Knights and mercs - we're back again and dropping another big and free content expansion today - the Project KHRONOS story expansion, new outfits for your characters, new rewards dangling off the high-risk and multi-stage Skyrise missions, better pacing for Power Level 0-2 story generation and announcing mobile support through Steam Link and cloud gaming.
We designed Cyber Knights to allow for years of content and story expansions to fit seamlessly into any existing or new games. With the proc-gen story system and Casting Director's ability to search for and match the right characters and contacts to fill any story role, a new content expansion like this will begin to appear in your games, regardless of age, if you picked the starting Vanguard Emille.
If you are enjoying the continued stream of free new content and updates, please take a minute to leave a review to help our tiny team continue!
If you have any concern about your saved game or updates - see our diamond-plated Saved Game Policy below - no saved game is ever invalidated and all games are eligible for the new content immediately.
Our Save Game Policy and Updates
Since you'll always be seeing a lot of updates around here, we want to reiterate our saved game policy so everyone understands our commitment to your games. No saved game will ever be invalidated by an update. All new content and features will be added immediately to all saved games (with the reasonable exception of New Game options). You never have to restart if you don't want to. This is a studio commitment that we have made and kept for many years and games. We stand by it. So do not stress about the deluge of updates that is coming your way - heist on my good heisters.
New Project KHRONOS Storyline Extension
When we launched Cyber Knights, we left a smattering of lore tidbits and story hooks outside the scope of the main playable content teased and available to be expanded on if they captured enough interest. Mercenaries in your squad aren't just a pair of arms to shoot a gun with, but characters with families, histories and traits that help distinguish them and the stories you create with them each playthrough. Sometimes they even bring stories of their own.
We're very excited to return to one of those storylines that was left kind of hanging and has always been of top interest to players. We've returned to the arc with the starting Vanguard, Emille, and her obsession with finding her missing brother, Marcus. We're ready to see how far Emille will push it, what she is willing to risk to push your Cyber Knight and your team to help her accomplish this goal.
Now, through 4 new hand-crafted missions, you can help Emille get to the bottom of the mystery that drover her out of Matsumoto and has haunted her ever since. Will you risk yourself and other squad members to follow her unshakeable belief that her brother is still alive? Is it all in her head or is it really some grand conspiracy? Will the answers she finds be enough?
2 New Military Outfit Styles
With this update, we're excited to add 2 new military brass styled outfits for your crew. Perhaps for ex-military, or those who just love the pomp and style, or perhaps they just love a good uniform. We hope you find the right mercs on your crew to wear these out on the next heist.
With the modkit currently under construction back at Trese Brothers HQ, we are developing a new set of tools to help us process and add cosmetics to the game more quickly (to allow modders to do the same). We are excited that this means we'll be able to finish adding the backlog of cosmetic options - faces, hairs, hats, glasses and cybernetics - hopefully more rapidly over the coming months. Stay tuned!
New Skyrise Rewards (V-Chips!)
With Update #96, we've added a new type of high-value rewards to all Skyrise missions. These multi-stage missions already offer very high rewards with massive XP totals, big payouts and elevated secondary objectives. But now on top of that they offer rare and value Files including V-Chip files for completing the mission.
If you've considered skipping on Skyrise before, take another look at those XP totals and the newly offered V-Chips. Maybe you don't need to go on this one because you already have Goldstax V-Chip Part II but the next one might offer a V-Chip file set part you can't refuse.
Improved Power Level 0-2 Pacing
With this update, we've adjusted the rules for how pacing is used to generate new storylines - proc-gen missions, legwork, vignettes and recruit storylines - to slow everything down just a bit right at the start of the game. The tweaks have been gentle, after some testing, to ensure that we didn't deflate the tension of the early game but also they are helpful to take that overwhelming edge off at times when things are starting to pile up. Once you reach Power Level 3, the pacing returns to the current set point for the rest of the game.
This is prep work for adding a slider in difficulty that would allow you to directly increase or decrease the pacing if you please.
Announcing mobile support (big screens required) for Cyber Knights
Today we’re announcing mobile support for Cyber Knights! Importantly, we’re recommending a minimum screen size of 7 inches to accommodate the game UI (bluetooth controller or a larger tablet for an even better experience). And for the first time, mobile support will not be done through native apps.
We know this is different than what we’ve done with previous games, but for Cyber Knights: Flashpoint we feel the best way we can offer mobile support is by adding touch-screen controls to the original version of the game (which already has screen mode options for handheld devices like Steam Deck) and making it available through cloud gaming tools like Steam Link and GeForce Now.
These options are better than they ever have been before. They allow you to play Cyber Knights on tablets or large-scale phones, without having to buy an additional copy of the game, with great performance (and better battery life), and keep all your saved games synced through Steam Cloud so you can play cross-device.
If cloud gaming doesn’t appeal to you, higher-end Android devices may also be able to use the free GameNative emulator to run Cyber Knights (or any Steam game) directly from their device.
Which is right for you?
If your home computer can be online at the same time, the free Steam Link app on Android or iOS can stream the game to your phone anywhere you have an internet connection. All you have to do is enable remote play in Steam settings and do an initial, one-time at-home app pairing with the computer.
If you don’t want any home computer dependence, GeForce Now is a great cloud gaming service. They have a free, ad-supported plan with up to 1-hour gaming sessions (you can instantly requeue for back-to-back sessions).
For non-cloud gaming, GameNative is a popular, well-reviewed app that allows you to install and play PC games you own directly from your Android device. You will need a higher-end, recent model device to support Cyber Knight’s GPU requirements if you’re running it natively. This method allows for offline play once you’ve installed and run the game while connected to the internet at least once. Cloud saves can sync when you are online.
Why not native apps?
We've previously gone the full native app development route for mobile ports of our games like Templar Battleforce and Star Traders: Frontiers. But there are three main reasons we decided to take a different approach with Cyber Knights: Flashpoint...
1) Performance. Unlike our previous games, CK:F is a fully 3D game that uses your GPU for complex systems like sight lines, physics, and real-time lighting. We trialed native mobile ports, but even after significant optimization work the performance on average devices wasn't getting anywhere near what it needed to be.
I know the inevitable comparison here is "but XCOM 2 runs on mobile." Yes, after millions of copies sold on desktop & consoles, and years of development by a studio 100x our size. Which leads me to...
2) Development trade-offs. Our driving question as a studio is: how can we create the best possible experience, with the resources we have, for the players who care the most about the kind of games we make? We know we do have a lot of fans who love our games on mobile, but we also know that’s because we don’t make mobile games that suck. A bad mobile port would be worse than no mobile port at all.
We’ll be missing out on additional revenue from app store sales by not offering native app versions of Cyber Knights. But we’d rather offer a better game and make it available for the many people Steam Link or GeForce are a perfectly good free option for, than have to make a bunch of bad trade-offs for paid native mobile versions and cripple the amount of time we can put into expanding the full game.
3) Cloud gaming is a better option than it ever has been before. WiFi has become ubiquitous. Both Steam Link and GeForce Now have gotten a ton of improvements over the years. Performance is excellent. Battery life vs running a native app is way better. By using cloud gaming we gain major advantages from the Steam platform such as modding and cloud saves that would not be available in a native app.
Grab an app and give it a try
So long as you have Cyber Knights in your Steam Library, you’ll have access to it through either Steam Link or GeForce Now. Download the Steam Link app for your mobile OS, or follow the GeForce Now signup steps, and you’ll be good to go within a few minutes.
If you had your heart set on a native app, we’re truly sorry to disappoint. We have to do what’s best for our community as a whole. I’d encourage you to at least try one of these services before writing them off.
For those with WiFi and a large-screened phone or tablet, you can now play Cyber Knights on the go. Enjoy!
v2.7.35 - #96: Project KHRONOS
- Extended Emille's Project KHRONOS storyline to completion (legwork, missions, new ending Tags and choices, echoes of trouble)
- Added new 2 military styled outfits for your mercs
- Improved rewards for Skyrise missions, now including rare V-Chip Files as special rewards for completion
- Improved early game (Power Level 0-2) pacing for new story/proc-gen additions, reducing how quickly they are added by 10-15% depending on type
- Completed improvements required for supporting mobile devices through cloud gaming (large screens required)
- Fixed issues with dialog typos, mislabeled names or tags