Zero Hour’s Operation Rat’s Den consists of a new map, the addition of CO-OP puzzles, improved loading times light optimizations & more. This update focuses on content updates and quality improvements.

New Map

Rat’s Den

‘Through an interrogation from the terrorists we took in, we have news about a suspicious building located on the outskirts of Sylhet. We received evidence of suspects abducting locals who have been reported missing. We believe they are all ending up in this building here. This base is run by their leader Jubayer Kashem, the brother of Abdul Kashem who we captured in Operation Breaking Meth. He seems to be continuing his family legacy, and along with that, he’s taking in locals subjecting them to forced labor. The convict also mentioned a hideout hidden somewhere in the AO. The objective is to infiltrate the premises, bring in Jubayer Kashem and locate if there are any possible traces leading to a hideout. Be sure to go through the building with your eyes peeled.’

Addition of Co-op Puzzle

We plan to add various puzzle-based objectives in CO-OP, requiring the players to find and solve codes to enter secret locations to complete the mission. This will further add to the experience with an investigating tone of immersion. For this release, we will only include them in Rat’s den. Puzzles for other maps will be added in the future.

Improved Loading Time

We reworked the internal data system to improve loading times. According to our tests, it has cut down the loading time by 1/3. This has fixed prolonged issues such as crashing resulting in heavy memory usage or CPU heating.

Lights Optimization

We used new lighting techniques which got rid of unnecessary rendering time and additions of Realtime GI which will allow the lighting of every scene to reflect the environment in a more realistic & immersive fashion. This is essentially useful for Lights that change slowly and have a significant visual impact on the Scene, such as a slowly pulsating light in a closed corridor.

Leaderboard Reset

The matchpoint leaderboard has been reset to give more accurate readings and scores to players. The issue where players receive inaccurate match points in online matches has been resolved so the points players earn are precise and fair for everyone.

After every operation, we will have a Leaderboard Reset where the top three players will be displayed as milestones. This should push players to be at the top of the leaderboard.

Misc Improvements

These improvements contain better Ambient Occlusion, AI Behavior Improvements, and Environmental SFX and a New CO-OP UI

Conclusion

Many new exciting features such as Squad AI and Motion Capture are still on the way along with more updates which we will announce soon. We always hope to progress through smaller patches until the next major update. Thanks to the private testers team for testing out the builds with every internal update to ensure a more polished experience for the public release of the update.

We really appreciate and thank the community for the unconditional support and love for the game.

Update Logs

ADDED

New Playable Map "Rat's Den"
New Realtime GI & Faster Lighting method [Not all maps have it implemented yet/ WIP]
New environmental SFX for when shots fired
New Coop Puzzle mode Variants
New Blue print model for document secure
New Attack Dog preview in training ground [Functional from next update]

Fixed

Match Points Back up not retrieving properly when steam fails to fetch data
Rare crashes resulting from initially loading game
Long loading times [Even in SSD]
C2 Damage not working against AI suspects
Melee applying damage through obstacles
Reticle texture resolution lowering with quality settings
Terror House backyard lighting issue
Camera shake causing internal mild errors
Scroll bars in menus not working properly

Improved

Optimized All maps [Should get +(15-30fps)]
Overhauled Internal asset loading system for more efficient memory usage
Co-Op AI behavior for active shooter situations
Co-Op AI reaction differences when lights are turned off
Co-Op AI weapon handling differences based on movement and firing duration
Ambient Occlusion effect
Co-Op Main Menu UI
Blood Impact VFX

Increased

Co-Op AI firing spray when shooting in the dark without flashlight

Changes

Re-adjusted NVG Visuals
Re-adjusted Laser Sight Visuals
Reverted Melee System
Reset Leaderboard
Occlusion Culling all maps

Thank you for your patience, please make sure to report Toxicity, feedback & suggestions in our Discord server using the following links.
Discord Global Community : Zero Hour Official
Discord French Community : Zero Hour France

Zero Hour » Patches

Zero Hour | Operation Rat’s Den