To celebrate the end of the year, we prepared a new update with new Curios, a new night mode map, and quality of life improvements!

And... a holiday splash art for you Loners to download. 😁

We've been reading all your comments and took time to revamp a significant part of the Combat Experience by changing how enemies despawn and completely remaking the Snakes (and other Shooters!) and its AI Behavior!

This update should boost multiplayer performance as well! So, if you were having networking issues, please try again and let us know!

What's New?

Curios:

• Alternate Actuality: Defeating an enemy has a chance of spawning Snowbro, who'll inflict stacks of Chill on your Enemies! Gear Dashing through Snowbro will cause it to explode and deal tons of Chill!

• Scoopert: While your Device is on Cooldown, it spawns Orbs around you that apply stacks of Chill to enemies. Shooting these Orbs applies even more stacks!

New Night Mode Map:

• Twilight Dam: An ancient structure used to generate energy from way before Core splitting was a thing... A reality break envelops this area on permanent Twilight.

Director Note:
The Night Mode version of Twilight Dam should introduce a new challenge for those Loners who are incredibly experienced. If you manage to beat it, let us know!

Visual Enhancements:
A snow-kissed Loner's Camp:

• The Loner's Camp gets a holiday makeover:
• Snow-covered landscapes and frozen water.
• Twinkling Christmas lights.
• A glowing Christmas tree.
• And yes, even Rose is rocking a Santa hat.

• Goop VFX revamped! Now, it’s yellow for better understanding and visibility.
  • This is part of our quest to improve readability and better teach Camille's fight. This should make the Goop less fearsome for some players who mistook it for a "Poisonous" field.

• Enhanced lighting on characters, weapons, and devices in the loadout screen—looking sharp!
• Sleek new outlines for characters, enemies, and props.

Quality of Life Upgrades

• Locked Content Preview:
  • Content that players have yet to unlock appears in the mysterious atomic font... 👀

• Visible discoveries display unlock progress for better tracking.

• Interactions: Hold E action is now instant for most in-picnic actions.
  • Selecting Offerings, Buying Items, Activating Events, and Opening Taka-Chan are examples of now instant interactions.
  • Reviving Players is still a press-and-hold action.
  • All Camp actions are still press-and-hold.

Changes & Balancing

• Discovery System Rebalanced:
  • Most Discoveries are now easier to unlock
  • Some Discoveries now offer higher currency rewards.
  • Previously unlocked content will still be available, even if the discovery disappears and it's locked. Don't be surprised! Players will receive unlocked notifications again, even if the item has already been unlocked.

• Enemy AI Tweaks:
  • Enemies will not easily despawn anymore.
  • Enemies will now spawn much further away from you.
  • Snacks will now try its best to teleport in front of the player they are targeting.
  • Snacks now teleport further away from the player.
  • Shooter enemies AI rebalanced to be less frustrating when attacking players from behind.

• XP drop VFX intensity toned down—less flash, same reward!
• Slippery Surfaces: Light poles just got trickier. Testing this feature for future hazard zones.

Director Note:
Although they seem small, these combat changes are extremely significant. We've noticed the game is much more manageable, especially when doing Events, Objectives, or when fighting against lots of enemies. Enemies not despawning and spawning much further away means you can see them and better prepare yourself for the fight, while they won't just randomly pop right in your face all the time. This is part of our ongoing efforts to make combat in Atomic Picnic feel amazing, so let us know what you think. This change could only happen due to your feedback on our Steam Forums and Discord!

Bug Fixes

• Snake Enemy:
  • Fixed Elite Snake's bouncing bullet VFX

• Camille Teleport:
  • Lag spikes during boss fights? Not anymore. Performance and connection issues resolved.

• Enemy Spawn Stability:
  • No more random despawning. Enemies are here to stay until defeated.
    • This fix should mitigate disconnection issues.

  
  
• Explodable Bouncing Bullets:
  • Fixed multiple explosions, missing explosions, and odd behavior on irregular surfaces.

• Peace Time Spawns:
  • Fixed enemies who were rudely interrupting your downtime.

• Performance Tweaks:
  • Bullet data optimizations that should decrease network traffic.
  • Optimizations for enemy jump VFX.
  • Fixed leaking event data from incomplete events that were causing performance and networking overhead.

• Camille Fixes:
  • Corrected oversized hitbox, expanding ball of bullets attack position, bullet size, and compatibility with the Suspicious Mirror (Curio) and JD's Active Skill.

• Other Fixes
  
• Fixed Taka-chan not responding when opening it simultaneously when the Mini-Boss spawns.
  
• Fixed Camp UI disappearing (We fixed it, but we are still testing this! So help us if you see that happening!)
  
• Fixed Enemies getting stuck on a rock shelf in Train Plateau.
  
• AI Pathfinding Update
  • Fewer places where enemies are spawning inside walls.
  • Enemies jump loop should not happen anymore.
    • Sometimes, enemies kept jumping in the same place without getting closer to the player.

  • Enemies navigation mesh is more straightforward and should demand less from weaker machines when hosting.
    
  • Melee enemies slightly shake when reaching the player's closest position on NavMesh.
    
  • Improved Little Mac's AI to better focus on one player at a time.
  
  

Known Issues

• Dead allies might be invisible to other players.
• Inviting through Steam sometimes makes friends join random people.
• Safeguard, while downed, blocks the user from continuing playing.
• The game starts stuttering during the transition to the Final Boss stage.
• Ash's Active Skill and Gear Dash combo allows unintended high-flying out of the playable area. (This is why we can't have nice things 🤣)
• Placeholder Cubes are being used as Debuff Indicators in Bonnie's Drop Lvl 3 skill.
• Incorrect Prompt for Curios Screen: "TouchPad" is shown instead of "Share" on the PS5 Controller.
• There are still some connection issues happening, we will continue investigating them.

Happy Holidays!

This is more than just an update. It’s a thank YOU from us! Most of the impactful changes we've made here were thanks to your feedback, reports, and suggestions. Please keep them coming so we can make Atomic Picnic the best game it can be 💖

Have fun with the new content, improved combat experience, and a snow-kissed Loner's Camp! Whether you're here to build the best Chill Build or soak in the holiday vibes, this update is for you.
Bundle up, grab your Snowbro, and make this holiday one to remember! See you in-game!

Happy Holidays from the BitCake Team

PS: We will take our break from Dec 20 to Jan 6, but we're already cooking stuff for next year. Stay tuned!