Hey everyone! We've been working hard the past few weeks to bring you Update 1.0
We've been engaging with the community on our discussion page, reading reviews and watching YouTube videos to identify the most important parts of the game to work on and improve. We want to thank everyone who tried the beta out, we appreciate your time and feedback.
This video is a nice summary of the update but there are many more improvements that were not shown in the video.
1:1 Hands with Motion Controller
We've now made the hands 1:1 with the Unreal Engine motion controller. You shouldn't have that underwater feeling or delay anymore. The hand rework is massive part of this update. It impacts many features as you'll see below.
Hand Presence and Animations
The hand will now respond to what you're touching/pushing on your motion controller.
Hand Stickiness on Surfaces
Your hands or objects you place and move on surfaces will no longer stick. You can freely move them.
Climbing and Mantling
Climbing is much faster now that we've reworked how the hands function. We've also improved mantling with our auto mantle detection.
On ladders your hands will no longer stay there when climbing up and mantling. They will either release the grip or the strength settings will change so you just stand up instead of being stuck hovering.
Surface Gripping
We've added the ability to grab the top of almost all surfaces in the game. This will make it a lot easier to climb and mantle on top of surfaces.
Hand Sensitivity on Surfaces
With our hand rework we have a lot more control over how the hand affects your physics body. Grabbing objects and moving things has a lot less influence on you meaning you won't be moved around as much. When walking around corners your hands won't get stuck as badly as before, more easily gliding along surfaces. When holding a weapon around a corner that will also move more gracefully which should improve the experience of getting stuck on certain objects at times.
Enemy AI
We've worked to improve all aspects of every humanoid AI, From how the AI works to their animations. We've essentially reworked most Humanoid AI in the game.
The Gang members and City humans now use a fundamentally different animation system. This allows for foot ik, leg rotations to face you, head rotations, better movement animations and better transitioning between animations such as in place and root motion animations.
So their normal movement around the level looks much better. The City Humans have new idle animations to have conversations, are in clusters around and some are walking around the city.
The Gang members, City humans and WUX-n all have a new hit reaction system. Root motion hit reaction animations and also the ability to get different reactions on body parts. Hit the legs to trip them then hit them again to knock them to the floor for example. We won't tell you all of them here but play around! This new hit reaction works for melee and projectiles so during combat their is a lot more variety and they look much more dynamic.
We improved the physics as well so they keep better to the animations. The shooter AI is also improved with dodge rolling, hit reaction and different behaviours for running, walking and crouching during combat.
Gun Slider
We reworked the gun slider, the slider works significantly better then before. The previous glitches are now gone such as holding it against a wall and the slider floating off from it. Also you can hold the slider now and move the gun, it won't have a weird feeling of weighing a lot being hard to hold the gun up just by the slider.
One Handed and Two Handed Objects
With the VR hand rework one and two handed objects feel much better now. We've adjusted the weight of the weapons and objects as well to accommodate. So swinging around weapons/objects should feel and be a lot more fun now.
Physics Props Improvements
We've adjusted and improved certain physics props in the world.
Rifle Two Handed
We improved the grab points on the rifle to make the two handed a lot easier to use. It should be a better experience now.
Gun Haptics
We've added unique haptics per gun and enhanced how they feel.
Level Fixes
We've gone in and fixed a few things in the levels to improve the experience based on feedback given.
Final Note
We may have missed a few points as this update was quite a big undertaking. It's our hope that the previous 7 patches and this new big Update will improve your experience while playing LONN. Please let us know what you think on our discussion page.
Also once again thank you so much to everyone who participated in the beta.
What's Next!?
You might be wondering, what's next? Don't worry we aren't done yet. We have some exciting plans for new game content and will share more information with you soon.
We hope you enjoy this update and how the game feels to play now.
Dan, Matt and Sanjay
SixSense Studios