This is the biggest update Shadow Slayer has had - big enough that it skips 0.4. The maps, the characters and the shape of every run changed. Maps:
Every map built from designed places: forest clearings, city streets with blocks, a plaza and canals, dunes, oases, mesas, frozen lakes, swamp channels with boardwalks, a fort, meadows, lava fissures
Ground with real material patches instead of one flat colour per biome
Cliffs and ledges on the highland maps (drop down, climb back only at ramps)
New tree, rock, cactus, wall, palisade, palm and mesa props
Safehouses with real roofs (thatch, tile, slate, snow)
A dressed landmark site on every map
Map moods: ash fall, aurora, swamp mist and wisps, city lanterns, chimney smoke, banners, birds
Crisp streamed terrain tiles, no seams
Camera zoom setting
Pause map shows the new places and the hunt objective
Characters:
Arms, facing-aware shoulders, a stagger away from hits, glowing eyes while hidden
Different deaths for humans, predators and prey
The Nightmaster's shape shows its phase
The hunt:
An opening camp near spawn
Three acts: clear the camp, kill a named target, endure
Alarm level 0–3 with a HUD meter
Hunt intensity: Relaxed / Standard / Brutal
Weapon noise shown on cards and in the Armory
Kill-cam on the named target
Predators & prey:
Tall grass hiding
Peek & tag
Sleeping camps at night
Alarm bells
Smoke clouds block sight
New enemies: Falconer, Armored Brute, Nervous Recruit, Trap-Layer, chattering guard pairs
Poisoned cookpot always finishes the job
Boss and miniboss weakpoints
Hide, search, accidents:
Enemies can lose you, search, then give up (SEARCHING state)
Hiding spots: haystacks, reeds, woodpiles, crates, barrels, bushes
Accident kills: shove off a cliff, drown in water
Death from above
Douse / relight street lanterns (a lure)
Cut alarm bell ropes
Targets, contracts, mastery:
Target dossiers with 7 traits
Contract mode (8 minutes, 4 stars) and Contract of the Day
Four mastery stars per map; 3 new skins and the Hunter's Sigil relic
Guild rank
Living maps:
Patrols walk the map's real places; caravans follow roads; hunting parties
Grass fires, night floods, whiteouts, ash storms
First Night:
A scripted first hunt replaces the old tutorial
Sound:
Act stingers, target theme, bell tolls, canal and city ambience, frogs that go quiet
Coming back:
Next-unlock chips on the menu and results screen
Hunter's Lodge trophy wall
Daily streak
Shareable results card
Onboarding tips from the second run
Feel:
Red rim instead of a red screen when spotted
Fewer detection rings
Screen edges close in at low health
Night-only bloom
Toasts no longer cover the pause buttons
Menus:
All menus and buttons redesigned in one style
New main-menu layout with icons and a More grid
A living night scene behind every menu screen
Performance:
Collision and line of sight rebuilt (~9× faster in big city fights), drawing several times cheaper
Fixed:
Sleeping camps could freeze forever
Alarm couldn't cool while any enemy anywhere stayed alert
Falcons invisible / following recycled enemies
Poisoned cookpot didn't count as a silent camp clear
Chatter blocked same-instant double kills
Hunt rewards multiplied by intensity twice
Streak bonus farmable with short runs; a DST day broke the streak
Resumed dailies not forced to Standard
Pack Hunter unlocked on hunt kills
Alarm ran with the hunt off
Player 2 ignored by falcon reveals and grass noise
Dashing out of a bear trap
Kill-cam carried into the next run
Alarm meter overlapped the timer ring and boss banner
Stale unlock chips, fractional shard counts, invisible Drowned Harrower trophy, hard-coded Act 3 time
Terrain tiles re-baking every frame on 4K screens
Opening camp spawning on the player on city maps
Camps, patrol points and landmarks inside props or water
Spawning inside walls or trees
Invisible walls from off-map cliffs; false cliff drops; being snapped up cliffs; blocked ramps
Lanterns, fissures, lights and bells vanishing past a map edge
River pools at every bridge; swamp channels through the city plaza
Great Plains camp too far away
Same daily seed drawing different props for different players
Endless alarm pinned at level 3
Blind alerted enemies tracked your real position
Finished contracts paid the win bonus, first-win double and a map win
Unseeded runs repeated the same target traits
Searchers showed EXPOSED instead of SEARCHING
Contracts and the First Night saved un-resumable snapshots
Dossier timer ran during pause
First Night bell runner died before you could act
New HUD cards not right-to-left in Hebrew
More menu unreachable with a controller
Toasts covered the level-up cards
A young grass fire glowed as a blown-out white blob
Web app icons and link preview still showed placeholder art
Desktop build moved to Electron 44 (security fixes)
"JavaScript error in the main process" box when closing the desktop game
Stepping off a ledge sometimes didn't count as a drop (no landing noise, no Death from Above)