Greetings, SyndiK8 ops!
Yep, this is the transmission you’ve been anticipating for a while. We’ve got a new elite recruit officially ready to join the fight against Eden Corp, and his timing couldn’t have been better. Thanks to parsing all that raw data you’ve uploaded so far, we’ve gained access to two high-security areas deeper within Eden Tower.
However, we don’t exactly know what’s in there--but that’s where you come in, right?
NEW CONTENT & FEATURES
New Playable Hero - Boss, the Street Merc
A hardened survivor of Neo-Shinjuku’s street gangs, Boss blasts robots into scrap with his trusty shotgun or bashes them to pieces with a literal iron fist.
Boss’s loadout and abilities are covered in-depth in his Hero Spotlight, but here’s a quick dossier to get you started.
Note: Boss will not be available at game startup--he must be unlocked by completing the existing missions, including the two new missions added with this update (Extermination and Thundershock).
Boss comes equipped with the Dominator Shotgun, and that name isn’t an exaggeration. This pump-action powerhouse of a weapon fires heavy-duty shells and plasma grenades, both of which can effectively obliterate your enemies on their own.
But be sure to aim true, because this amount of firepower also requires patience on your part: while you can shoot one-handed, you’ll need both hands to pump the shotgun after every shell.
The Dominator Shotgun has four unlockable upgrades:
- Quad Chamber: shotgun will only need to be pumped after four shots (as opposed to after every shot)
- Proximity Reload: automatically reloads when gun is touched to right shoulder; you will still have to pump the shotgun to prime the first shell
- Air Juggle: explosive AOE that launches enemies into the air, so you and your mission partner can pick them off like clay pigeons
- Nade Launcher: fire up to three plasma grenades that regenerate after a brief cooldown (track their availability via the display on the side of the shotgun)
Note: This is not Boss’s complete loadout. Additional abilities will be added in a future update!
New Mission - Extermination
Descend down into Eden’s old Teleshift labs. This area’s pretty much abandoned, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
Nah, just joking. We’re aware of an ancient (by technology standards) “Extermination Protocol” set up as a security system. And if I know these older setups, that can only mean one thing: lasers.
You’d better know what to do when you encounter lasers; otherwise, we may need to schedule an early performance review.
To unlock Extermination, you must beat the Vapor Exploit mission again, even if you have completed it before.
New Mission - Thundershock
The good: we’ve unlocked a convenient shortcut across the Eden rooftop.
The bad: this area seems to have taken on the role of a giant lightning rod, as excess energy has reacted with atmospheric solar winds.
The result is a perfect storm of brutal electrical strikes that are deadly to you, but almost seem to supercharge your robot friends. If you see one get hit, make it your top priority to take it out!
To unlock Thundershock, you must beat the Extermination mission.
Note from the devs: these missions are in an incomplete state. Because we are shipping our missions as first playables, they do not have the latest dialogue VO, music cues, narrative items, challenges, or objectives in-game yet.
New Defense - Shield Station
Feeling a bit overwhelmed? Deploy a strategic Shield Station for an instant--albeit temporary-- reprieve. This pop-up barrier protects you and any defenses within it from incoming projectiles for a short period of time.
New Enemy - Teleshifting Mekomo
Eden Corp’s given their favorite katana-wielding synthetic model another software upgrade that’s overridden its prior cloaking ability with Teleshift capabilities. While it’s no longer invisible, that doesn’t mean it’s easier to hit--if anything, it’ll be harder. Stay alert!
New Feature - Multiplayer Leaderboards
Striving for the top spot is no longer a solo sport: co-op teams can now compete for the high score on SyndiK8’s wall of infamy. Player teams are ranked by total score, but also show each player’s individual hero choices and scores.
GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS & BALANCE
- Death and Held Weapons - After dying, you’ll automatically respawn holding whatever weapon(s) you were holding prior to death, so you can get back into the fight faster!
- Easy Difficulty - Easy Difficulty is more player-friendly overall with increased player health and damage, lowered volley shot count, and increased Data Core health.
- Hard and Nightmare Difficulties - Reduced Data Core health.
- Mission Balance: Nuke Fusion - Waves have been rebalanced to smooth out difficulty, while the center beacon has been split into two (one for each lane) to improve map flow.
- Mission Balance: Dark Source - Reduced enemy wave numbers.
- Katana Throw Damage Trails - Saija’s Katana Throw now features light trails to visualize the amount of damage being dealt. This feature is not finished and is still under development.
- Ability Balance: Katana Throw - Katana Throw’s distance and speed are now affected by actual throw speed. This feature is not finished and is still under development.
- Charged Shot VFX - Bishop's Crusader Pistol now shakes slightly when charging up. Additionally, visual recoil when firing Charged Shot (one hand) or Fusion Shot (both hands) has been increased.
- UI Scrolling - You can now scroll through UI scroll lists by pointing at it with your dominant hand and swiping your thumb on the touchpad.
ART/AUDIO
- Updated Model - Plasma Turret - The Plasma Turret has a new model to visually distinguish it from the Laser Turret.
- Updated Music Cues - New music cues for ambient and apprehension states in Nuke Fusion and all “Data Chamber” missions. More music with intros and attack cues to be added later.
PERFORMANCE/STABILITY
As we continue to refine our performance benchmarks and machine configurations, please note that your graphics settings will be automatically reset with this update.
- Main Menu - In game UI has been significantly optimized to minimize CPU load
- Controller Latency - Motion controller update has been implemented to minimize hand-tracked latency. If you bring up the SteamVR compositor and move your hands, you should now see negligible delay between the SteamVR controller model and your avatar hands.
- Matchfinding - Optimization to Matchfinding avatars to reduce CPU load.
- Interaction Overlaps - Player interaction overlaps have been refactored to improve CPU performance.
- Animation Logic - Player and AI animation logic have been adjusted for CPU performance.
- Visual Optimizations - Various FX and material optimizations for GPU performance.
- Stability - Various crash and stability improvements across the board.
FIXES
- Friendlists - Fixed an issue where large steam friendlists would cause intermittent slow downs.
- Voice Chat - Fixed an issue that caused voice chat to work intermittently.
- Voice Sync - Fixed an issue where voice chat could lose sync and play 5-10 seconds delayed.
- Mute - Fixed an issue where the “Mute outgoing voice” option was non-functional.
- Progression - Fixed a potential non-progression issue in Vapor Exploit mission.
- Windows N Intro Bypass - Added functionality to allow users on Windows N (Anniversary update) who are lacking the proper Windows Media Player components to progress past the Survios intro movie.
- Leaderboards - Fixed an issue where users could encounter a freeze when switching leaderboards.
- Scores - Fixed an issue in Leaderboards where the same score would be displayed every 10 ranks.
- Stuck Hands - Fixed an issue where players could get both hands stuck to their gun with the sticky control scheme.
- Graphic Settings - Fixed an issue where graphics settings were not resetting properly.
- Beam - Fixed an issue where Beam Mekomo laser beam impact effect would persist on death.
- Jitter - Fixed an issue where Beam Mekomo would jitter while moving on ramps.
- Mega Mekomo - Fixed an issue where Mega Mekomo would not attack the Data Core.
- Ground Attacks - Fixed an issue where ground Mekomos could perform melee attacks against the Data Core while not in range.
- HMD Buffer - Fixed an issue where the HMD buffer size was tied to window mirror size. And as always, we want to hear your ongoing thoughts on how we can better support your mission into Eden Corp! Join us on the Steam discussion forum and engage with developers and fellow SyndiK8 operatives, and be sure to use the official Feedback Form and Bug Reporting Form to submit anything you encounter. Good luck–we look forward to reviewing your latest reports, especially from those of you opting to team up with Boss!