How To Hack In? news & patch notes

• Added: Snap Windows - Drag a window to an edge for a half, a corner for a quarter, or the top to maximize, with a live landing preview. Windows now click magnetically into place against each other and the screen edges, and snap back to their old size when you pull them out.

• Added: Terminal Reverse Search (Ctrl+R) - search your previous commands with filtering to quickly redo previous actions.

• Added: Terminal Power Shortcuts - Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+U, Ctrl+K, Ctrl+W, Ctrl+D - all shortcuts working now (some were already there, some are adjusted now!)

Hello!

It's been a while since 0.3 shipped (though it feels as few days back only!) and I've been working on the next big update since then.

I'm a few rounds of testing away from shipping this - and I must say I'm honestly excited about the changes!

So I thought maybe it is good moment to give a sneak peek into what will be included. Let me highlight some incoming features:

Dynamic NPCs & Social Engineering

NPCs aren't just mission targets anymore. They have personalities, relationships, and lives that play out whether you're watching or not. They gossip about rivals, form alliances, fall into burnout, scheme against each other.

And now you can use all of that against them. Yes, finally social engineering is coming into the game. Based on NPC personalities, relationships, and the info you've gathered - it may be easier, or more difficult. Some missions can now be solved entirely through manipulation instead of hacking - or combine both.

Mission generation system is modified to be deeply connected with those changes - missions emerge from real NPC and company relationships and actions, not random choices.

Passive tracing

In current version, once you disconnect from remote computer, you're safe. This will change with 0.4 update.

NPCs investigate suspicious activity, connect the dots, and traces can cascade across networks. As a player, you will receive tools to help you defend, and react before the trace chain reaches you.

Scam operations

A new side activity: Introducing scam operations to the game, where player can get scammed, but also can take over scam operations and start earning from it. It is semi-passive income but with some risks.

Cryptocurrencies & Economy

Introducing cryptocurrencies, separate market for trading them. Some missions will pay with crypto as well. Some missions are related to crypto like tracing money using in-game blockchain.

Worth to mention that existing stock market and economy got a serious upgrade. Companies now have supply chains, partnerships, rivals, with more simulated economy behind the scene, and the market that reacts to events.

And more!

There's more. Bug fixes, small improvements, and a few bigger features I'll reveal at the launch post ;)

If you find it interesting, please consider wishlisting and following the game. Any questions, or suggestions, or issues - join our Discord, or post on Steam Forums.

If you enjoy the game and want to support its development - highly encourage adding a Steam Review to help get the game in front of more players.

Thank you!

• Fixed: time scale is now working correctly

• Fixed: brought back the time rewind option to the new ui - available on right click on the datetime

• Added: Hint navigation

Hint navigation (Vim-style keyboard workflow)

Press Alt+/ to reveal letter hints on interactive elements on the screen - desktop icons, taskbar apps, window controls, buttons, input fields. Type the hint letters to instantly activate that element. No mouse needed.

Works in both floating and tiling desktop modes.

Check in-game wiki for details.

• Fixed: restored loading screen instead of black screen

• Fixed: Packetsniff requires active ssh session to work

• Fixed: Packetsniff retrieves all found credentials

• Fixed: flickering topbar because of CPU/RAM usage values changing

• Fixed: flickering fonts when in-game webpages loading

• Fixed: custom wallpapers loading and use

• Changed: wallpapers setup moved from Widgets app to Settings app

• Custom themes support (modification of desktop colors)

• Improved: copy&paste - terminal selection now stays after mouse release, so it is easier to copy text.
• Improved: terminal history commands - available with up & down keys navigation
• Fixed: tor browser "block popup" on the hacked wifi or tor bank accounts market - it blocks just page content, not entire browser
• Fixed: tor browser - themes pages and themes purchases

Hello!

After recent 0.3.1 big update, we're definitely not stopping there!

Here's follow-up 0.3.2 update with some bug fixes and new features.

• Fixed ui scaling issue - where desktop would go outside of screen boundaries when ui scaling was set below 100% (values above 100% worked fine).

• Fixed stock market chart opening position when stock market app was maximized

• Fixed commands with trailing space will work now

• Translations fixes

• Added loader to commands in progress so it is more clear something is happening

• Added command to switch user (su). Now player can not only escalate from user to root, but also switch to another user (e.g. from user A to user B).

• Added blur to the missions required tools - for experienced players who prefer to go blind into missions. Otherwise you can always reveal tools before accepting mission, or later.

• New mission type - multi step mission

• New tool: Packetsniff. Available in in-game shop.

Packetsniff

With 0.3 version introduction, the network generation has been changed to be more realistic. This also changed how networks are used in the missions. Previously, the mission target files were guaranteed to be either on first computer, or second computer in the network. Now it is no longer that simple, and the target for mission can be inside another subnets.

Packetsniff will help you with that. It has 3 use cases:

Hello!

Thank you for your patience and support. This update took longer than planned, and scope of it changed few times down the road, but I'm very happy to announce that version 0.3.1 is finally here.

It won't be normal changelog because of the sheer amount of changes and the time it took, it's nearly impossible for me to keep track of everything at this point.

Complete UI Overhaul

This is not just a visual refresh - nearly every part of the game has been improved. The desktop has been rewritten from scratch for a smoother, more cohesive experience across all apps and tools. Almost all commands and tools were improved and refactored.

I should probably also mention that old save games are not compatible and you'll have to start new game.

New Features

• Multiple terminal tabs with no limit on open terminals

• Virtual desktops to organize your workspace

• Tiling mode for keyboard-focused gameplay

• Customizable UI scaling, transparency, and wallpapers

• Improved autocomplete across all commands and contexts

Better Onboarding

Game difficulty was a common concern. The guide app now provides better context-aware hints throughout the game. The in-game wiki has been added with more detailed information on tools, commands, and methodology. And Hackopilot is still there when you feel stuck. There's also small onboarding tour at the beginning of the game (skippable, for experienced players).

It's not the end of the road to make the game more accessible, but I hope it's a step in the right direction.

Missions

While it wasn't focus of the update, missions have been updated with more variety, and a few new ones have been added.

Also, while trying to keep difficulty curve raise smoothly, I also rebalanced the mission generator so that there's more tools variety needed to use for missions.

There were also rewritten code parts related to how missions progress and complete, and I hope it will make it more stable.

The internal networks are also reworked, often containing subnets, are more realistily structured and are most likely more fun to hack.

This update is a big milestone for me and unlocks a lot of paths going forward, making subsequent updates easier.

I hope you enjoy it, and as always, I look forward to your feedback and suggestions.

Feel free to raise questions or any issues on Steam Forum or Discord channel, and I wish you all happy hacking!

Hello.

Follow up on the previous announcement regarding new UI update - this is coming soon, almost ready for closed beta. There's still couple of issues, but will get through it. Worst things are behind :) all apps are ready, all terminal commands, all terminal improvements are ready. I think it is going to be refresh that the game needs, and it is a first step.

Also, I am putting together some plan and thoughts regarding the 2026 and I will share it in couple of days. It's going to be more active year than last 2 years. Definitely will take some steps to show you that not only the game is not dead, but it will get another life ;)

See you soon!

Hello,

Thank you for your patience and support in recent months! A major update is in the works.

It is focused mostly on the game UI - and not just small fixes, but this is about complete overhaul of the game ui and the in-game apps. This update addresses most common issues raised like issues with copy&paste feature, issues with organizing apps, adding more context hints, making the flow more smooth and pleasant to work with.

Some smaller changes how the commands work. For example, "sudo su" and hidden password was often misleading to some players and even raised as bugs occassionaly. I decided to add more information what is going on after typing this command, and decided that in-game usability is more important than sticking to the realistic way of how it works in linux.

I also made changes to some of the apps and how they work. For example, stack-overflow app "mini-game" will be more related to how buffer overflow attacks work in real life.

"Sqlmagic" app was terminal app only, where now it will be more graphical feedback as well. There's more I'm excited to show you very soon, especially few quality of life features that will make working with multiple apps way easier.

I am very close to complete all apps and commands to work correctly with new UI. There's couple of bug fixing I'll have to do, but targeting it for January - though Santa may come earlier.. :)

Happy Hacking!

• Fixed: Correctly restore terminal focus when clicked precisely on the input prompt line (second scenario - continuation of fix in Version 0.2.38)

• Fixed: after the tutorial completion, the "Start" in new menu would start tutorial again until game was restarted, or profile selected manually. Now correct player profile will be used to start a game after tutorial

• Fixed: Correctly restore terminal focus when multiple terminals running processing commands, which was causing issues with autocompletion or submitting next commands
• Fixed: Each open terminal has its separate taskbar button, which allows to restore terminal when minimalized
• Fixed: French translation changed from 'Le commandant' to 'Terminal'

• Fixed: when two windows overlay each other, (e.g. terminal and messanger, two terminals, terminal and notepad), or if player goes outside of the window to another window during the selection, the selection & copy text was copying text not from current active window but window below.

• Fixed: fix for being able to purchase more than 100% shares of the company in stock market

• Fixed: fix for sqlmagic - from now on, if sql injection is desired way to foothold for computer in mission, the hash from sqlinjection is always crackable, and related user can always connect with ssh. (New missions only)
• Added: Options to set time scale. Default is 50x real time speed, if it is too fast, you can change it between 10x and 50x of real time speed.

• Fixed: fix for hidden chat for Location Counter mission
• Fixed: fix for scp upload autocomplete for files (sometimes wrongly it was taking into account remote user permissions)
• Fixed: found another instance of issue when "Done" button is missing after mission completed. It is fixed.
• Fixed: fix for missing "Done" button after NPC sent reminder about mission expiration
• Fixed: fix for sending reminder about mission expiration when there are two missions active (Location & Location Counter). Also fix for making mission expired in same circumstances

• Fixed: fix for leetext when it was incorrectly losing focus and was not saving data when CTRL+O was clicked
• Fixed: fix for empty message with 00:00 time in chat during mission initialization (new game only)

• Fixed: fix for adding user permissions to services start/stop scripts, when it is required to start before using metaexploits (in specific cases it wasn't working)

• Fixed: fix for Hackopilot when it was showing Metaexploits as a path when service was not open (in some cases it is valid way to gain access, but it requires additional steps. And it is not always possible)
• Fixed: allow to "purchase" (free) $0 exploits when player has negative balance
• Fixed: don't show metaexploits as mission path when service is not open

• Fixed: weird case when mission was done, the reply "Done" option was not appearing in the chat, but instead NPC proceeded with his response automatically. It was preventing the mission to be fully completed and player to be rewarded.
• Fixed: sometimes the datetime was not saved in correct format, e.g. for missions with time constraints, which was affecting calculations if mission is expired.

• Fixed: sometimes copy-paste didn't work well if multiple terminals open at the same time
• Fixed* (possibly): I could never reproduce this issue but it seems to happen for some players from time to time. I slightly changed the behavior after mission is done to show the "Done" option in NPC chat. This potentially fixes the issue when mission was done but there was no dialogue available to complete it.

• Improved selection and copy-paste feature in terminal. Selecting text is more smooth and user friendly.
• Added selection and copy option in received messages from NPC.

• Added blur to terminal background which should make the text more clearly readable when terminal is over another app
• Allowed all app windows to resize to smaller size for conveniance
• In the missions app, added an indicator whether mission is giving black hat or white hat reputation (for standard mission steps. Please note that some of the missions have alternative paths to complete and those may differ in reputation gains)

• There were 64 updates to the game since the game was released ːsteamthisː It's been a wild ride, many of the updates were done in the night - between 23-2 UTC time.
• Many bugs have been fixed, but some still exist in current version of the game. I don't know how many of you remember what a mess it was at the beginning - and I hope to improve it much more.
• I think big updates worth mentioning were: improving the autocompletion mechanics allowing many different autocompletions based on the context (paths, usernames, passwords, and more); complete change to the in-game web pages; Stock Market introduction; Missions app; Tor improvements; Themes introduction; ability to redirect command output to the file;
• One important feedback I received many times is that the game is (too) difficult, and the tutorial is not helpful. I'm addressing this issue also as a part of 0.3 version. For now, if you encounter an issue, you can always ask on Steams Forum or Discord, or check out my YouTube channel which can contain some answers and useful tips that may not be self-explained in the game.
• So far there is more than 100 players that played more than 10 hours - that is awesome ːsteamthumbsupː! But I would really love to hear more feedback from all of you, what you enjoyed and what not, what you expect from the future, what kept you playing the game. I would really love to see you add steam reviews - it helps me and other players to understand the state of the game.