New Features

• Boss 3 now has an “aura” visual effect that appears during the Standoff state to better clarify the distinction between states.

• Added hit VFX when the player gets hit (yes, we really forgot to do this until now).

• A message now appears when descending to the next Sublevel to notify the player that the Descent Modifier (a per-run bonus that increases the quality of looted gear) has increased (the message only appears if the Descent Modifier is set to be used in the difficulty settings, i.e. on the default progression preset).

• Tweaked the frequency at which Boss 4 enters stealth during its second phase, and it can now use concussion grenades to push the player back and enter stealth.

• Updated demo to current version.

Adjustments

• Moved the “Continue” button above “New Run” in the main menu.

• Changed the elevator “Return to Surface” prompt to say “Extract” to better convey its purpose in the gameplay loop (also adjusted tips to match this wording).

• Adjusted Lyla’s double swing attack startup to match the startup duration of guards’ attacks, in order to put more focus on dodging both the attack and its followup, rather than having to learn a new timing.

• Boss 3’s special parry will now immediately cause the Standoff state to end if it whiffs.

• Boss 3 will now immediately exit the Standoff state if hit with a taser dart.

• Boss 3 will now immediately exit the Standoff state when performing a dodging counterattack. However, the time to re-enter Standoff will be decreased if Standoff was exited early.

• Various optimizations that should increase performance and make frame drops less frequent (static objects, VFX preloading and pooling, etc.).

• Adjusted texture and audio file compression to reduce the game’s file size and decrease memory usage.

• Decreased camera shake inside the elevator to compensate for the camera’s lower FOV.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where filtering your gear by a type of gear you do not currently have would cause the menu to become stuck.

• Fixed occasional pitch inconsistencies in audio clips.

• Prevented acquiring the “Ghost” achievement when extracting from a Sublevel unless the player has the access card that would allow them to descend (this was an issue when playing with “Require Keycard to Ascend” turned off in the difficulty settings – you could literally get the achievement by loading into a Sublevel and immediately extracting).

• Fixed Boss 2 getting stuck in place in certain situations when performing their grab attack.

• Fixed a bug where the player would be unable to move if they used a Tear Module on themself right as the current Sublevel’s scene was unloaded.

• Fixed a bug where the elevator UI would not reappear when entering the elevator after viewing certain cutscenes.

• Fixed some inconsistencies in how guard KOs were counted.

• Fixed inconsistencies in how Boss 3’s special parry triggered, preventing it from whiffing in situations where it was intended to hit, and added a vacuum effect to the first hit to ensure the player does not escape the combo.

• Prevented the startup of Boss 3’s “Final Gambit” attack from being interrupted by wallsplats or tasers.

• Corrected the wording of “keycard” to “access card” in the progression difficulty settings.

• Made it so enemies play a hit sound effect when hit by another enemy.

• Added an additional check to prevent a NavMesh check that sometimes occurred erroneously.

• Fixed an error caused by entering the Forge in certain situations, in which the end of battle KO screen would play instead of the Forgekeeper’s intro cutscene.

• Fixed Lyla’s attacks not being able to hit other guards.

• Fixed a bug that caused Radar Guards and Elite Guards to not properly flash white while highlighted for a sneak attack.

• Moved an incorrectly-placed combat start cutscene in Layer 3, Sublevel 2 that, if triggered, caused some geometry clipping.

• Fixed overlapping text caused by certain messages, such as elevator terminal interaction notifications, appearing while the pickup list was still on screen.

• Updated broken Twitter link on title screen (we changed our handle).

• Other minor fixes.