Hey Everyone!
BlueTheRobot here! Welcome to our development blog alongside our first big content update. In this blog, we’ll go over the new content that has been added with this update and all the improvements to existing systems. We are so happy to finally give you a deep dive on what we have been working on the last couple of months, so let’s get into it!
NEW Map → Bunker :
The Bunker is a heavily CQB focused map, while often requiring flashlights and Night Vision to navigate most effectively. The location is set within a former mining outpost turned to a military stronghold occupied by various factions throughout the timeline of Incursion. The Vietnamese Liberation Front (VLF) currently has their hold on the region. You and your team will have to closely watch your six, and fearlessly pierce the depths of the facility.
Overhauled Map → Quarry:
Our primary goal with this update was to give the player an even more intense and immersive sense of being in the dense Vietnamese jungle. We’ve taken further steps to better capture the mood of being in a tropical environment by tweaking the volumetric fog and adding screen space fog scattering. Overall, this environment update has brought us much closer to our original vision!
NEW Weapons
Together with the new map Bunker and the overhauled Quarry,, we introduce 4 NEW weapons to Incursion Red River. Diversifying our roster, the update will bring the PP-19 Vitayz as another short-range weapon to the game, followed by the AKS-74U. Both weapons are great budget choices, followed by a FN FAL, a very versatile weapon- and the fan favorite SKS, which brings a great budget option for longer-range encounters.
AI overhaul
With this update, we’ve also overhauled the AI to behave more consistent & challenging in addition to new the AI types- Guards and Snipers. AI types differ in their behavior and in their loadout.. Additionally, we have added a more advanced AI perception system to further improve the AI behavior, which makes the AI “gain” sight on the Player over time. Once the sight value reaches a certain threshold (Can be adjusted in the AI Difficulty settings), the AI will actually behave like it “sees” the Player. Preventing instances where the AI would instantaneously detect the Player. We have also improved the foliage visibility system, giving the player now a better chance to hide in the new dense jungle foliage. While this update already improved the AI quite a bit, AI is still very much a work in progress and we will certainly continue to work hard on new features and adjustments moving forward. Here is a video on the new perception system:
NEW Voice Lines
“Got any water left?”
Even though our previous voice lines already caught some traction as memes within the community, we decided to step up our voice lines to the next level with the help of an outsourcing company to get completely new voice lines into the game. We want to give a huge thanks to Vox Grinder, you did a great job in writing, recording, acting and directing for the new voice lines, here is a short clip of one of their recording sessions:
Medical system
With this update we want to introduce our first iteration of a medical system. This means characters can get wounded when being shot (The bullet defines chance) and you need to use a bandage to stop losing continuous health. Additionally, we’ve reworked how painkillers work. While they previously just healed, they do not give a health buff for a certain amount of time, whereas to heal you actually need to take a health injector. With this update, we are also bringing animations to all of our medical items, which helps pacing the game as well.
We’re dedicated to increasing immersion (Without sacrificing playability) across the board as development continues, and these animations are just the beginning for the medical system!
Interaction Animations/Key System
As shown in one of our X posts already, we have also added interaction animations for unlocking, opening, closing doors as well as looting items & containers. This goes along with our goal for an even more interactive and grounded experience.
Penetration System
A requested feature was also to add increased depth to the armor system. We are now introducing a much more complex penetration system, where each armor comes with an additional protection level stat and each bullet with stats such as piercing level and a separate penetration value. Based on armor durability, armor protection level, the bullet piercing level and penetration value, we calculate if the bullet penetrated, how much (blunt) damage and how much armor damage is dealt. This video should give a better overview how the different calibers behave against different armor protection levels:
NEW third person animations
One of our main criticisms were the subpar third-person animations and third-person models. We have tackled both issues at once with this update. Here is a sneak peek on our new animations and models:
NEW Bosses operation / NEW Profit Task
We have also added a new Operation called “Elimination”. This will spawn a Boss with high-tier armor and loot that needs to be eliminated by the player.
The design of Bosses are temporary at the moment, but will soon feature a full high quality character model with custom gear and lore details- stay tuned for the future dedicated post from us featuring this!
The mission becomes available only on higher faction reputations. Secondly, we have added a new task called “Profit” where the player has to extract with over a threshold of loot value to complete the task. We have also reworked how faction reputation works. Previously, you lost a considerable amount of reputation for the rivaling factions when completing an operation for another faction. This is no longer the case, you only lose reputation if you fail an operation. Tasks, on the other hand, provide only rewards such as cash and other items and no longer provide any faction reputation progress.
NEW Barter Items & Balance Overhaul
Along with all the new content & features, we made significant changes to our economy. We added many new barter items, making the looting experience much more diverse and exciting. Additionally, we’ve increased barter item prices and added high-value loot, for which you should keep your eyes open, to make looting more meaningful. Together with the new barter items we also placed more looting spots together with new safes, which are placed across both maps and need a key to be unlocked. These safes are additional high-value looting spots, but are placed at well-guarded territories.
Inventory + Stash Improvements
We also made some QoL improvements to the inventory layout and usability. To reduce the need of scrolling, we made all equippable slots, such as weapons & gear, available all the time to the player to quickly change equipped items. Furthermore, we have added usability improvements such as switching between the laptop & the stash by pressing tab or making a compatibility search of any item within your stash, which should make building your loadout much faster while we implement the weapons workbench.
QoL
Additionally we also made general improvements to the game. For example, we improved the performance by utilizing new technologies of Unreal Engine 5, by further pushing the use of Nanite geometry for high end visuals and greater performance. Additionally, many optimizations have been applied to Lumen and Virtual Shadows Maps to hopefully allow lower-end systems to get a similar experience in both visuals and performance. We also improved the scalability of our game, allowing lower-end PCs still get reasonable frames. We’ve also reworked underlying systems like the inventory and the mission system, which results in smaller save game files and more robust behavior which hopefully will allow us to work more efficiently in the future when we plan to expand on those systems. Last but not least, we’ve also improved the Network Bandwidth usage so the coop experience will now feel smoother than before.
Outlook
With the year of 2024 approaching its end, our focus remains on finishing the items on our original roadmap. However, we will also return to you soon with a brand new roadmap for 2025. To be completely transparent, we plan to keep the 6 month release cycle as originally announced, as it suits our team size & scope best and ensures each update comes with meaningful content & improvements. We will keep you updated every month with our development update as well, so catch you all later!