Hi everyone! Welcome to another VEIN News update.

For the last couple of weeks, we've been working on a lot of fixes and performance improvements, as well as expanding controller support and UI upgrades.

First, we'd like to warmly welcome Astro to joining us full-time, who will be doing various rigging/technical art/animation tasks, and Anton, who is going to be working on hard-surface art for the game. Anton is currently working on replacements for placeholder items.

Kyle has been working on adding gamepad support to most UI in the game. There's still additional work to be done, but most of the game is now navigable by controller. While doing that, he's redone some UI components such that they're more visible and readable during night or in dark environments.

Adam has been working on more sign artwork for the game for exterior detailing to make the world feel more alive. You'll be able to build your own signs soon, as we've seen several screenshots in the community where players have been using crates as signs.

8z has been doing work on placement fixes and ragdoll issues. He's currently mid-implementation of the new standalone buildings, where you can build and upgrade your own house.

Yan has been working on destructible blinds. Zombies (and you) can now destroy blinds.

We added a Toggle ADS option to the settings menu.

Kyle has integrated a new packaging method and is working on decreasing the time to make game builds as well as decreasing the download time/size of game updates. He's been working on some fixes for Linux builds. There's also been some work done on automatic demo packaging, so we no longer have to maintain both the Champlain Valley map and the demo map at the same time.

Yan fixed items spawning on store shelves, after you've moved/destroyed the shelves.

We added the ability to move containers with items already in them. This should help if you're moving your base around.

Kyle fixed the long-standing issue of icons in vehicles jittering around while driving. You should now be able to use things in vehicles reliably, in both multiplayer and singleplayer. He also fixed some issues with adding/removing locks to the new vehicle replacements.

We fixed an issue with the staple gun being classed as a basic stapler instead of a heavy stapler.

Zoe's finished revitalizing the older areas in the game around Lyon Mountain and Dannemora, and is working on the new areas, located to the north of Lyon Mountain and to the south of Redford.

Skyler's continuing hair work on the new characters. We've started integrating the new character art into the game. The majority of the character art work to be done is specifically on animations (first- and third-person), which all have to be reprocessed to work with the new skeleton. Astro and Kyle are actively working on that.

Boon's done the new animations for the new double barrel shotgun. They'll be integrated into the game shortly.

Finally, Zoe's been doing some work on the game's background lore. You can't access it in-game yet, but we're considering writing some short notes, clippings, and computer entries to be put inside the Champlain Valley.

Outside of the game, we've received over 200 applications from programmers who want to help fix some bugs, so we're going to be keeping busy with that for a while as well. We're continuing to expand the team, so if you're interested and haven't sent anything in yet, please email [email protected].

That's about it for now! Thanks for reading, and see you on the next one.