Gearbound Development Progress Report
Week of June 7–13, 2026
Hey everyone! Here is this week’s development progress report for Gearbound: Odyssey.
Weapon System Improvements
A large portion of this week was focused on expanding and improving the modular weapon system.
Continued development of the ranged and melee weapon inventory.
Added support for weapon-specific animation overrides.
Each weapon can now use its own draw, attack, aiming, and movement animations.
Melee weapons are also being integrated into the animation override system.
Improved weapon switching so the draw animation plays whenever a new weapon is equipped.
Continued improving how melee weapons are stowed when the player begins aiming or shooting.
Added UI hooks for displaying the currently equipped weapon, its icon, and remaining ammunition.
Player Controller and Input
The player controller and related systems received several important updates.
Continued converting gameplay controls to Unity’s New Input System.
Updated the player controller, camera controller, and weapon inventory input handling.
Improved input blocking for menus, weapon selection, and paused gameplay.
Continued improving the third-person aiming and strafing systems.
Worked on preventing movement, aiming, and shooting while the game is paused.
Improved cursor locking and unlocking behavior.
Animation and Character Systems
Several animation systems were expanded this week.
Added support for per-weapon animation sets.
Continued improving the transition between ranged and melee combat.
Worked on draw, stow, attack, aiming, and locomotion animation handling.
Continued improving Animation Rigging integration for the player’s hands and weapon aiming.
Worked on making animation events more reliable for footsteps and other character effects.
Footsteps and Ground Detection
The footstep system continued to receive improvements.
Added support for separate left and right foot positions.
Connected footsteps to the player controller’s grounded state.
Continued working on footstep sounds and surface effects.
Investigated issues where animation events were not triggering correctly during walking and running.
Health, Death, and UI Systems
Work continued on player health and death-related systems.
Added UnityEvents to the health system for damage, healing, and death.
Added support for a dedicated health UI.
Continued development of ragdoll spawning when a character dies.
Started integrating dropped equipment and gear into the death system.
Saving and Loading
The pause-menu saving and loading system was updated.
Improved how the currently selected save slot is detected.
Updated the system to work with the project’s SpawnManager JSON save system.
Continued improving loading-screen transitions when loading a saved game.
Added additional safety checks to prevent incorrect save-slot or scene data from being used.
Level and Visual Development
Visual and environmental development also continued this week.
Continued working on the tutorial level and its gameplay flow.
Improved environment lighting and material definition.
Tested higher-quality URP shadow settings.
Continued balancing visual quality against performance.
Worked on environmental effects and out-of-bounds visuals.
Current Focus
The main development focus moving forward is:
Finishing the weapon animation override system.
Improving weapon switching and melee transitions.
Fixing remaining footstep animation-event issues.
Polishing aiming, strafing, and Animation Rigging behavior.
Continuing work on the tutorial level.
Testing the updated save and load systems.
Improving combat responsiveness and overall third-person movement.
A lot of the work this week has been focused on strengthening the underlying gameplay systems. Some of these changes may not immediately look dramatic in screenshots, but they are important for making combat, movement, weapons, and future content easier to expand and maintain.
Thank you to everyone who continues to follow and support the development of Gearbound: Odyssey!