Knights and Mercs - Update #112 is dedicated to Head Hunter tactics improvements! After completing the big VIP and bodyguard tactics retraining, we knew Head Hunters had to be next! With this update, we've made Head Hunters more willing to fight local security when they need to. They try to avoid it as a major distraction (as you are their main target) but are now willing to engage, shoot, and use Talents during brushes with the security forces. This means more dead local security but also more Sec AI Escalations and also that the Head Hunters might reach you in more combat-ready state instead of just shot-to-bits sometimes. We've also fixed some bugs with melee overwatch that were especially prevalent for those with cyber claws and completed some performance passes on all hair, beards and eyebrows to reduce the texture load of the system by more than 50%.
We're working hard to improve, and we hope you appreciate it! If you are liking the stream of free updates, content adds and more, please take a moment to leave a review. These updates are funded by your reviews!
Our Save Game Policy and Updates
As always, we take your saved games very, very seriously. 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 many updates that will continue to come - heist on my good heisters.
Modders have Preview Modkit!
The modkit preview project is continuing at a great pace with lots of exciting developments -- modders are creating new storylines, new Contact types and espionage focused items, entirely new classes, difficult rebalance mods and more.
Each new update of the game includes new valuable updates for the modding team as we continue to expand what they can do and respond to their questions and requests. This preview process will go on for a bit as we welcome additional interested modders into the group in waves, but will wrap up before the end of the year.
If you are a modder who is interested in getting early preview access to our modding tools, please let us know you're interested here: https://forms.gle/EHHKHFFjU6Yo7G1Y6 and we will reach out soon.
Head Hunters Tactics
The headliner for Update #112 is the rewrite of the Head Hunters tactical decision tree. For a long time, their challenge level has been very dependent on how many enemy security happened to be between you and the Head Hunters crew. It still will be - but in lots of new ways! This was because the Head Hunters were so single-minded that they ignored the local security's Overwatch and their gunfire, just blinding charging ahead toward your team.
This balancing act between "charge the primary target!' and "defend ourselves from local security!" was the main work of the new Head Hunter tactics tree.
Now Head Hunters will consider local security valid targets for engagement. Their primary goal is still to reach their bounty - you! But along the way, they will blast / hack / kill local security. They are still going to move steadily toward you!
This means they will attack local security who may not have seen them yet. This can blow your stealth envelope in surprising ways.
Their attacks and kills on local security can raise the Sec AI more rapidly as shots are fired (and likely returned) and bodies are discovered. This can lead to a bigger Sec AI mess than you used to get with Head Hunters.
Head Hunters now consider local security worth using Talents on - so they will throw grenades, deploy shields, and use medkits - while battling them. This can lead to Head Hunters having less Talents at the ready when they reach you.
As Head Hunters usually outclass local security, they will often kill them in a head-to-head fight. This can lead to more local security deaths, which is less enemies for you to deal with.
Please let us know how the new Head Hunters decision tree feels in game! The situations into which Head Hunters deploy are extremely varied, so we have tried to walk a line here of the right balance to make it feel right across that spectrum.
Overwatch Misses - Mostly Melee
With Update #112, we've resolved a couple of F10s we received about Overwatch with melee weapons and especially with claws. In one path of the code (depending on how you input the commands to the game), it was possible that the Overwatch would end up with a direction and angle set by the last time you did Overwatch and not the new command. This could often result in a visible Overwatch field just ignoring enemies running through it, making it feel like your melee Overwatch was useless (and, in fact, it was!)
This is now resolved and you should always go slash, stab or bonk!
Hair Performance Issues
With this update, we've taken a big pass back through the hair, beards and eyebrows for the game. A few updates ago, we resolved old issues with eyebrows having a brown tint built into them and during that work we identified some options we had to reduce and share textures between some of the hair styles.
With Update #112, we finished that analysis and the work to improve the system and were able to remove more than 170 textures, cutting the total texture pile needed to be loaded into memory for all hair, beard and eyebrows by over 50%. This has both an impact (~300 MB) on install size but also a nice impact on textures loaded into VRAM.
v2.7.115 - #112: Savage Hunters - 11/7/2026
- Improved Head Hunter behavior - now consider nearby enemies valid targets, will attack them and use Talents
- Head Hunters move a little slower, and kill more of your enemies but are more likely to arrive ready to fight you
- Head Hunters are more likely to stir up a Sec AI Escalation due to being willing to fight local security directly
- Fixed bugs with melee overwatch sometimes just completely ignoring an enemy moving through it
- Minor improvements to game's action shot controller, avoiding some cases where the camera shook when it should not
- Fixed issues with some desks and tables in corporate/skyrise levels that let you walk through them
- Fixed issues with line of sight and certain barrels being "too large"
- Performance update: loseless reduction of textures for hair/beard/eyebrow by 50% - less disk space, VRAM, same look
- Fixed bugs with some action cameras zooming out too far