine should never attempt to join a dead or ghost game anymore
When you complete a Weekly Challenge run, the post-game screen will display whatever you’ve earned
The Anacrusis is on sale this week!
Just a heads up that we're on sale this week. The game is 50% off on all platforms, so now's a great time to get your friends into the game! We just realized Update 30, which revamps the weapon system to better define the differences between the guns in the game, as well as distribute them more equitably between people who like to run out in the front and the folks who are happy bringing up the rear.
We've also got new (and updated) community content. Henning373 has been hard at work on Array Containment, and CJ Sharkey has done a ton of work to his Holdout map, Infest as well. We were blown away when Henning dropped a surprise Holdout map with Ocean Lab a few weeks ago too..Make sure you check them out in the Steam Workshop.
The Anacrusis is on sale this week!
Just a heads up that we're on sale this week. The game is 50% off on all platforms, so now's a great time to get your friends into the game! We just realized Update 30, which revamps the weapon system to better define the differences between the guns in the game, as well as distribute them more equitably between people who like to run out in the front and the folks who are happy bringing up the rear.
We've also got new (and updated) community content. Henning373 has been hard at work on Array Containment, and CJ Sharkey has done a ton of work to his Holdout map, Infest as well. We were blown away when Henning dropped a surprise Holdout map with Ocean Lab a few weeks ago too..Make sure you check them out in the Steam Workshop.
