Post Scriptum: The Bloody Undead Now Available!

28 Oct 2020Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Greetings!

Last week we unveiled the last Chapter 2 map titled “Maginot” and the features that you can expect from this 3rd map. Our new Halloween game mode titled “Contagion” is now available to all players for free for a limited time.

HALLOWEEN SALE AND FREE WEEKEND

Starting October 29th Post Scriptum will be on sale at 50% off for the entire Steam Halloween sale on top of this a Free Weekend will also be available from October 29th until November 1st.

CONTAGION

To go along with the spooky Steam Halloween sale we are releasing a temporary Chapter known as Chapter Z: The Bloody Undead with a new game mode titled “Contagion”

“Contagion” is our new zombie game mode that pits a group of survivors against a fierce horde of zombies and the survivors need to complete a set of tasks in order to win the match. The zombies have one simple objective which is to kill all survivors.

Below you can read about the game rules for the Contagion game mode.

Survivor Objective

Find and load 4 explosive supply crates in the M3 half-track MSP. Crates can be picked up by looking at it, press and hold 'F' the press grab.
Bring the supplies back to the truck and unload it using 'F'
Once 4 crates have been loaded, you can drive the Half-track to the bomb objective.
Drop the supplies and build the bomb, then place the fuse by holding 'F' and pressing the button.
Protect the bomb until it goes off.

In depth explanation:

The goal is to collect 4 supply crates scattered across the level and load them in the construction truck and then go build a bomb at the destroy marker.
There are a total of 10 potential areas where supplies can be found, out of these 10 potential locations, only 7 are actually spawned in.
As you are getting closer to the supply marked area, the marker will disappear if no supplies are at that location, or become a supply marker if there is indeed a crate there.
In order to load the crate in the truck, you need to get to the crate and pick it up by looking at it, pressing 'F' and “Grab”. Then you will need to walk within 2 meters of the truck and hold F to load the supplies in the truck.
If done correctly, the game will prompt you with a message telling you that the crate has been loaded in and it will tell you how many more crates you need in order to go build the objective.
Once the 4 crates are inside the truck, you will need to drive the truck to the bridge area to build the bomb. You will see a red ghost of the bomb, as soon as the ghost turns green, the bomb can be built.
Get out of the truck and unload all the supplies by pressing 'F' while looking at the truck and click Unload Supplies.
You should then see a bomb object on the bridge, get your shovel out and build it until you can see ammo and explosives in the wooden crates. When the bomb is fully built, press 'F' while looking at the bomb and click Place Fuse.
Once the fuse is in, the bomb will explode within 30 seconds, you need to protect the bomb until it goes off. The Zombie can deactivate the bomb by attacking it. If they do deactivate the bomb, your team loses.

Zombie Objective

Find and stop any and all survivors from gathering crates and building the bomb. Use your supernatural abilities to get close to the survivors. Survivors will turn into zombies if killed. You can destroy the bomb by attacking it.
Zombies are inherently weak and will die very fast if alone, the best approach playing as zombies is working together with other zombies to get close to the survivors.
As a zombie, you have supernatural abilities like increase jumping height, increased speed and stamina. Use this to quickly advance into position.
Zombies have the ability to spawn almost anywhere on the map.
Fire will burn your flesh, so stay away from fire!

As a Zombie, your goal is to prevent the Survivors from building the bomb on the bridge.
Either by killing all the survivors, holding them off for the entire duration of the round or destroying the bomb once planted.

CARENTAN & ST MERE EGLISE OPTIMIZATION

On top of the zombie game mode and Maginot, we’ve been investigating further into the optimization issues with both Carentan and St Mere Eglise. During that found that the amount of buildings rendered is potentially causing some serious performance issues Carentan. It also serves as frustration for players with the number of open buildings that are scattered throughout the city.

Alongside this, we've optimized multiple shaders and shadows around the map.

As a result, we’ve spent the last month identifying and closing off selected buildings in key areas to declutter the map and help the flow on the map.

The below screenshots show a comparison between version 2.0.944.15560 (Which was the last update before this one) and the new version 2.0.42.1. Images are taken on an empty developer server on Carentan Offensive 01 and St Mere Eglise Offensive 01. Same locations, same hardware, same video settings.

Hardware used for performance test:
I7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz.
Nvidia GTX 1080Ti.
32 GB of DDR4 Memory @ 2400MHz

Game Settings:
2560x1440p @ 144Hz in Borderless Window with No Super-Sampling
Epic Graphics Quality with Epic Textures, Epic Effects, Epic View Distance & Epic Foliage using FXAA Anti-Aliasing
Additional Settings: Distance Shadows ON, Screen Space Reflections ON, VSync OFF, Bloom ON, Ambient Occlusion ON, Pre-Load Textures ON, Motion Blur OFF

OPEN THE IMAGES IN A NEW TAB FOR FULL RESOLUTION

v2.0.944.15560 Carentan Café De Normandie town entry

v2.0.42.1 Carentan Café De Normandie town entry

v2.0.944.15560 Carentan Crossroads

v2.0.42.1 Carentan Crossroads

v2.0.944.15560 St Mere Eglise South Main Road

v2.0.42.1 St Mere Eglise South Main Road

And as per usual you can find your changelog below for the Halloween update.

CHANGELOG v2.0.42.1

Added: Post Scriptum Chapter Z: The Bloody Undead time-limited event.
Gameplay: New Contagion Game Mode
UI/UX: Added FG-42 Icon
Level Design: Added Contagion layers for Best, Carentan, St Mere Eglise, Stonne
Level Design: Made several optimizations passes on Carentan & St Mere Eglise.
Level Design: Closed off buildings in Carentan to improve performance and game flow.
Level Design: Closed off buildings in St Mere Eglise to improve performance.

Lastly, we want to thank every single one of our Community Testers that have helped test and give important feedback on the game mode. Without their help, the undertaking wouldn’t have been possible.

Sincerely,
Periscope Games