Hey everyone,
I hope the start of the year has been treating you all well!
After a longer break over the holidays (burnout got the best of me), I’ve had some time to rest, unwind, and dive into a few games – shoutout to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 for sucking me in!
I have been back into development since early February and have been working hard on this update. With the 1-year anniversary of The Night Shift's Unreal release, I wanted to kick off the year with a big update full of exciting new features, alongside a ton of bug fixes.
Now, let’s dive into the new content!
Shifts
Four new shifts to play! Three of these shifts are randomized, meaning you'll experience only two of them in a single playthrough similar to the shifts on night 2 and 3. The fourth shift? Well, it's a different kind of shift — expect some surprises!
Each shift comes with new tasks, challenges, and plenty of secrets to uncover.
I've also gone through and reviewed all notes and batteries in the game. The note achievements are now unaffected by duplicate notes, meaning that safety posters and empty papers no longer count toward the total.
As for batteries, the three shifts playable on nights 2 and 3 now feature randomly spawning batteries with an adjusted spawn rate. Previously, these batteries had fixed locations, but to ensure consistency across the rest of the game, their spawns are now randomized.
Themes
With the success of the Christmas theme last year, I wanted to bring even more variety to the game with this update.
You can now experience different themes at any time, alongside their real-life events—or never, if you prefer. Plus, six new themed achievements are available across these new themes!
Here are the themes you can experience and their in-game dates:
- (New) Valentine's Day - 14th February
- (New) Anniversary - 12th March to 18th March
- (New) April Fools - 1st April
- (New) Easter - 6th April to 20th April
- (New) Halloween - 17th October to 31st October
- Christmas - 1st December to 31st December
By default, these themes will occur on the listed dates, but you’ll have the option to change this. You can enable a single theme to happen all the time, or turn them all off. The choice is yours!
Performance
This is an area I've been focusing on consistently improving. While there have been several smaller updates, the biggest change is the addition of the ability to switch between DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. Previously, the game was limited to DirectX 12.
Moving forward, I’ll continue to make performance improvements that will benefit both DirectX 11 and 12, ensuring a smoother experience across both versions.
And More...
There’s plenty more to discover in this update, along with over 40 bug fixes! I’m excited for you all to dive in, and I hope you enjoy the new content.
As usual, most of the changes in this update affect both the Early Access and Demo builds.
Read the full changelog below.
Changes
- Added 4 new shifts.
- Added 3 new achievements and 6 new themed achievements.
- Added 13 new notes and 9 new themed notes.
- Added 'Advanced Settings' tab in the options.
- Added ability to change between DirectX 11 and DirectX 12.
- Added seasons for Valentines Day, April Fools, Halloween, Easter and The Night Shift's anniversary.
- Added more easter eggs to find.
- Added new music played on the radio.
- Added a post it note point to check the office board if it has been missed on Night 1 and 2.
- Added a theme override description in settings.
- Added SFX to physics items.
- Added a clock in the office.
- Added a set duration for each player dialogue.
- Added rain SFX to the store front.
- Added extra details throughout the store across all shifts.
- Updated phone dialogue with a phone static.
- Updated phone dialogue with player proximity.
- Updated the blue keycard to randomly spawn in one of the drawers.
- Updated notes and their placements throughout all shifts, there are no longer duplicates of the same note.
- Updated all items, achievement items and their placements throughout all shifts.
- Updated the player bumping into physics objects now affects them.
- Updated the radio starting status across all shifts.
- Updated the radio to be present in office across all shifts.
- Updated season override to theme override.
- Updated "Seasonal" season to default.
- Updated lamp with on/off audio.
- Updated the visuals of front counter and furniture sections.
- Updated the store front with various details across all shifts.
- Updated the amount of batteries that spawn to be consistent across the shifts on night 2 and night 3.
- Updated the batteries to spawn randomly during shifts on night 2 and night 3.
- Updated the amount of places batteries can be found during shifts on night 2 and night 3 to 20.
- Updated mannequin movement SFX and a variety of ambience music.
- Updated alarm attenuation of the theft sensors in electronics.
- Updated location of the office's paper ball bin in all shifts.
- Updated the lightning audio.
- Updated visuals of rain.
- Changed empty memos, workplace and keycard posters not counting towards 30 note achievement.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the next step of the task not showing when completing the previous step.
- Fixed new tasks not showing after completing another task.
- Fixed getting blocked in certain circumstances on night 1 when calling Riley during 'Night Prep'.
- Fixed a second air conditioner showing on night 1 in the kitchen.
- Fixed a garbage bag clipping into other props on night 1.
- Fixed a mannequin clipping into other props on night 1.
- Fixed the clock off task not starting correctly on night 1.
- Fixed the sizes of the batteries on night 1.
- Fixed ability to be stuck in phone call on night 1 if triggering garbage chute dialogue at the same time.
- Fixed the phone hanging up sound playing twice on night 1 and 2.
- Fixed missing detail on night 5 shelves.
- Fixed becoming blocked on night 1 when another dialogue starts during phone call.
- Fixed seasonal music on the radio just playing static when the song is complete.
- Fixed radio to properly start on a random channel.
- Fixed vision becoming blurry if focus button was spammed.
- Fixed vision becoming blurry when zooming into specific places.
- Fixed Seasonal notice continuing to show when changing it to the current season.
- Fixed some mannequins not changing materials correctly when loading a level.
- Fixed decals showing on mannequins in certain situations.
- Fixed mannequins sometimes not being able to reach various areas.
- Fixed mannequins being able to attack more than once in rapid succession while player is moving.
- Fixed the possibility of mannequins not being able to spawn in certain situations.
- Fixed the consistency of front desks for earlier shifts to match later ones.
- Fixed text not being legible when reading notes during inspection.
- Fixed season override sometimes not showing the season on first open.
- Fixed physics objects receiving decals in certain situations.
- Fixed physics objects affecting mannequin navigation in certain situations.
- Fixed losing ability to interact after placing extinguishers in certain situations.
- Fixed being able to get out of the areas in certain situations.
- Fixed being able to collide into a small invisible barrier during the task in the change rooms.
- Fixed handles on the office drawers missing shadows.
- Fixed the TVs being on during the shift focused in the men's section.
- Fixed some boxes clipping through shelving in electronics.
- Fixed items missing on shelves in electronics.
- Fixed main menu environment to be more consistent with the rest of the game.
- Fixed various meshes clipping through various shelves.
- Fixed pullup banners not being consistent across shifts.
- Fixed distance of various held items being too close to player.
- Fixed the paper ball audio sometimes being heard when loading into a shift.
- Fixed some artifacts in images during intro sequence.
- Fixed the light from lightning not displaying correctly across all shifts.
- Fixed various sounds not being affected by audio sliders.
- Fixed various props not displaying correctly up close.
- Fixed various props not displaying correctly at a distance.
- Fixed being able to see the rain in the store in certain situations.
- Removed a couple of old notes that had been missed in previous updates.
- Removed music from credits sequence.
- Removed collision from jacket on office floor.
- Various performance and optimization improvements.
Report any bugs or issues on the Steam Discussion board, the Discord, or the website.
Chat soon!
Marty