I'm proud to announce this small update, the first for 2025! Amongst a few crucial fixes, I have been working hard on NPC animation and interaction to bring the game world more to life. I've done a few experiments before, and now with this update we are bringing a character to life.
'General Van Jaarsveld' who is heard providing mission briefings throughout the game, particularly in the early/first missions has now been brought to life as a living breathing NPC standing in front of you.
Featuring procedural blinking, synchronized facial expressions, inverse kinematics/looking and dialogue hand gestures coupled with movement and A.I.
He will react to you differently depending on how you behave, and features a comprehensive voice acting performance by the Voice Actor recorded at Asylum Studios over these holidays, which I am very excited to share with you!
This appearance comes with a brand new obstacle course led by Jaarsveld himself, which you can now access by selecting the "Tutorial" option from the main menu. The original tutorial is still available, but the first part now consists of the obstacle course. Any of the 3 tutorial segments can be exited at any time.
Main Features:
- A new character brought to life as well as new voice acting.
- A new obstacle course level.
- New NPC hand gesture dialogue system.
- Enhanced NPC facial expression to dialogue syncing.
- New dialogue skip mechanic with VCR animation. Activated by holding spacebar for a few seconds while an NPC is talking.
- NPC spoken dialogue will change and react to your actions in the obstacle course based on weather you choose to take things seriously or not.
- New NPC's added to "Noise Complaint" secret mission, as well as new improved dance moves.
- New wind SFX.
- Fixed bug causing arrow buttons on controller to select weapons while using the inventory.
- When receiving radio transmissions, the player will now only automatically select the radio if there is no danger as well as being able to interrupt the radio switch by selecting a weapon.
- New "Scope Strength" slider in options which can be used for increasing or decreasing the zoom scope lens lines.
- Weapon wheel can now be assigned to a custom binding in control options.
A massive thanks to the users who have reported bugs to me on Discord as well as on our public Steam Forum. It's a great help and I please encourage people to let me know of any other issues they might find. Or even just to let me know what you did like, I am always down for a chat!
I hope you enjoy this first update of the year, it will be the first of many!