The Darkness Update
Something is watching us...
A monolith is hovering over the wasteland. Nobody knows when it arrived or what it wants...
The Darkness
Ever since that monolith arrived, we've been seeing these dark red clouds of fog, and they seem to just keep growing in number and size. The fog has proven to be lethal if you breathe it, but what comes afterward is even more horrifying.
The only thing we've found that helps stay the Darkness are these Beacon Posts that Zector designed way back in the day. The kicker? They are powered by Luminium, one of the rarest and most precious minerals on the planet.
Luminium and luma light
The dark has one reliable enemy, and you can carry it.
Luminium ore — cut it out of nodes in the field, refine it into ingots at a bench.
Luma capsules — throwable. A burst of luma light where you need it, when something is coming and you'd rather it wasn't dark.
Luma charges — the only weapon we know of that can destroy a Darkness Source.
Beacon Towers
Our only warning and defense against the Darkness. Every night, there are more nightmares unleashed on our world, and the Towers are our greatest defense we know of against them. Each night, you will hear both the horrifying and life-saving alarm from Beacon Towers across the landscape warning you of what is about to come for you. As soon as you hear a Beacon Tower siren, you should be headed straight for home unless you don't value your life.
Once a Beacon Tower is fully powered up, it will create a wide-ranging Luma Dome, which will shield you from the Darkness as well as incinerate any freakers inside.
You can also place smaller beacons yourself called Beacon Posts. A deployed Beacon Post projects a small dome of luma light and protects anyone inside it from both the Darkness fog and it's creatures. Placing them well is how you hold ground you'd otherwise have to abandon.
There's more out there than fits in one post
Graveport City — a full city district, and the densest concentration of infected on the map. Tight streets, bad sightlines, and too many ways to be approached from behind.
The Zector Factory — a new industrial biome with toxic gas across the site, zombies that are worse rather than simply more numerous, new vehicles, and loot that spawns nowhere else.
Zombie nests — they mature in stages and keep feeding the ground around them. A route that was clear last time won't be clear this time.
Hordes that flank — zombies group up now, and running sideways has stopped being a perfect escape strategy to every fight. Zeeks will try to find ways to head in the direction you are headed now to "cut you off at the pass".
A great deal of new loot — tech rifles, pistols and snipers, crossbows and bows, a melee rack running from the fireman's axe to the saw bat, backpacks up to heavy cyber rigs, deployable turrets, and food that's worth cooking first.
Tons of New Sounds, Music and SFX - zombies have new screams, roars, and attack sfx as well as vehicles. New music in the main menu and during exploration as well as ambient sounds like wind, crickets at night, etc.
Quality of Life - Custom Keybinds, Better Controller support, a whole new Settings UI with tons of audio and video settings.
Performance
Frame rates have increased significantly with an average of 59- 60 fps throughout each session.
Some spots that had major lag have been optimized heavily and no longer stutter or snap in.
Bug Fixes
There are way too many bug fixes to list here, so check out the roadmap Done column if you want to see the full list. Here are a few of the most requested ones:
Audio Sliders have been implemented and fixed with categories, so you can tune to your heart's content.
Corpses still made noises. Dead AI never had their state fully turned off, so they carried on running perception and reacting when you walked near them.
Improved and fixed issues with sounds, including but not limited to: footsteps, impacts, fire, vehicles, rivers, doors, and chests.
Rain and thunder sliders now restore from your save; leaving water no longer wipes every active audio mix.
Fixes to harvestables, beacons, loot chests, holdables, water and vehicles.
Fog of war is saved and reloaded per person now.
Thanks for sticking around. I know this update has been a LONG time coming and I appreciate you giving it another try. I would love to bring you guys the full game.
Feedback
If you hit something broken, tell me! You can always leave feedback in-game by going to the pause menu (Esc) and clicking Leave Feedback.