Greetings Survivors,
It's been 2 weeks since the last Zeek Feed, let's dive in and see what's being going on
What we have been working on…
Changes to default controls!!! So one of the biggest issues that some players have is the movement and camera controls, most people love it or love it after some time and others just do not like it. We are fully aware of this and it's something we are actively looking at improving and testing these improvements, but it's not easy and if it was we’d have done it already. But when the next update drops in June the default player movement controls will be set to Movement (this will feel more similar to other top down games as the player will only face the direction of the crosshair when aiming), and camera rotation will stay on continuous. For players that don’t like to use Q&E they can set camera rotation to MiddleMouse instead.
Steam Deck!! So recently we added all buildings in our map to our level streaming system to help with performance and loading time. This has been successful and I’m currently testing with my personal steam deck OLED and the game and map loads in seconds which is a huge improvement as previously this device really struggled to load the main map. Now we are working on the controller support to go with the steam deck updates so we move closer to get HumanitZ being fully supported for steam deck.
We’ve been working on a new master material for all our character clothing to allow weather effects, dirt, blood, wear and tear to add some more realism to the character clothing. More info on this when it's ready to be added to the live build.
Brand new menus coming to HumanitZ making them more streamline and work well with both PC and controller/console, here is a WIP sneak peak of how they might look. More info coming soon.
New POI added to the map that was teased on our discord recently is a research lab on a small little island so this will be a cool place to discover when the new update drops. But please note this is not the hidden island that is coming at 1.0 this is just a new location as we look to update the map further.
Future stuff:
- Animal hide will be coming to the game allowing the player to craft certain items like clothing etc.
- All houses and buildings have a low chance of an alarm going off when smashing windows for the first time.
- Adding the option to use/consume half of something that allows you to share with your teammate. Example a bottle of water you and your friend can share, this will create more fun in scarce loot settings when surviving is a lot harder.
- Zooming out the camera a bit further so the player can see further and also the same inside buildings allowing better viewing.
- Some changes to crafting and building items as some items will now be tied to in-game recipes you will need to find/unlock. Basically learning how to do something.
- Big map updates coming with new towns, neighbourhoods and places to loot with improvements to house layouts and more variation across the map.
Thanks for the support and taking the time to read our latest zeek feed.
And we’ll see you on the next one
Regards
HZ Team