Hi everyone,
This patch focuses on performance improvements, bug fixes, and several changes based directly on community feedback.
FSR Support Added
We have added AMD FSR support, which can be especially useful for players running higher resolutions or ultrawide displays such as 2560×1080 and 3840×1600.
You can find FSR under:
Visual Settings → Advanced Settings → scroll to the bottom
If you want to improve FPS, we recommend trying FSR.
FSR settings:
High: Small impact on image quality with a moderate FPS improvement
Medium: Better performance with some reduction in image quality
Low: Highest performance gain with a more noticeable reduction in image quality
You can choose the setting that gives you the best balance between performance and visual quality for your PC.
Community Feedback
Special thanks to @断水流大师兄666 for helping us identify several rare map issues, which have now been fixed.
Thanks also to Dutchoper72 [TTV] for pointing out that the parasite used by the ranged enemy was too difficult to see in third-person mode.
We have now:
Increased the parasite size by 2×
Added additional VFX
Added grass interaction as it moves through the environment
Another community suggestion was to show which enemy killed you on the death screen.
Sorry, we couldn't find the original player ID again, but the feature has now been added.
Rare Death Summary Bug Fixed
After several weeks of testing, we finally managed to reproduce and fix a very rare issue where the death / end-of-run summary screen could become stuck.
It appeared to happen more often under very low frame-rate conditions and was extremely difficult for us to reproduce internally.
We believe this issue is now fixed.
If you still encounter it, please let us know in the Steam Community discussions and include your PC specs, resolution, graphics settings, and any details about what happened before the issue occurred.
The more information we have, the easier it is for us to reproduce and fix these rare issues.
Performance & Optimization
Dark Light: Survivor is currently built on Unity 2021, and we have been pushing the current engine as far as we can in terms of optimization.
Performance has been one of our main priorities since Early Access launched, and we know there is still room to improve.
On an RTX 2080-class GPU, the game should generally run around 40–60 FPS depending on resolution, graphics settings, enemy density, and effects on screen.
FSR can help improve performance further.
On an RTX 3070 at 1920×1080, the game should normally run at 60+ FPS, although temporary drops can still happen during particularly heavy combat situations.
Higher resolutions will naturally have a larger performance impact, so we recommend adjusting FSR, shadows, effects, grass density, and other settings based on your hardware.
If you notice a particular map, enemy, effect, or location causing unusual performance problems, please report it in the community. We record these reports and investigate them.
Unity 6 + URP Upgrade In Progress...
At the same time, we are actively upgrading Dark Light: Survivor to Unity 6 with URP.
This will give us a better foundation for future optimization and allow us to support features such as DLSS.
We have been working on the engine migration for around two months, and it is currently about 70% complete.
Moving an existing game to a new rendering pipeline is a bit like moving house. Shaders, materials, lighting, VFX, UI, maps, characters, enemies, and gameplay systems all need to be moved, adjusted, and tested again.
It is a large task, but we believe it will give us much more room to improve performance going forward.
Patch Changes
Performance & Graphics
Added FSR support
Tactical Camera is now the default camera preset
Added a performance warning when switching to the extreme long-range / Overwatch camera
Fixed several issues related to changing resolution
Fixed Auto resolution not applying correctly from the pause menu
Fixed a Coroutine Continue Failure error to help reduce occasional stuttering
Enemies
Increased the ranged zombie soldier parasite size by 2×
Added additional parasite VFX
Grass now reacts when the parasite moves through it
Maps & Player Movement
Fixed a rare issue where the player could become stuck inside the statue in Nexus Hold
Adjusted several building models in Map 2 that could interfere with player movement
Fixed several rare map issues reported by the community
UI
Added information showing which enemy killed the player on the death screen
Fixed an issue where pressing ESC during the resolution confirmation window could close the entire menu
Fixed a rare loading issue when entering end-of-run / result screens
Fixed a rare issue where the pause menu could fail to appear
A Small Team, Building More
We are a small indie team, and while fixing bugs and improving performance, we are also continuing to build new content, systems, enemies, maps, and features.
Balancing all of this takes time, so we really appreciate your patience and support.
If you encounter a bug, performance issue, or have feedback, please post it in the Steam Community discussions. We are very active there, and your reports help us identify and fix issues much faster.
If you are enjoying Dark Light: Survivor, please consider leaving us a Steam review. It helps more players discover the game and directly supports us in continuing to improve the game and create more content.
Thank you for sticking with us. We have a lot more planned.
Best,
Mirari