June Update: Patch Notes

Season 4 Content

Season 4 will be going live on Tuesday 21st of June, one week after the June Update. It will include new tracks of unlockable rewards for each character type.

Gameplay Updates

UPGRADED USER INTERFACE IN MATCHES

Our UI team have carried out a thorough pass on the HUD during matches and will be continuing this work in upcoming updates:

• Mission Widget
• Mission Pop Up
• Player Status
• Prisoner Status
• Timer
• XP background
• Adrenaline Buff icon
• Flashlight icon
• Spectate UI
• Subtitles UI

LOCKER CONFRONTATION POLISH

After several updates worth of work the Prisoner / Monster confrontations around the lockers is now in a final state:

• If a Prisoner is killed in a locker, both Monster and Prisoner will view a kill animation in 3rd person
• Each Monster has their own unique locker kill animation
• Monster searching locker animations have been altered and had their camera movements steadied
• Depending on locker positioning in the environment, the animation will be shown at an angle that should always be visible.
• Abilities and movement are disabled for the Prisoner and Monster during the animation
• Added sound effects for locker confrontations, with bespoke audio passes for each monster, and whether or not the prisoner escapes or is killed

SPATIAL AUDIO SYSTEM

Audiokinetic Wwise’s Spatial Audio system will introduce more accurate sound propagation, virtual acoustics, and spatial audio rendering into Monstrum 2. This means among other things:

• Fewer instances of sounds being heard through walls
• More accurate diffraction of sounds from around corners or while behind obstructive game objects (crates, lockers, servers, etc.)
• More accurate spatialisation of sounds throughout the game (we have improved the ability to position a sound in 3D space)

MEMORISE KEYCODE ACCESSIBILITY OPTION

A new optional feature has been added to improve gameplay around the keycode interactions for Prisoner players with controllers:

• Player can hold down the Interact button when standing next to a clue to memorise that four digit number
• Once a code is memorised the Prisoner player can then approach the corresponding keypad and hold down Interact again to automatically enter the code without having to precision aim at each button on the keypad

CHANGES TO ITEM SPAWNING

Following feedback from the June Update we wanted to disrupt a pattern that formed where Prisoners would load up on easily found Health Kits in order to survive repeated Monster strikes in the earlier stages of the game:

• Health Sprays and Adrenaline items can now be found inside wall mounted boxes that require the Boltcutters to open
• There are still some loose instances of both Health Sprays and Adrenaline scattered around the sea Fort but those amounts have been heavily reduced by about 60% of previous totals
• Item spawns close to related puzzles have been moved further away or have been removed completely to prevent puzzle items spawning next to the related puzzles

Backpacks are in harder to reach spots:

• In Stage 1 most Backpack items will be found beside switches that take some effort for the Prisoner players to reach
• In Stages 1 and 2 some Backpacks can be also be found hidden behind various destructible objects that need to be destroyed
• In Stage 3 Escape Routes the Backpacks can still be found in open areas
• Backpacks can also appear in Equipment Chests

PRISONER CHANGES

The Prisoners have not been a major focus of this update but have had a few changes to support other features in the update as well as general balancing improvements:

• Prisoner walking speed increased from 2.96 to 3
• Prisoner sprinting speed increased from 4.144 to 4.5
• Fall damage is now more severe for Prisoners with damage starting after falling more than 5 metres. If a Prisoner falls more than 12 metres they will be incapacitated even if they are at full health. The previous value for this was 15 metres
• Vaulting over objects is more restrictive with the vaulting range reduced from 3.5m to 2m. This means prisoners are no longer able to vault directly over the centre of large objects such as the large metal crates. They will still be able to trigger a vault over their corners however
• First Person Item Use Animation polish for the Fuel Can

BRUTE CHANGES

As with the Prisoners the Brute was not the focus of this update but still has had some changes:

• Brute walking speed increased from 3.04 to 3.33
• Brute sprinting speed increased from 4.408 to 5
• Charge ability is smoother with the Brute able to deflect off surfaces at shallow angles more easily and will come to a stop more reliably when hitting a surface from a wide angle
• Attack cooldown reduced from 3.5s to 2.5s

BHAGRA CHANGES

Various balancing changes for the Bhagra to make him less oppressive in chase but still able to deliver a strong blow in ambush:

Updates to the Scent Trail Ability

• Bhagra scent trail particles will dissipate once a Prisoner enters a locker, the trail will resume if the Prisoner exits the locker before the Bhagra has finished using the ability

Updates to the Ceiling Climb Ability
We have added a cooldown on the Ceiling Climb ability to prevent the ability being used as a quick movement tool. We wanted to make sure that the Bhagra releasing itself from the ceilings was an intentional action so we have made changes that should prevent unintentional falls from the ceiling.

• Improved stability of ceiling climb ability to prevent the Bhagra falling off of the tiles unintentionally
• More of the Bhagra tiles inside buildings connect up between the different rooms
• After leaving a ceiling tile for any reason, the Ceiling Climb ability will go on cooldown After leaving a ceiling tile for any reason, the Attack Ability will go on cooldown
• Can no longer just pop off a ceiling and attack with Bhagra players now needing to lunge to do damage, instead of being able to instantly do so when dismounting from a ceiling tile then rinse and repeat

Updates to the Lunge Ability
The Bhagra lunge ability was altered to allow the Bhagra to have quicker lunge times to keep lunge useful as an ambush attack but have a longer cooldown between lunges to prevent it from being used as often.

Bhagra lunge charge time has been decreased:

• Vs 1 Prisoner - 2.25s (Was 3s)
• Vs 2 Prisoners - 1.75s (Was 2.5s)
• Vs 3 Prisoners - 1.5s (Was 2.25s)
• Vs 4 Prisoners - 1.25s (Was 2s)

Bhagra lunge cooldown has been increased by 50%

• Vs 1 Prisoner - 15s (Was 10s)
• Vs 2 Prisoners - 14.25s (Was 9.5s)
• Vs 3 Prisoners - 13.5s (Was 9s)
• Vs 4 Prisoners - 12.75s (Was 8.5s)

General Bhagra Balancing

• Bhagra ground movement speed increased from 4.133 to 4.65 (Bhagra ceiling tile movement speed is 6, which is unchanged from the last update)
• Damage caused from a ceiling lunge during Stage 1 increased from 60 to 70 hit points
• Bhagra slowed down more when crawling through slide holes and climbing through windows

MALACOSM CHANGES

The Malacosm has been a major point of focus for the development team in this update and has had a significant rework including the addition of a new Float ability. Our goal was to make the Malacosm more dangerous in chase an allow the Malacosm to be able to use routes that were not possible to do before:

New Float Ability

• Holding the jump key after falling or reaching the apex of a jump will make the Malacosm float at 10% the usual falling speed.
• The Malacosm is able to change direction during this ability
• If the float was held for longer than 2 seconds the Malacosm will not receive any movement penalties when landing
• The Malacosm will not float upwards

Updates to the Clairvoyance Ability

• When using the Clairvoyance ability as the Malacosm the character will turn their head and body to always face the Prisoner they are Clairvoyancing
• When the Clairyvoyance abilities active duration ends the Malacosm player will already be facing the direction they need to move in allow the Malacosm to start the chase immediately
• If the Prisoner the Malacosm is Clairvoyancing enters a locker the Malacosm will instead face downwards after exiting clairvoyance

Updates to the Teleport Ability

• Malacosm gains a 25% speed boost after exiting a teleport for 2 seconds

Updates to the Phase Through Passive

• There is a new shimmer overlay added over any objects in the Sea Fort that the Malacosm is able to phase through

Audio Updates to Malacosm Abilities

• New sound effect for phasing that more resembles the other movement sounds

New sound effects for Sentinels:

• Sentinel deploy
• Sentinel idle
• Sentinel pop up
• Sentinel call - this is an audio effect to alert the Malacosm when a prisoner is near

General Malacosm Balancing

• Malacosm walking speed increased from 2.7 to 3.2
• Malacosm sprinting speed increased from 4.185 to 4.8
• Malacosm acceleration increased from 5 to 5.1
• Attack cooldown reduced from 3.5s to 2.5s

Malacosm now does more damage at various stages of the Monster Rage mode

• Stage 1 damaged increased from 40 to 50
• Stage 2 damage increased from 60 to 65
• Stage 3 damage is still 80
• Stage 4 damage is still 100

CHANGES AFFECTING ALL MONSTERS

Further balancing work and improvements on the Monsters:

• All Monsters can now use Elevator buttons
• Monsters will be slowed down after falling, which will now reach maximum effect after a 12 metre fall where the original fall height was 15 metres
• New XP reward added for attacking or killing Prisoner while the Prisoner is using Adrenaline
• New XP reward added for attacking or killing Prisoner while the Monster is blinded by the Flash Bulb Camera
• New XP reward added for attacking or killing Prisoner while the Monster is slowed down by the Fire Extinguisher powder

NEW OPTIONS MENU SETTINGS AVAILABLE

We have added more options to help with user performance and accessibility:

Gamepad thumbstick dead zones. For each thumbstick, there are 3 values:

• Inner Dead Zone - The % you need to move the thumbstick before input will register (useful for combating thumbstick drift). Default Value: 10%
• Outer Threshold - The % at which the input will output 100% e.g. if set to 50%, then the player only has to push the thumbstick half way to look/move at full speed. Default Value: 100%
• Minimum Value - The output value of the thumbstick when the input is exactly at the Inner Dead Zone value. You could use this e.g. to eliminate slow movement speeds when the thumbstick is pushed lightly, whilst still allowing the ability to control the movement speed more precisely when the thumbstick is pushed further. (Thumbstick input values beyond the Inner Dead Zone will scale the output value between Minimum Value and 100%). Default Value: 0%

Additional graphics options

• Removal of the generic high/medium/low options as they were very limited
• Added High/medium/low options for textures
• Added High/medium/low options for fog quality
• Added High/medium/low options for anti-aliasing quality
• Added High/medium/low options for bloom quality
• Added Close/medium/far options for light fade distance
• Added Anisotropic textures toggle
• Added SSAO toggle
• Added Bloom toggle
• Added Dithering toggle
• Added Chromatic Aberration toggle
• Added Film grain toggle

VISUAL FEEDBACK CHANGES

We have added more visual feedback to help with representation of mechanics:

• Whenever the Prisoner takes damage from a monster a blood effect will appear on the screen for a few seconds
• Whenever a Monster deals damage to a Prisoner a blood effect in the shape of a claw will appear on the screen for a few seconds to confirm that damage was done

Changes to Map Content

MOON POOL CHANGES

The Moon Pool has had a few changes to fix exploits and make the final part of the match more fair for Prisoners and Monsters:

• The path down into the Moon Pool has been shortened. The ocean is closer to the underside of the Sea Fort which has removed a flight of stairs leading down into the Moon Pool airlock
• The tunnels leading from the bottom of the airlock pillar to the Moon Pool chamber are shorter, more direct and have various storage rooms added to vary these pathways more
• The two rooms that contain Nav Data Consoles for the ‘Upload the Nav Data to the Submersible’ Mission have been moved to now be in the same two rooms used to ‘Open the Moon Pool Doors’, however they still have unique obstacles in their way
• The vertical shaft the Submersible is lowered into to reach the water level is now significantly deeper making a leap from the top straight at the Escape Triggers a far more dangerous tactic

POWER PLANT CHANGES

We have done a pass on the Power Plant to help make it as clear as possible to players where the objectives are as well as audio improvements and bug fixing:

Generators readability Pass:

• The line of five crank wheels have been removed from the side of the three generators that do not contain the complete the sequence puzzle
• The generator that does have the complete the sequence puzzle now has a bright light positioned above the sign with the order sequence
• All the piston heads on the top of the generators have had their paint changed from yellow to grey apart from the three that are buckled and require the Welder to fix
• The crank handles on the three pressure dials at the bottom of the generator have been removed on the three generators that do not have the Hammer the Pipes / turn the handles puzzle
• All the large gear wheels on the sides of the Generators have had their paint changed from yellow to grey apart from the one that is tied up with cords that require the Boltcutters to cut

Control Room changes

• The G1, G2, G3, G4 lights will now change state when the Generator is ready to active
• Some piping has been added around the ceilings on top of the Control Rooms to stop characters from easily getting on top of the Bhagra tile tracks

• Improved audio effects for Power Plant objectives

STAGE ONE POWER SWITCH CHANGES

Ongoing pass to make all Stage 1 switches take a similar amount of effort to complete as some can still be done in a few seconds with the right items available:

• Residential: Tape puzzle in has had its difficulty increased and now requires 3 frayed wire fixes instead of just 1
• Residential: Grate puzzle in now requires Prisoners to open all 3 grates to complete the Switch instead of just opening 1
• Residential: Rooftop, the red dossier holding the keycode has been removed and the code is now just sitting on the desk
• Examination: The big room on the lower floor has had a new setup created for the Power Switch in there involving a keycode and a draggable palette loader
• Infirmary: Lower floor reception area has the lever position to open the medical supplies room is randomised and the Switch in there now requires a fuse
• Infirmary: In the lower floor ward the red dossier that held a keycode has been replaced by two codes that both need to be found instead
• Laboratory: On the upper floor, papers needed to be shuffled to find a code are gone and the codes are now just hidden among the clutter in the room
• Exterior: The balcony switch that requires 7 buttons to be pressed now has one of those buttons always appear right next to the lights display to make it more apparent what needs to be done
• Exterior: The balcony with caged off areas where a code needs to be found has had the shuffle papers removed and more clutter assets added to help obscure the code

PLAYER SPAWN SYSTEM CHANGES

We have been seeing Prisoners respawning too close to the Monster so have adjusted the spawning system to attempt to reduce this:

• Number of possible spawn locations has been doubled across all buildings and exterior areas in the Sea Fort

INTERACTABLES CHANGES

Changes to gameplay systems in the Sea Fort:

Stage 1 Power Switches now take longer for Prisoners to activate

• 3.0 seconds for 1 Prisoner
• 3.5 seconds for 2 Prisoners
• 4.0 seconds for 3 Prisoners
• 4.5 seconds for 4 Prisoners

Audio changes to Security Camera alarm system with the cameras themselves being the source point of the alarm and getting fainter over distance

Wooden Crates should no longer be able to be moved around by pushing against them

Bugs fixed

CHARACTERS:

• Prisoners can no longer vault straight through the Monsters body while the Monster is clambering through windows
• Prisoners should now find that the red Equipment Chests now always contain an item when they are first opened
• As the Brute can now more easily kill downed or incapped Prisoners. It was previously very difficult to line up these attacks properly while the Prisoners were on the ground
• Bhagra should no longer unexpectedly fall off ceiling tiles
• Fixed bug where characters would fall at an incredibly fast rate after walking off of an edge.
• Fixed issue where occasionally the Malacosm would not respawn correctly after falling in the ocean

ENVIRONMENT:

• Fixed issue with real time parameter control of external audio
• Various audio bug fixes and polish
• Removed a pillar that could make a Monster get stuck in a gap in the Laboratory superblock
• Missing railings added to the top of the stairs in the Laboratory
• Fixed misaligned geometry in the Moon Pool tunnels
• Added blockers under the angled area behind stairs to prevent characters from crouching into them, which led to clipping and physics problems

OBJECTIVES / INTERACTABLES:

• Removed extraneous hand prompt on Generator puzzle content
• Moved a Vine in Aquatics that was causing monsters to get stuck at the top
• Raised height of various desks so Prisoners could crawl under them correctly
• Characters jumping audio no longer plays while they are standing in a moving elevator
• On the Examination rooftop there is no longer orange light bled visible from the Equipment Chest that randomly contains the Keycard Dispenser

MENU SYSTEMS / BACK END:

• Fixed issue where players can spam the ready button

Known Issues

CHARACTERS:

• Malacosm locker kills that would eliminate a Prisoner from the game will cause a spectate glitch where the camera does not recentre. Swapping to another camera fixes this issue.
• Some Prisoner skins will still clip into the Prisoners bodies.
• At times the Brute’s head will turn on during the Brute tutorial - it does go away after you have climbed the 1st vine
• Monsters heads can be missing during the monster intro cutscenes
• During a locker confrontation, the Prisoner may seem to disappear briefly. The Prisoner however should be visible after the interaction is completed.
• Prisoner’s arm can sometimes stick out of locker when holding an item

ENVIRONMENT:

• Sometimes sounds might emit from different positions than what is expected.
• Bhagra can occasionally still snag the top of certain stairs slowing them down momentarily
• Some yellow Palette Loaders remain in the game that are non-interactable, these are planned to be removed to help keep visual communication clear for players

OBJECTIVES / INTERACTABLES:

• Can be difficult for Monsters to latch onto the bottom of a Vine. Usually jumping at it is more reliable
• Severe character jittering when inside a moving elevator or attempting to kill inside them
• Occasionally Prisoner items that have yet to be collected can be seen jittering in place

USER INTERFACE:

• When a Prisoner loses their first life the Status Panel in the top right of the screen will briefly show they have lost both lives, this will correct itself once the Prisoner respawns

MENU SYSTEMS / BACK END:

• After a game has ended, the MC does not update in the store (It does update after restarting the game though)
• VSync occasionally does not apply in the main menus (it should be fine in-game and please remember to click save and exit to make sure it saves your choice)
• Quick Join blocked after leaving a friends lobby (after leaving Escape With Friends)

Final Word

Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this Update's patch notes, we hope you have as much fun playing as we did making it!

As usual, if you have any feedback, need help, or just want to say hi, come join our Discord: https://discord.gg/SB299Key