Combat Complex news & patch notes

Grenades!

• New Active Ability: Grenade:

  • Passes through enemies.

  • Bounces from walls, breakables, and Boom Barrels.

  • Explodes after a fixed time.

  • Cooldown 9s, 3 use charges.

  • Legendary Effects:

    • Trinity: throw two additional grenades.

    • Bouncer: the grenade bounces off the floor 3 times, with each bounce generating an explosion and gaining +20% damage.

    • Cluster: explosion spawns additional mini-grenades.

• New Active Ability: Contact Grenade:

  • Bounces from walls and breakables.

  • Explodes on contact with an enemy or a Boom Barrel.

  • Cooldown 9s, 3 use charges.

  • Legendary Effects:

    • Trinity: throw two additional grenades.

• All Grenades come in Physical, Fire, and Shock variants (the latter two drop on Level 3 and higher).

• Legendary effects can be improved via Crafting – you can increase the number of bounces or additional grenades.

New Challenges and Achievements

• Detonator: Detonate 20 Boom Barrels using grenades.

• Grenadier: Kill 300 enemies using grenades.

Early Game Changes

• Contact Grenade is now the default Active Ability for new player profiles.

  • Developer comment: a contact grenade is more intuitive and immediately useful for new players, plus it helps against being swarmed by enemies, which is an important concern in early game. Gravity Vortex (the previous default active ability) is still the most versatile ability in the game, and it still has the highest damage potential – especially with the use charges buff – but it's learning curve was too steep for new players, so we're moving it from the default ability to an opt-in one.

Balance Changes

• All Gravity abilities (Gravity Vortex, Gravity Pull, Gravity Push, Gravity Hook) now have 3 use charges.

• Gravity Pull cooldown has been increased from 7 to 12s.

• The damage of secondary lightning arcs has been reduced by 15%.

• Wrecking Ball's slam attack now stuns enemies for 1.2s (up from 0.5s).

Items and Stats

• The Periodic Damage Reduction stat has been replaced with XP Gain on all existing and future items.

Other Changes

• Clarified Fire and Shock damage proc description in tooltips.

• Spawn door sound effect has been made a bit less annoying.

Bug Fixes

• Ability icon for Active Ability now shows a correct hotkey.

• Fixed a bug that caused ability icons for Dash, Active Ability, and Ultimate Ability to be displayed in a random order.

Enemies

• Centipede movement speed ramp-up time increased from 0.8s to 1.5s.

Enemy Spawn

• On level 1, Centipedes no longer spawn from eggs, only via prespawn.

• On levels 1 and 2, Shield Bots no longer spawn in dead ends.

• On levels 1 and 2, Centipedes and Shield Bots no longer spawn at the beginning of a mission.

Orbs

• Higher chance of a health orb drop on early levels:

  • +50% on level 1,

  • +25% on level 2,

  • +0% on level 3 and higher.

• Higher chance of a large orb drop (of all types) on early levels:

  • +50% on level 1,

  • +25% on level 2,

  • +0% on level 3 and higher.

Ultimate Ability Tutorial

• If the player is being cornered by enemies, the game now turns on temporary invulnerability and prompts the player to use the Ultimate Ability.

• The tutorial prompt only happens once per mission. After the tutorial is completed, it will not be shown again.

Shotgun Tutorial

• If the player is being attacked by melee enemies and doesn't switch to Shotgun, the game now turns on temporary invulnerability and prompts the player to switch to Shotgun.

• The tutorial prompt only happens once per mission. After the tutorial is completed, it will not be shown again.

Other Changes

• The color of rim lightning on the player model in dark areas now matches the overall color of the environment lighting.

• Spawn doors now blink and play a sound effect when spawning enemies.

• New achievement: Ultikill: "Kill 100 enemies while your Ultimate Ability is active."

Bug Fixes

• The Thermal Tyrant achievement is now being tracked correctly.

Wrecking Ball Changes

• Slam attack (from above):

  • Now deals 2x more damage to regular enemies and 6x more damage to elites.

  • Now has an inner and outer radius:

    • In the inner radius (1.5m), the attack deals 1.5x damage and stuns the player and enemies for 1.0s.

    • In the outer radius (3.0m), the attack deals 0.7x damage and stuns enemies (but not the player) for 0.5s.

  • There's now a visual indicator telegraphing the inner and outer radius of the attack.

• Charge attack (frontal):

  • Now stuns the player and enemies for 0.8s.

  • Now deals 4x more damage to regular enemies and 12x more damage to elites.

Balance Changes

• Base Rocket Tank HP has been increased by 20%.

• Blue Elite Rocket Tank HP multiplier has been reduced from x4 to x2.

• Purple Elite Rocket Tank HP multiplier has been reduced from x8 to x4.

Other Changes

• Improved the internal logic for determining nearby enemies.

  • Developer comment: before the change, the "nearby enemies" condition was calculated based on the distance between the center of the player and the center of an enemy. This made the condition harder to trigger against large enemies. After the change, the condition will be calculated based on a distance between the nearest points of the player's collider and the enemy's collider. As a result, all effects that rely on the "nearby enemies" condition will now trigger more reliably and consistently.

• The Laser Damage Reduction stat has been renamed to Beam Damage Reduction to convey that it also applies to Plasma Turret beams.

• The player model now has a slight rim lighting effect for better visibility in dark areas.

• The player model now flashes red when taking damage.

• Melee strikes against the player are now indicated with a red marker underneath the attacker.

• Entrances to secret areas now have doors which open automatically when the player is nearby.

• The flashlight now also activates when the player is looking at a dark area.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Boom Barrels wold block a mission entrance door, making the mission unplayable.

• Fixed the map generation algorithm so that generated mission layouts don't contain resemblances to a certain undesirable historical symbol anymore.

• Fixed a bug where the weapon status text 'Overheated' was displayed in the hub area.

Achievements

• Achievements are finally here! Combat Complex now includes 28 achievements.

• Achievements are linked to in-game Challenges – you earn an achievement when you complete its Challenge.

• Achievements are available in the full game only – playing the free demo doesn't grant achievements. However, since the demo and the full game use the same save files, you will get all the achievements you earned while playing the demo once your buy and launch the full game.

Grab Your Achievements!

• If you completed any in-game challenges before this update, you'll get their achievements automatically when you load a saved game with the completed challenges – so go grab your achievements now!

New Challenges

• This update introduces multiple new challenges:

  • Barrel Baron – Use Boom Barrels to kill 20 enemies.

  • Risk-Taker – Complete 5 red missions.

  • Tinkerer – Upgrade an item in Crafting.

  • Handyman – Spend 100 Materials in Crafting.

  • Engineer – Spend 100 Upgrade Parts in Crafting.

  • Randomizer – In Crafting, use Randomize Item Stats on a Starred item.

  • Finalizer – Finalize an item in Crafting.

  • Ballistic Boss – Kill 10,000 enemies with rifles or SMGs.

  • Shotgun Shogun – Kill 10,000 enemies with a shotgun.

  • Minigun Monarch – Kill 10,000 enemies with a minigun.

  • Kinetic King – Kill 10,000 enemies with a railgun.

  • Thermal Tyrant – Kill 10,000 enemies with a flamethrower.

  • Lightning Lord – Kill 10,000 enemies with a lightning gun.

  • Entropy Emperor – Kill 100,000 enemies.

• Each of these challenges has a corresponding achievement.

• These new challenges weren't tracked before this update, so you'll have to complete them from scratch.

Balance Changes

• Increased the base drop rate of Upgrade Parts on all missions.

• Upgrade Parts of higher rarities now drop more often on low-difficulty missions.

• XP gain has been made significantly easier on higher levels.

  • Developer comment: The slow XP gain on higher levels was caused by a badly-balanced exponential term in our XP math. We've significantly toned down the exponential growth, so XP gain is faster now, and it slows down much less steeply when advancing to higher levels.

Other Changes

• Shotgun Shogun challenge has been renamed to Point-Blank Powerhouse.

• Added a slight beam shake effect to laser beams when their Laser Bots take damage – this helps visualize rifle and minigun hits to off-screen Laser Bots. The effect is purely visual and doesn't affect beam hitboxes.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the progress of a pinned challenge didn't update on screen after death and subsequent mission restart.

Better late than never, eh? Releasing the achievement taught us a lot – the main lesson learned is that it's better to release achievements with the initial release of the game, instead of postponing them for a couple of years as we did. We're really glad that they're out now – grab the update and enjoy!

Thank you! Combat Complex team.

New Skill Tree

• The new, reworked Skill Tree is now out:

  • Movement branch – reworked, major changes.

  • Attack branch – reworked, major changes.

  • Close-Quarters Combat branch – reworked, minor changes.

  • Defense branch – added.

  • Luck branch – reworked, major changes.

  • Fire & Shock branch – added.

• Skill Point allocation has been reset, you will need to reallocate them.

• Toggling skills is now instant.

• Skills can now be toggled with left-click.

Free Instant Respec

• Respec is now instant and free – Respec Points have been removed from the game.

Balance Changes

• Weapons:

  • Railgun now can fire 5 shots instead of 3 before overheating.

  • Flamethrower's damage output has been increased by 30%.

  • Lightning Gun's damage output has been decreased by 20%.

  • Developer comment: the idea behind these changes is to balance the "productivity" of a build (i.e. its ability to clear missions quickly and safely) with the effort required for running the build. Before these changes, Lightning Gun builds were the most productive in the game while being the least mechanically-demanding.

• Plasma Turret:

  • Hit points have been reduced by 33%.

  • Beam range has been reduced from 9m to 7.5m.

  • Developer comment: Plasma Turrets were too annoying to deal with for builds that don't rely on movement and point-blank shotgun damage, so we're toning them down.

• Minigun Tank:

  • Damage decreased by 50%.

  • Hit Points decreased by 20%.

  • Attack duration has been decreased from 5s to 3s.

  • The attack now begins with a damage ramp-up from 25% to 100% damage for 1.5s.

  • Developer comment: Minigun Tank was one of the main causes of death for pure glass cannon builds, so we're giving players more opportunities to react after the attack started.

• Other changes:

  • Ultimate Ability now charges 30% longer. Developer comment: this is to compensate for the newly-introduced Skills that affect Ultimate charge speed, and for Ultimate orbs.

  • The lifetime of secondary lightning arcs has been decreased from 3s to 2s.

Anti-Aliasing

• The Options > Video settings screen now has an Anti-Aliasing option.

• The option is turned on by default, with the default value being the TAA.

Load Game Screen

• You can now delete unwanted game profiles in the Load Game menu screen.

• You can now use the mouse wheel or a controller stick to scroll the list of game profiles.

• The text on game profiles now correctly says "10 days ago" instead of "243 hours ago".

UI Changes

• Mistake Mitigator HUD icon has been changed to be more prominent.

• Passive Ability HUD icons are now hidden when the player is in the hub area.

The new Skill Tree marks a major milestone for us. We're really satisfied with how well it turned out, Grab the update, reassign the skill points (they have been reset), and give it a try! Let us know what you think. Thank you! Combat Complex team.

Hi everyone! We usually release updates right before seasonal Steam sales, but this time we couldn't finish our work in time. As a result, the Skill Tree update will miss the Winter sale.

The Skill Tree update is planned to contain all three missing branches – Fire / Shock, Defense, and Luck. The amount of work needed for implementing all this turned out to be much higher than we originally anticipated, especially considering the fact that I also wanted to release a bunch of new Power-Ups along with the Skill Tree (and fix the long-standing issue with missing legendary affixes on some weapons).

So, we're skipping the Winter sale with the Skill Tree update. Hopefully we'll be able to finish it in time for the next seasonal sale.

Thank you for understanding, Combat Complex team.

The goal of this update is to make earning Skill Points smoother and easier to understand by replacing Skill Stations with Experience Points (XP). Additionally, we're introducing multiple balance and gameplay improvements. Here's the full list of changes:

Experience Points (XP)

• Developer comment:

  • Our original system for earning Skill Points via Skill Stations on missions was clunky, hard to understand, and, at times, confusing. We are replacing it with a more streamlined and familiar system: you earn XP by killing enemies and "doing quests" (i.e. completing challenges), and when you reach a skill level (a full XP bar), you get a Skill Point.

• You now earn Experience Points (XP):

  • Experience is awarded for killing enemies on
missions, and for completing Challenges.

  • During missions, Experience is awarded for any enemy death, regardless of what caused it – be it a direct attack, friendly fire damage by other enemies, or environmental damage.

  • Harder enemies award more XP, so playing higher-difficulty missions naturally yields more XP.

  • Enemies spawned by other enemies do not 
award any experience.

• Skill Points and Respec Points:

  • A Skill Point is awarded when you reach a skill level – .e. a full XP bar.

  • A Respec Point is now awarded with every 3rd Skill Point.

• UI changes:

  • XP is displayed as a bar at the bottom edge of the screen.

  • XP is also shown in the hub UI as a bar at the top of the Skills screen.

• Other changes:

  • Skill Stations have been removed from the game.

Challenges

• Challenges no longer award Skill and Respec Points – they now award XP instead.

• Completion threshold for the Cautious Carrie challenge has been relaxed from 20% to 30%.

• Completion threshold for the Rubbish Rampage challenge been relaxed from 50 до 30.

Balance

• Rifles and Miniguns now deal 10% more damage.

• Base hit points of Small Bugs and their eggs have been reduced by 12%.

• Base hit points of Centipedes and their eggs have been reduced by 8%.

• Base hit points of Breakables and Boom Barrels have been reduced by 20%.

• Developer comment: We're introducing these changes to improve the flow of the early game, and to make rifles and miniguns more versatile and useful – for example, now you can more easily clear breakables or detonate Boom Barrels with a rifle. Additionally, this change makes dealing with bug swarms spawned by Maggots less annoying.

Gameplay

• Fodder enemy spawns that occur behind the player on regular missions without the Backspawn modifier now always spawn a single enemy type (either bugs or bots, but not both), and the amount of enemies spawned from behind has been reduced.

• The duration of the Rare Item Find buff from the purple orb has been increased from 60 to 120 seconds.

• Dash now works while shooting.

Enemies

• Jumping Bugs no longer deal area damage on landing, and do not attack the player within 0.5 seconds after landing.

• Roundshield now has a 90% damage resistance to friendly fire damage from other enemies.

• Bullets fired by Minigun Tank now have a chance to pierce multiple enemies. Additionally, the bullets trails have been made more visible.

Item Stats

• The Area of Effect (WIP) item stat has been removed from the game. It will remain on existing items, but will not roll on new items or in Crafting.

• A new stat has been added: Damage vs Breakables – it increases damage you deal to all breakables, including Boom Barrels. The stat will not appear on existing items, but it will roll on new items and in Crafting.

Crafting

• Upgrade Parts of all rarities now drop on missions.

Audio

• The audio playback system is no longer limited to 32 active voices – we've raised the voice limit to 256. This fixed a lot of audio hitches. In general, the game sounds much smoother now.

• Jumping Bugs now play a sound effect when they land on the floor.

• The Mistake Mitigator ability now plays a sound effect when it activates.

• The shotgun sound has been slightly reduced in volume (by 2 dB). Additionally, we've added a little more bass to it and reduced the middle frequencies.

Bug Fixes

• Plasma Turret now correctly plays its sound effect on activation.

• Roundshield now correctly protects Rocket Tanks.

• Mistake Mitigator now correctly displays its texts in bluish-white color, instead of red.

• The Revive orb now correctly displays its texts in yellowish-white color, instead of red.

Other Changes

• The game executable now has a correct custom icon.

With this update out, we'll be focusing our efforts on the Skill Tree. Meanwhile, grab the update and let us know what you think!

Thank you! Combat Complex team.

Crafting

• The Crafting bench is now available for all players, starting from Level 1.

• Crafting allows you to upgrade, add, modify, randomize, and remove item stats.

• Crafting uses materials that can be obtained on missions, or by salvaging unwanted loot.

Crafting Blueprints

• Upgrade Item – upgrades item stats. Stats that got major upgrades become Starred.

• Randomize Item Stats – randomizes all non-Starred item stats.

• Reroll Stat Values – rerolls the numeric values of all non-Starred item stats.

• Remove Random Stat – removes a random non-Starred item stat.

• Add Random Stat – adds a random stat to an empty stat slot.

• Increase Item Rarity – increases item rarity by adding a new random stat.

• Duplicate Item – duplicates an item (useful for item backups before risky crafting).

• Finalize Item – applies a major stat increase but locks the item from further modifications.

Upgrade Levels and Tiers

• Each equippable item now has an Upgrade Level and an Upgrade Tier (indicated by the number of stars). They are displayed in the lower-right corner of the item tooltip.

• Upgrade Level and Tier of an item can be increased via the Upgrade Item crafting blueprint.

• Each Upgrade Level increases the value of each item stat by 5%.

• When an item reaches an Upgrade Tier (awarded at Upgrade Levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20; shown as a star) one of its stats (chosen randomly) is increased by 20%, after which it becomes Starred – this means that the stat can no longer be modified, replaced, rerolled, or removed from the item via crafting blueprints. However, its numeric value can still be upgraded.

Loot Drop Changes

• Loot items that drop from chests and enemies on missions can now have upgrades already in place. Higher-difficulty missions have a higher chance to drop upgraded loot.

• Crafting materials now drop on missions. Higher-difficulty missions drop higher-rarity materials.

UI Changes

• The Discard buttons in Inventory have been changed to Salvage buttons. They disassemble items into crafting materials, instead of simply discarding the items.

Balance Notes

• Due to the fact that players can now upgrade item stats beyond their original ranges, and to the fact that items can now drop with such upgrades already in place, player power has been increased.

• We did not make any changes in enemy hit points or damage to compensate for this increase.

• As a result, players who craft their items or obtain upgraded items by playing on higher-difficulty missions will now have higher player power, on average. Early-game players will not see much changes balance-wise, because they haven't had the time to upgrade their gear or obtain upgraded gear on missions.

Crafting can provide a significant increase in player power – and you don't even have to actively use it because items can now drop in an already upgraded state. So grab the update, give it a try, and let us know what you think! Thank you! Combat Complex team.

The goal of this update is to make the first mission more engaging, and to make the early game more engaging and smooth. We're also adressing one of the biggest flow-breakers of the game: red shields – the spawn chance of red (deflector) Shield Bots and Roundshields has been reduced. Here's the full list of changes:

Gameplay

• 25% of regular soldier bugs now spawn as jumping bugs.

• Fodder enemy spawns now have a 15% chance to occur behind the player.

• The Mortar Mayhem mission modifier now causes regular (non-elite) grenade bots to fire in bursts of three grenades, similarly to the elites.

Balance

• Reduced the spawn chance of deflector (red) Shield Bots and Roundshields depending on the mission difficulty:

  • On White missions - from 50% to 30%

  • On Yellow missions - from 50% to 32%

  • On Orange missions - from 50% to 34%

  • On Red missions - from 50% to 36%

  • // Developer comment: besides the direct effect, the above changes have an indirect effect of significantly lowering the chance of encountering a group of red Shield Bots.

• Reduced the density of Grenade Bots on the second mission.

• The Backspawn mission modifier now doesn't spawn extra biomass beyond budget. Previously, it spawned 100% biomass from the front and 30% from the back (130% in total). Now it spawns 70% of the biomass from the front and 30% from the back (100% in total). This should help with both the performance and the playability of Backspawn missions.

User Interface

• To avoid accidental rerolls in the Power-Up Terminal, the mapping for reroll changed from Space to Enter on mouse / keyboard, and from RT to X on controllers.

• Renamed Combat Roll to Dash in "Mapping - Controller" and "Mapping - Mouse / Keyboard" UI screens.

Bug Fixes

• Minigun icons now reflect weapon stats more accurately.

• Jumping soldier bugs now don't perform "idle jumps" in place.

• Fixed a bug that caused aim assist to latch onto hidden turrets.

With this update out, we're done with the early game issues, so we're planning to shift our focus to bigger systems, such as crafting, achievements, and the skill tree. Meanwhile, grab the update and let us know what you think!

Thank you! Combat Complex team.

This update aims to increase the gameplay and build variety by introducing new enemies, weapons, abilities, and pickups; and to make the first introductory mission more engaging by introducing an early-game hazard, Plasma Turret, which demonstrates our signature Friendly Fire mechanic (meaning that enemies can damage and kill other enemies) on the first mission. Here's the full list of changes:

New Enemy – Roundshield

• A flying bot surrounded by six shields arranged in a large circle. The shields are separate – each shield takes damage and regenerates independently of the others.

• It's gameplay purpose is to serve as a "bodyguard" for other enemies by covering them with its shields. Roundshield attempts to stand behind the enemy it has chosen to protect, thus making itself harder to hit due to bodyblocking.

• Comes in two varieties – regular (blue shields) and deflector (red shields).

• Available on Level 3 and higher.

New Enemy – Minigun Tank

• A tank-like machine equipped with two laser-guided miniguns.

• Gameplay-wise, its similar to a Laser Tank – it divides the battlefield by creating a line of fire that's dangerous to cross. However, unlike the Laser Tank, Minigun Tank can move during its firing phase, making findingh suitable cover more challenging for the player.

• Available on Level 4 and higher.

New Hazard – Plasma Turret

• A retractable floor-mounted turret that activates unexpectedly for the player and, when activated, sweeps the surronding area with a high-damage plasma beam that deals direct damage and ignites anything it hits, including the player and the enemies.

• The gameplay purpose of the Plasma Turret is to make the first tutorial mission more engaging for new players, and to demonstrate our signature Friendly Fire mechanic (meaning that enemies can damage and kill other enemies) on the first introductory mission.

• Available on Level 1 and higher, starting from the first tutorial mission.

New Weapon – Minigun

• Miniguns provide high rate of fire, cooling, range, and utility at the cost of hindering player movement when fired.

• When the player fires a minigun, their movement speed is reduced and Dash is disabled.

• Miniguns damage deflector (red) shields and armored targets (e.g. Wrecking Ball).

• Miniguns can be equipped into a Primary Weapon slot.

New Weapon – SMG

• SMGs provide high rate of fire and damage at the cost of significantly reduced range.

• SMGs are best suited for close-proximity builds that rely on dealing damage to nearby enemies.

• SMGs can be equipped into a Primary Weapon slot.

New Active Ability – Gravity Hook

• Provides you with a grapling hook that quickly pulls you to a desired location – or to an enemy.

• Useful for quickly repositioning in order to get out of danger or collect a disappearing pickup.

• Can be used for quickly getting close to enemies (e.g. a Rocket Tank) for a shotgun blast.

• Can be equipped into an Active Ability slot.

New Pickup – Ultimate Orb

• An orange orb that drops from killed enemies (similarly to other orbs) that provides Ultimate Ability charge and resets Active Ability cooldown and weapon overheat.

• The gameplpay purpose of the new orb is to enhance the flow of the game by increasing the uptime of player guns and abilities, and to make the Ultimate Ability faster to charge, so it can be used more frequently.

• The Ultimate Orb comes in two varieties:

  • Small Ultimate Orb – grants 10% Ultimate charge, resets Active Ability cooldown, and instantly cools down all weapons.

  • Large Ultimate Orb – grants full Ultimate charge, resets Active Ability cooldown, and instantly cools down all weapons.

Other Changes

• Weapon tooltips in Inventory now display the range and spread of the weapon.

Known Problems

• Legendary effects on a legendary Gravity Hook do not work correctly.

• Inventory icons for Miniguns sometimes do not reflect weapon stats.

We hope that these changes will enhance the gameplay and build variety, and make the early gameplay more engaging for new players. Grab the update, give it a try and let us know what you think! Thank you! Combat Complex team.

You Keep Loot after Death

• When you die on a mission, you now keep the loot you've collected before dying.
• Power-Ups are still lost on death, as before – no changes here.
• If you restart a mission after dying, all loot you've collected before dying and restarting will be stored in your Inventory.
• If you leave a mission via the Pause menu > Leave Mission, you'll lose all loot and all power-ups you've collected on this mission before leaving it. All loot and all power-ups that you had before starting the mission will remain intact.

Ultimate Abilities

• Ultimate Abilities are very powerful abilities that let you deal with situations that could otherwise kill you. By default, the ultimate ability is activated by pressing Q on a keyboard or Y on a controller. Bindings can be changed in Options.
• The Shredder ultimate summons two attack drones with the same weapons as yours, resulting in your firepower being tripled for 10 seconds.
• The Salvation ultimate instantly heals you for half your HP, heals the rest over 10 seconds, and grants 10x drop chance of Health Orbs for 10 seconds.
• The Stoneskin ultimate stuns enemies, pushes them away, and grants damage reduction for 10 seconds, helping you survive a difficult encounter or safely disengage.
• Ultimate abilities are available as items that can be equipped into the new Ultimate Ability slot.
• Ultimate abilities are fully charged and usable immediately after the mission start.
• After use, ultimates must recharge, which takes 90 seconds of combat time by default.

Replayable Missions

• All completed missions can now be replayed.
• This enables gear farming which can be helpful when your current gear is not enough for pushing through harder levels.
• Replayed missions have the same layout but enemies and loot are randomized for each replay.
• To prevent replay-farming, loot chests at the end of missions are now fixed rarity that depends only on mission difficulty.
• Loot chests were removed from Secret Areas to prevent replay-farming of missions with lucky secret chests.

New Survivability Passive – Safeguard

• Originally we had Mistake Mitigator as a default Passive Ability. It's a good passive for experienced players, but it demands mechanical skill that new players don't yet have because they haven't yet learned how the game works.
• To increase the survivability of new (and existing) players we're introducing a new default Passive – Safeguard. It grants 50% incoming damage reduction if player health is below 30%, and 80% damage reduction if it's below 10%.
• As a result, player survivability is increased without demanding skills and game knowledge that new players haven't learned yet.

Boom Barrels on Regular Missions

• Boom Barrels, which previously appeared only on missions with Explosives Everywhere modifier, can now spawn on regular missions.
• Barrels now have an explosion range indicator visible at all times.
• Barrels now flash white when taking damage.
• Barrel explosions are now 50% less lethal and have a 50% damage falloff.
• Barrels now cannot spawn in Secret Areas.
• Barrels now cannot spawn closer than 8m to a door.

Other Changes

• The Shield Bot enemy now has a delay before it can use its proximity attack. This gives players time to react when a Shield Bot spawns nearby.
• The new game tutorial now indicates that breakable objects can be destroyed.
• Exiting the tutorial area now restores Ultimate Ability charge, resets ability cooldowns, restores health to full, and cools down all weapons.
• The hub area now shows a notification when you have new items in Inventory.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused Boom Barrels to deal 2x the intended damage.
• Fixed a bug that prevented damage falloff on Boom Barrels.
• Fixed multiple bugs that could potentially occur on mission restart after death.

Power-Ups QoL Changes:

• Power-up icons are now shown in the Map screen of the hub UI.
• Power-up icons are now shown when interacting with Power-Up Terminal on a mission.
• Power-up icons are now shown in the pause menu.
• Hovering over power-up icons in Power-Up Terminal and pause menu now shows tooltips.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused Reroll tickets to accumulate during mission restarts.

Power-Ups

• This update introduces Power-Ups, the familiar "three power-ups, pick one, maybe reroll".
• Power-ups are issued by Power-Up Terminals that you encounter on missions.
• The terminal offers you three (or sometimes more!) power-ups to choose from.
• If you don't like the offered power-ups, you have a limited number of rerolls.
• The selected power-up is effective immediately, right after you picked it.
• Power-ups persist through missions, but you'll lose them if you die.
• Power-ups are temporary: they last 4 missions (there will be upgrades to make them last longer).
• Power-ups are infinitely stackable, and they stack with stats from gear and other sources.
• We didn't reduce player power to compensate for power-ups, they are added on top!

Other Changes

• Map Terminals have been converted into Power-Up Terminals.
• Map updates and map abilities (e.g. Scan Surroundings) are now issued by regular terminals.
• Secret Areas now contain more rewards, and reward placement is more convenient.
• The intro segment of the first mission now includes a Power-Up Terminal and a Health Orb crystal.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a rare game-breaking bug where a Story Terminal is missing and thus the segment door cannot be opened.
• Fixed a potential game-breaking bug where a floor spawn hatch could erase a Story Terminal, thus blocking the the segment door from opening.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes muted gameplay sounds after starting a new game.

Legendary Effects:

• New legendary effect: "Crimson" – allows kinetic weapons to damage deflector shields and armored targets. Can occur on Rifles and Shotguns (and, in future updates, on SMGs.)
• The "Vector", "Angular", and "Raycast" legendary effects (+1 Primary / Secondary / Special Weapon Ricochet) can now occur on Helmets.
• New legendary effect: "Frenzy": Friendly-Fire kills affected by Gravity effects grant Frenzy. Can occur on Active Abilities.
• New legendary effect: "Combo": Friendly-Fire kills affected by Gravity effects reduce Active Ability cooldown. Can occur on Active Abilities.

Visuals:

• The Unity team has fixed the distortion bug, so the original visual effect for Gravity Vortex is back.

Mission Layout:

• Missions now have slightly more open spaces / slightly less tight corridors.

Bug Fixes:

• Tooltips for Active and Passive Abilities now show correct cooldown durations.

Balance changes:

• Increased the healing and Frenzy of Small Health Orb by 43%.
• Reduced damage over time from lasers by 50%.
• Level difficulty growth curve adjusted: Levels before 7 are now a bit easier, and levels above 7 are now harder.

No Going Back mission modifier:

• Damage reduced from 250 to 10 (applies no damage over time.)
• Lasers are now thinner, to show that they deal less damage than normal lasers.
• Laser activation time increased from 1s to 4s.
• Idle laser sound effect now plays correctly (was missing.)
• Laser damage effect now plays correctly (was missing.)
• Removed the modifier from the list of possible main modifiers for a map sector.
• Developer comment: The damage of the effect has been significantly reduced but lasers are perceived as high-damage, which makes them look far more threatening than they currently are. To resolve this conflict, the modifier will eventually be reworked into using some other damage dealing method than lasers.

Quality of Life (QoL) changes:

• Removed breakables around segment and exit doors on the main mission path.
• Removed breakables around chests.

Urgent Update, October 5, 2024 – Addressing Player Feedback

• The closed door now shows a text prompt explaining what you need to do to open it.
• The final loot chest is now highlighted with a glowing floor decal.
• The Skill Station is now highlighted with a glowing floor decal.

• Increased the base movement speed by 20%.

• Reduced the maximum for Movement Speed mod on gear from 10% to 6%.
• Reduced the maximum for Movement Speed When Healthy mod on gear from 10% to 8%.
• Reduced the maximum for Movement Speed After Dash mod on gear from 30% to 12%.

• Reduced the movement speed gain from the Swift Escape skill from 10% to 8%.

• The base drop rate of orbs (of all types and sizes) increased by ~50%.

Additions

• Implemented the Skill Tree (partially done, more skills will be added in future updates).
• MIssions now include Skill Stations that provide skill and respec points.
• Added Options for video, sound, interface, gameplay, and controller.
• Added visual improvements – Autoexposure, Film Grain, Chromatic Aberration.
• Added sound for abilities going off cooldown.
• Added notifications and red badges for Skills and Challenges.
• Added sound to mission completion and death screens.
• Added sound for environment lights turning on.
• Added sound for player receiving laser damage.
• Added sound for player visiting a secret area.
• Added sound to the Objective Terminal to make it easier to locate.
• Added sounds to map ability buttons in the Map screen.
• Game sounds are now muted / muffled when the Pause menu is shown.

Changes

• Removed small breakable objects from missions to make player movement more streamlined.
• Increased the Meatshot challenge requirement from 5 to 10.
• Decreased the Mine Mogul challenge requirement from 20 to 10.
• Renamed the Combat Roll ability to Dash.
• Imrpoved inventory tooltips for Legendary items.
• Corrected multiple typos in the player stats area in Inventory.
• Increased mouse wheel scrolling speed in the player stats area and the Challenges screen.
• Rewrote the story into a less annoying email-like format (as opposed to chat-like format).

Bug Fixes

• Selecting missions in the Map screen is no longer laggy after longer play sessions.
• Chat channels in the Messages screen are now selectable on a controller.
• Loot containers (previously Gold, Silver etc.) now have correct descriptions in Map legend.
• Fixed bullets being occassionally stuck in narrow gaps in an infinite ricochet loop.
• Multiple minor bug fixes.

Known Problems

• The game currently uses a temporary visual effect for Gravity Vortex due to a Unity bug.

The last update before Early Access release (~September 25, 2024)

• Skill Tree (partially done, more skills will be added in future updates).
• New Primary Weapon – Minigun (damages red shields but hinders player movement).
• New Primary Weapon – SMG (higher damage and fire rate compared to Rifle but has a shorter range).
• Options – Video, Sound, Interface, Gameplay, Controller.
• Visual improvements – Autoexposure, Film Grain, Chromatic Aberration.
• There's now a sound for abilities going off cooldown.

• Migration to Unity 6.
• Removed the "Made in Unity" splash screen.
• The story is now told via a less annoying email-like format (as opposed to the original chat-like one).
• Minor UI, sound, and QoL improvements.
• Multiple bug fixes.

• The VFX for Gravity Vortex is broken due to a Unity 6 bug. A temporary VFX is currently used.
• Read story messages aren't properly grayed out in the Messages screen.

Early Access release – October 4, 2024

• Early Access Release – October 4, 2024.
• Steam Deck certification.
• Bug fixes and improvements based on player feedback.

An update before the Steam Autumn sale (~November 20, 2024)

• A major gameplay system: the familiar "3 buffs, pick one, maybe reroll".
• Power-Ups persist through missions but are lost on death.
• Power-Ups are infinitely stackable but temporary (they last for 3-6 missions, assuming no death).

• It's broken now due to a bug in Unity 6. The game currently uses a temporary VFX.
• We've submitted the bug, and it has been confirmed by Unity.
• As soon as they fix it, we'll release an update with the fixed VFX.

An update before the Steam Winter sale (~December 19, 2024)

• Achievements will be based on Challenges, and therefore will be retroactive.
• That is, if you completed a Challenge, you'll get its achievement as soon as we release achievements.

• Currently, our epic (purple) loot differs from rare (blue) only in the number of stat mods.
• We are planning to make epic loot more distinctive by adding a mod that will add an extra rank to a single Skill in the Skill Tree.
• The same mod will be added to legendary loot, but the number of bonus ranks will be higher than 1.

• Unity 6 GPU Resident Drawer.
• Unity 6 GPU GPU Occlusion Culling.

Updates before the full 1.0 release

• Deflector Walls (to break the pattern "Always shoot").
• Laser Walls (to break the pattern "Always dash").

• Things like Boom Barrels and Laser Walls will sometimes randomly appear in regular missions.
• (Currently they are reserved for mission affixes on higher-difficulty missions).

• Grenades, Turrets, Stun Wave, Grappling Hook, etc.

• New bug enemies.
• New bot enemies.

• A cute little bot that drops rare loot and high-value orbs. Tough to kill, temporary (escapes after some time).
• High risk / reward ratio. A synergy / dilemma with the upcoming Ultimate Abilities (use it or save for danger?)

• Very powerful, but usable only once per mission.
• Use them to escape difficult / unexpected situations, or to secure high-value targets (e.g. a Treasure Goblin).

• More skills in the main branches.
• Islands for fine-tuning the build (e.g. Frenzy, Abilities, Healing, etc.)

Full 1.0 release – Fall 2025

• Full 1.0 release.

Longer-term plans / open problems

• Finished story.
• Special / Legendary Elites (extremely dangerous but fragile).
• Crafting.
• Biomes (e.g. Mining, High-tech, Infested).
• Bosses (not just bullet sponges).
• Localization to other languages.
• Music (if we find good tracks to license).
• Additional enemy races / factions.
• Co-op / multiplayer.
• Endlessly repeatable / farmable missions.

If you like the game, please wishlist it!

If you like the game, please wishlist it!