With Early Access finally launching in just a few days on March 3rd 🥳, I’ve pushed a final demo update focused on polish, performance and overall feel in the demo levels: Tutorial Midtown Market This update doesn’t add more content, but it cleans up several things that were confusing, clunky, or rough around the edges.
What’s improved
Tutorial & onboarding
• The tutorial flow has been fixed and smoothed out • The hydrant scenario has been replaced with a broken pipe in the basement, which better reflects how flooding situations work in the game • Overall progression through the tutorial is clearer and more consistent
Gameplay feel & responsiveness
• Tool interactions are more consistent • Actions register more clearly when clearing or scraping drains • Fewer cases where actions need to be repeated to take effect
Tools
• Added the squeegee as a usable tool in the demo
Water & physics behavior
• More stable and readable water flow in common demo situations • Fewer cases where water would stall or behave unpredictably • Better cause-and-effect when planning how to drain an area
UX & controls
• Smoother interaction logic with tools, cables, and objects • Fewer awkward angles required to interact with things
Performance & stability
• Reduced hitches during longer play sessions • Fixed several issues that could build up over time in the demo maps • Smoother performance overall
Visual & audio polish
• Fixed various small visual issues • Improved reliability of sound effects • Fewer immersion-breaking glitches
Note on download size
This update increases the demo size by about 2.5 GB. The main reason is additional PSO (shader) data and recooked assets after the polish pass. Unreal Engine doesn’t ship these incrementally, so even targeted changes can regenerate and include larger chunks of data. There’s no additional playable content included in the demo, just updated data to improve stability and reduce shader-related hitches. See you in Early Access.
