Happy Steam Winter Sale, Knights! As the year comes to a close, we're looking back at what might be the busiest year we've had in our studio's 15 years of game development. We full-launched Cyber Knights in June, and thanks to your enthusiastic support we've added more than 50 free post-launch updates, most of them packed with new content, the equivalent to three or four expansion-size DLCs if we were that kind of studio.
Hope you'll spread the word about Cyber Knights in Steam Winter Sale discussions; we're 34%-off, our deepest discount since full launch! This sale will be the best deal on Cyber Knights for quite a while to come.
Some of the highlights from all our post-launch updates include:
New maps & nearly 400 proc-gen mission combos!
Cyber Knights launched with more than 30 maps, and we've added six new ones since then! Militarized Hoverport, Delta Clinic, Nanofacture Hub, Harbor Prison, Q-Compute Core, and Containment Site each bring their own atmosphere and challenges to the mix.
Combined with an expanded range of proc-gen mission objectives, there are now almost 400 combinations of maps and primary mission objectives! And in the next few days, we'll release the first maps part of an all new environment category: Skyrise.
Quick reminder: all of these updates are made possible by players like you leaving a review! Most games on Steam receive reviews from fewer than 3% of the players that have bought them. All it takes is a few quick words and a thumbs-up to help keep Cyber Knights growing for years to come! Please head to CKF's Steam page and leave a review now if you haven't already. |
Increased enemy variety & challenges
We created more faction-specific enemies, added 3 new Head Hunter teams, and most recently made some major expansions to the drone category of enemies, featuring all new types: turrets, hover tanks, and Lance VTOL drones.
We also increased variety in the Matrix, with 14 new IC to oppose your hackers and new matrix host maps to slice through! And, our new Skyrise maps will come with their own unique security devices.
All-new mission types & expanded storylines
In July we added new Power Play storylines -- mission chains you can unlock from the Contacts you've invested most into -- help your contacts make big moves in the New Boston Zone and unlock new services for you to take advantage of.
Later in October we added a new type of storyline driven by your own mercenaries, Shadow Site Raids. If your mercs grow in loyalty to you, some may be willing to share a secret they've held onto for a long time. The high-risk raids you gain access to contain over 50 unique and valuable rewards... and pit you against one of the toughest security AIs in the game!
With all the expansions to the proc-gen system, Cyber Knights offers hundreds of hours of play time for those who want it. Our hand-crafted storylines are interspersed throughout; we expanded one of these, the Taylor Strizek storyline, with a new 3-stage mission to help her defect from her megacorp employer. Adding new storyline missions & legworks to the 70+ already in the game will be a big piece of our expansion plans for 2026.
Two new character classes, quick start squad options, & tons of new gear!
Keeping it real, the Warmachine class was meant to be part of our launch update, but we ended up wanting more time to make sure their unique, cybernetic-driven abilities all played nicely with all of the games' other systems. The extra time also made it so that when we did release Warmachine, we were able to roll it out with a whole truckload of cybernetics.
Our second new class, Wireghost, was added in September, bringing the total number of possible multiclass combinations to over 50 -- and with talents, traits, gear, and cybernetics, your character class is just the start of your character build possibilities.
We know that for first time players all those possibilities can be a little overwhelming, so we made a change to the New Game process to give players the choice of choosing one of two "Quick Start" squads -- Quiet Killers or Run & Gun -- or Advanced setup letting you choose each starting squad member individually.
New character classes (each with their own extensive talent tree) aren't the only advantages we've added for players; we've added hundreds of new weapons, weapon mods, cybernetic implants, cyberdeck programs, and armors into the game. We've particularly focused on building out higher-level gear options available through Contact services or crafting, and increasing weapon variety with new kinds of weapon special rules like First / Last shot bonuses, Splinter Strike, Overwatch Lockdown, and increased Full Auto max targets.
Tons of Quality-of-Life improvements
Early Access helped our small team put a lot of polish on the game, but nothing compares to the amount of feedback a game gets at launch. We've listened, prioritized, and grinded to make the game even better based on what you've told us.
Steam Deck fine-tuning, a vertical camera rotation option, better filters, a more streamlined Matrix tutorial, better pacing of starting missions, improved SFX, highlights on by default, loot balance, eliminating little delays between camera movements, a breakdown of what added to security tally, and so much more!
A special shout-out to every player who's used the in-game F10 system to report any bug or share their feedback. The automatic screenshot & game save info that system gives us, plus the way we're able to sort & categorize feedback coming through it, makes it so much easier for us to fix issues & prioritize common requests.
Thank you! Your reviews & spreading the word keeps CK:F growing.
It's been a great year! Thank you all for playing, for recommending Cyber Knights to other gamers, for sharing your hype and feedback and stories with us (we read every comment on these news posts).
Please make sure to leave a Steam review (or if you already have, take a minute to rate which recent ones are helpful) to keep these updates coming!
We'll see you with another big one soon.
