Update 0.5.1 brings one of the largest technical changes to BodyRecords since its Early Access release.
The game has been fully migrated to Unreal Engine 5.7, along with major updates to multiplayer networking, world streaming, physics, and several core gameplay systems.
Most of these changes happen behind the scenes, but their goal is simple: improve overall stability and provide a stronger foundation for future updates.
Engine Upgrade
BodyRecords has been migrated from Unreal Engine 5.4 to Unreal Engine 5.7.
The newer engine version includes numerous improvements and fixes in areas heavily used by the game, including:
World streaming and World Partition
Physics simulation
Multiplayer networking and replication
Memory and object lifecycle handling
General engine stability
The migration also addresses several long-standing sources of rare crashes that could occur during longer gameplay and multiplayer sessions.
Multiplayer & Networking
The Steam multiplayer integration has been updated and the game's network configuration has been reworked to use the current recommended setup.
These changes are intended to improve session stability and eliminate several potential causes of network-related crashes.
The underlying networking setup has changed significantly, while the way players create, join and play multiplayer sessions remains the same.
World Streaming & Stability
A large portion of the game's world streaming systems has been updated as part of the migration.
World Partition, HLOD, landscape-related systems and several other parts of the open world have been adapted to the newer engine version.
The update also includes engine-side improvements related to physics and network replication while parts of the world are being loaded and unloaded — areas that were responsible for some of the rare host-side crashes reported in previous versions.
Gameplay Compatibility
Moving the entire project to a newer engine version required a number of gameplay systems to be reviewed and adjusted.
Several initialization and timing-related issues introduced by differences between engine versions have been resolved, and affected gameplay systems have been updated to work correctly with the new engine.
The goal throughout the migration was to preserve the existing gameplay experience while replacing and updating the underlying technology.
Crash Reporting & Early Access
We will continue monitoring crash reports and player feedback after the release of Update 0.5.1.
This update addresses several known categories of crashes seen in previous versions, but BodyRecords remains in Early Access, and rare issues may still occur — especially in multiplayer situations that are difficult to reproduce consistently during development.
Crash reports continue to be extremely useful and allow us to identify problems that would otherwise be very difficult to track down.
What's Next
With the engine migration complete, development can now continue on a much newer technical foundation without relying on additional workarounds for older engine systems.
Thank you for playing BodyRecords, and thank you to everyone who continues to send feedback and crash reports during Early Access.