VAIL is now free to download with access to everything the Citadel offers, including a 1v1 Face Off arena, a variety of mini-golf courses, an obstacle course/combat playground, a shooting range, and more.
VAIL Combat is now offered as an optional DLC which unlocks all of the content in VAIL including matchmaking, custom games, all 13 maps, all 11 team based and free-for-all game modes, progression and level unlocks, and more.
If you purchased VAIL before this update, you’ll be granted VAIL combat automatically and will retain your current progress, unlocks, and cosmetics. Keep in mind that you may still see the DLC as purchasable, but you will own it in game through our systems.
THE CITADEL
The Citadel is expanding with new things to explore and do, starting with the addition of a DJ booth. Here, you can control the newly added music that plays throughout the Citadel with the slider on the mixing board. This slider doesn’t just change how loud or quiet the music is, but instead changes the way it sounds to make it more of a background mix or louder foreground banger.
Another addition to the Citadel is the new matchmaking elevator. Enter the elevator to queue up for matches if you own VAIL Combat, and if you don’t own VAIL Combat yet you can go learn more about it and purchase it by insert the VAIL game cartridge into this machine.
Additionally, this update makes improvements to mini-golf. No longer will you see your golf club phase through the golf ball when you run into performance issues. Now, if you don't hit the ball, you can rest assured that it's purely because of your poor aim. In addition to these improvements to the golf physics, we changed all of the golf courses in the Citadel to brand new and improved courses.
Face Off also got some new levels added to the rotation and the rest of Citadel got lots of visual improvements and optimizations to make it look and feel a bit nicer.
NEW TACTICALS
We’re expanding VAIL with new utilities. These tacticals are designed to introduce new strategies and make VAIL much more interesting and fun to play. This update adds the first two of many tacticals that we’ll be adding in the coming updates.
The Thermite Grenade is an area of denial comparable to a molotov or pyro grenade. It’s activated by opening the grenade with both hands and it will detonate once it hits the ground, dealing fiery thermite damage to any player within its area of effect.
The Vortex Mine is a proximity mine that shoots up into the air before detonating around head height. Players can avoid dying to it by crouching down before it detonates or by shooting it from a distance.
With the addition of these two tacticals, and more planned, you can now only equip one of each type of tactical in your loadouts. Additionally, these two tacticals were added to the starting loadouts, so as long as you have custom loadouts unlocked then you’ll be able to equip them.
ARTIFACT PLAYLIST
This update adds a new Artifact only matchmaking playlist. Next to the play button in the tablet you’ll be able to queue up for exclusively Artifact matches. This will work like the regular matchmaking and add you to the Shuttle, but you’ll only be presented with Artifact maps to vote on.
SCOUTZKNIVEZ SUNA
Our newest map is a variation of Suna designed for ScoutzKnivez. This map introduces a ton of verticality only possible with ScoutzKnivez. In addition to this, we have a new Artifact map in development for our next content update.
THE VOID
With the last update, you now automatically join the Citadel instead of the Armory on game start. This update improves this flow by adding a setting to always skip the Citadel and go directly to the armory. Without this setting enabled, you’ll be queued to join a Citadel lobby and if you don’t find a match after 60 seconds, the abort to armory button will appear.
In addition to this new flow, the VOID got a massive visual and performance upgrade. Additionally, the matchmaking / compiling shaders screens were replaced with an immersive text sequence that will play until shaders are compiled and a match is found. If the setting to skip Citadel is enabled, this sequence will still play until shaders are compiled.
BUG FIXES
- Potential fix for all game audio randomly getting muted and requiring game restart to fix
- Potential fix for footsteps audio not working as intended
- Potential improvements to trades happening frequently. At the very least, we have new parameters with which we can tune this and make it better with more testing.
- Fixed being unable to cancel matchmaking in some cases
- Fixed being stuck on version mismatch screen
- Fixed various rare crashes
- Fixed match outcome screen overlapping with death screen
- Fixed observer kill feed colors not swapping on team swap
If you have any feedback on this update, be sure to let us know in our Discord. See you in-game!
AEXLAB