Hello guys,
behold, our first of many story-related updates is finally live! “Old Friend” is the biggest update we’ve prepared so far. There will be many new quests, dozens of events, quite a lot of improvements and accessories for weapon crafting. All this sprinkled with many fixes, visible optimization and redesigns of those elements, which you had objections to.
Today, Chernobylite is about 50% bigger than at the launch. We hope that those players who put our game aside in the last couple of months will give it another try and will like what they see. We’re perfectly aware that we still have a long way ahead of us filled with lots and lots of mega patches until the game is finished. But we really feel that after those very difficult months we’re heading towards the end holding our heads high and we hope you will walk with us along the way.

Improvements/Additions:

Quests added:

• New quest “Old Friend” (new chain - Georgiy).
  
• New quest “Power Plant’s Plans” (part of Georgiy chain).
  
• New quest “Secret Storage” (part of Olivier chain).
  
• New quest “Hermit” (part of Mikhail chain).
  
• New quest “Big Fish” (part of Mikhail chain).
  

Other:

• Events: Pripyat port has been filled with events.
  
• Events: Kopachi has been filled with events.
  
• Combat: Soldiers now fire more often. No-hit effects are visible in the environment.
  
• AI: Black Stalker can now be defeated in battle and driven out of the level.
  
• AI: Appearance of the Black Stalker is also associated with time anomalies. Igor and Black Stalker move normally, and the rest of the world stops.
  
• Crafting: Added an Assault Rifle upgrade system.
  
• Crafting: Added a new crafting table. It can be used to upgrade the assault rifle.
  
• Difficulty: There will be far fewer opponents on easy and very easy mode. This should significantly facilitate the gameplay of those for whom Chernobylite was annoyingly difficult.
  
• A few lootable containers added on all levels.
  

General:

• Fixed the Level of Details and stuck spots (Thanks to our Community from Steam forums for suggestions!).
  
• Fixed FOV values causing Shotgun and AK to look badly (Thanks to @Fathom from Steam forums).
  
• Fixed various bugs with Storage Units (Thanks to our Community from Steam forums for suggestions).
  

Optimization:

The levels should load significantly faster.
Time spent in Hawking Tunnels should be significantly reduced.
We are currently working on optimizing the CPU. The overall game performance should be better.
Problems with the Moscow Eye performance should be significantly reduced. The level can still have problems, but we're on track to fix them.

Adrenaline Redesign

Chernobylite from the beginning was to be a difficult game with elements that need to be repeated and mastered. Unfortunately, in some places of the game we have clearly exaggerated. Players often (also through no fault of their own, but due to EA errors) fail their mission, and are forced to perform it again, without the possibility of using alternative methods available only after the next pass. To limit this situation and make more players have access to new content, we modified the way adrenaline works. Now its use is not associated with mission failures, and additionally gives a special power-up that should help you get out of a difficult situation.

Day limit

Time loop in our game is very important - it allows you to make other choices in missions, unlock new companions, or discover new secrets by alternate memories. A small limit allows you to focus on the plot and quickly correct your mistakes. Bigger will let you focus more on survival and team. How to reconcile these two approaches? The easiest way is to give you a choice - now when starting a new game you can choose how many days a single time loop will take.

That’s all for this update. We hope you like the changes and don’t hesitate to write a review about our game and give us your comments and suggestions on our Steam forum.