VAIL news & patch notes

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added the July Drop // SS26 featuring the Karo Colonist Bundle

• Added the Agrotech DLC

• Added Capsule dispensers and GEL market stand to the Shuttle

• Added a new matchmaking screen to teach players about each playlist

• Added an experimental language setting that translates the tutorial to Spanish — feel free to send us feedback in Discord!

• Improved Orbit breaker mesh with more obvious Jackpots and improved visual effects

• Improved grips for Tigre statue per AJ’s request

• Adjusted ORE Cluster locations to prevent issues with un-hittable critical locations on all maps

• Improved Wassie spawns to reduce likelihood of them getting stuck, as well as making some of the mining areas a little harder

• Increased collider size on the ORE Shards to reduce the chances of them falling through the map

• Adjusted Pickaxe spawners in the Quarry to not spawn halfway inside of colliders

• Improved Weapon Crate spawners in Social Hubs to allow for specific Crates to spawn types of weapons instead of random weapons as well as adding different sights available to spawn per gun.

• Fixed weapon dispenser not appearing in party home servers

• Fixed an issue where 2 players could spawn in the same location on Gun Game Khidi

• Fixed Weapon Crate spawners getting visually stuck open

• Fixed issue where REYAB character hands clipped through the sleeves of non-coat variants

• Fixed an issue with gun skins failing to equip

• Fixed a hole in Reyn

• Possible fix for parties failing to create in rare cases

• Various optimizations for Aeru

NOTE: Some of these changes were already introduced in previous updates where we had not written patch notes yet.

AEXLAB

AERU

Added a new Social Hub: Aeru

It is set in the Aeru Space Station, where the mission Colere took place and gave rise to the first independent colony.

The other Social Hubs are still available randomly when matchmaking for Social Hub.

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added Orbit Breaker, a new arcade game in each Social Hub

• Added an option to make flashes black for those who find the bright white uncomfortable

• Added skin validation to prevent an exploit that allowed users to equip skins they don’t own

• Improved the grip for Capture the Orb

• Improved all fades

• Significantly improved backfilling for all servers — severs should stay full almost indefinitely now

• Fixed some collision issues in Reyn

• Fixed being able to spawn loadouts in the Armory

• Fixed a memory leak with SH_Quarry

• Misc. crash fixes

• Misc. optimizations

• Background work on future content

NOTE: Some of these changes were already introduced in previous updates where we had not written patch notes yet.

AEXLAB

GENERAL CHANGES

NOTE: Some of these changes were already introduced in previous updates where we had not written patch notes yet.

• Added back the weapon dispenser in the armory. Added a barrier that prevents Extraction guns from mixing with weapon dispenser guns.

• Completely remade the Daily GEL Rewards. Claiming the rewards should work more reliably and the streak feature actually works now.

• Organized Extraction missions into three categories to ensure there’s always some easier missions alongside harder missions

• Added new Extraction mission variants

• Excluded ammo and sights counting towards stash limit

• Adjusted Ranked Artifact matchmaking rules

• Buffed STF-12: decreased spread and increased headshot damage

• Reimplemented a fix for impersonating other accounts. We had removed this temporarily as it was causing issues with matchmaking. That is now fixed and the impersonation fix has been re-added.

• Fixed Colonist wired having the “Controller” on both hands instead of on one as originally intended

• Fixed a game ending early when a last player on a team leaves for FFA and OTC

• Fixed the draw screen appearing in Social Hub and other modes when one player is left in the server

• Fixed purchasing skill points failing when purchasing more than 1

• Fixed an edge case in the home that caused duplicate items to appear

• Fixed a few out of bounds exploits in Citadel

• Fixed an out of bounds exploit in Kiiro

• Fixed an out of bounds exploit in SKZ_Cliffside

• Fixed various crashes

• Added misc. optimizations across several maps

AEXLAB

GENERAL CHANGES

NOTE: Some of these changes were already introduced in previous updates where we had not written patch notes yet.

• Added the May Resupply // SS26

• Added the Benefactor Colonist Character and Weapon skin pack that includes 6 ELITE skins and 4,500 GEL.

• Added more secure password protected custom games

• Added the ability to join custom games by inputting a code

• All custom games are now password protected

• Removed the server browser since you can only join custom games by inputting a code

• Added a VAIL Alliance exclusive extra mission for Extraction and Mining missions

• Added a persistent unrefined ORE wallet that allows users to keep unrefined ORE for a limited time in case they crash or swap servers.

• Added new Extraction mission variants

• Added a button to teleport to the Skill Tree when clicking on locked Extraction items

• Tuned existing Extraction mission variants

• Tuned Supply Capsule values to make Elite and Legendary capsules more rewarding

• Added support for Virtuix Omni treadmills

• Made the daily income more reliable — the streaks will be fixed in a coming patch

• Deleted some non-Extraction props from the Armory

• Fixed some colliders around the mining skill tree that was blocking players

• Fixed a crash when loading into the armory when there’s a backpack already there

• Fixed misc. bugs with the stash and loading loadouts into Extraction

• Fixed ORE shards not exploding into random directions when mined

• Misc. crash fixes

• Background work on future content

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION

EXTRACTION IS DISABLE UNTIL WIPES ARE FINISHED

With this update, we ran our very first major wipe. This means that everything in your stash and your EXA balance has been reset. With this wipe, we’re introducing two new major features: an Extraction based Skill Tree and physical stash with a limit.

The Extraction skill tree can be found in your Armory. You can unlock skill points by completing weekly Extraction missions, and you can spend your skill points to unlock the ability to purchase all of the gear in Extraction.

The physical stash is your entire Armory. Feel free to place Extraction loot and gear anywhere in your armory, and it will be there the next time you load the level. If you want to sell items, there’s a new machine where you can drop multiple items to sell at once. If you exceed your stash limit, you won’t be able to matchmake for Extraction. In the future, we’ll add the ability to expand your stash limit and unlock new rooms to store your items.

MINING

In addition to the Extraction Skill Tree, we’ve added a new Mining Skill Tree with a variety of upgrades to make mining and smelting more efficient. You can unlock skill points by completing weekly mining missions, and use them to increase how much ORE you get per shard, increase the smelting speed, and much more.

RANKED ARTIFACT

This update adds the long awaited Ranked Artifact queue and the start of Season 0. This replaces the dedicated Artifact playlist.

Ranked matchmaking times may be much longer than other playlists since each match needs to start with 10 new players and there won’t be any backfilling into existing matches. If a player leaves a match early, they’ll be penalized.

There are 6 ranks available: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Aeon. You can see these ranks and your current rank in the newly added Ranked tab in the Progression section of the Tablet, which also shows a recent match history. For this initial testing season, there are no rewards for achieving a specific rank yet.

NEA DLC

The ELITE Nea character and weapon skin pack includes 4,500 GEL and 6 skins: Colonist character head, hands, body, AK-303N primary weapon, NXS Hammer secondary weapon, and Kanto melee weapon.

GENERAL CHANGES

NOTE: Some of these changes were already introduced in previous updates where we had not written patch notes yet.

• Added Prestige 9: Independency

• Reworked the Social Hub tutorial into a selectable mission system with more detailed steps

• Armory marketplace character now mirrors your movements

• Tuned a variety of values related to mining to make it more balanced with the new upgrades

• Added Artifact to the Quickplay playlist

• Modified spawns on Reyn

• Optimization pass on Citadel

• Adjusted the layout of the ORE shop in Citadel

• Improved the grip for the AK-12

• Added validation for game files to prevent exploits from deleting certain files

• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to impersonate other accounts

• Fixed various exploits used for cheating

• Possible fix for smoke grenades getting half stuck in terrain

AEXLAB

GENERAL CHANGES

NOTE: Some of these changes were already introduced in previous updates where we had not written patch notes yet.

• Added the May Drop // SS26 featuring the Oni REYAB skin

• Adjusted the end of the tutorial to prompt users to join any mode they want

• Added the ability to see your own profile by clicking on your name at the bottom of the tablet

• Added penalty for abusive communications

• Misc. crash fixes and optimizations

• Background work on future content

AEXLAB

GENERAL CHANGES

NOTE: Some of these changes were already introduced in previous updates where we had not written patch notes yet.

• Added Steam Frame support

• Added the Uncompiled Colonist character and weapon DLC that includes 10,000 GEL

• Fixed shaders being forced to recompile every update even when no shaders were changed. Now shaders will compile much more quickly unless it’s a new install or shaders have been updated on our end.

• Improved the drawing board eraser to make erasing easier

• Added Pilad to NXS Hammer

• Adjusted mining crit multiplier

• Made shooting all targets in the Killhouse optional. Every unshot target adds 3 seconds to your time

• Fixed some entitlements not appearing for players that owned a large number of entitlements

• Fixed voice chat not working for some users — this should be fixed for the vast majority of players that had this issue.

• Fixed Oculus CV1 trigger inputs not working correctly

• Fixed all UI widgets not working with some runtimes

• Fixed the win rate calculation not taking into account matches ending a draw or that were abandoned

• Fixed some matches appearing to end in a Draw when it should have been a Victory or Defeat

• Possible fix for servers not backfilling after a certain amount of time

• Possible fix for players successfully logging in, but not getting full access to their loadouts, cosmetics, etc.

• Reyn - Fixed a collision exploit in Habitat

• Reyn - Fixed misc. mesh placement issues

• Khidi - Heavy optimization pass

• Misc. crash fixes and optimizations

AEXLAB

GENERAL CHANGES

• Completed a large overhaul of loot spawns on Reyn — in addition to other balance and immersion improvements; \ items should be much harder to find, only spawning in very specific locations where they make sense to spawn.

• Added an eraser to the drawing boards in Shuttle

• Possible fixes for losing ORE in the smelter

• Fixed custom games scrambling teams in some cases

• Fixed most objective markers not appearing on some PC runtimes — this was done by creating new optimized variants of objective markers, similar to what we did with nameplates in a recent update.

• Fixed being able to get stuck in forklift barrels on Kiiro

• Fixed various mesh issues on Reyn

• Fixed ORE shards disappearing too quickly

• Fixed ammo counters not showing correctly for left handed users

• Misc. crash fixes and optimizations

• Background work on future content

AEXLAB

CLASSIC QUARRY

This update brings back the classic Citadel Quarry. But if you enjoyed the newest Quarry, don’t worry! Both options are now available. Each time you matchmake, you’ll have a chance to join one or the other.

1V1 PLAYLIST

For a while we’ve had 1v1 variants of all of our maps, but these were only available through custom games. In this update, we’re adding an all new 1v1 matchmaking playlist to take full advantage of these maps! This playlist skips the shuttle entirely, instead placing you against a random player on a random map. And at the end, you’ll be sent back to your Armory to queue up for a new opponent.

KIIRO

Introducing the newest map, Kiiro: an offshore processing rig that receives raw materials from nearby extraction units scattered in open waters. The map is available for Artifact, Team Deathmatch, Hardpoint, Free For All, Gun Game, One in the Chamber, Fiesta, 1v1, and Picnic.

REYN

• Overhauled the entire Sub Base with an improved blockout and full set dressing pass.

• Opened up a single apartment in Sub Base, accessible with a zipline in one of the elevator shafts.

• Opened up a single prison cell in Security, accessible with a zipline in the tower.

DRIFTER DLC

The ELITE Drifter character and weapon skin pack is now available and includes 4,500 GEL and 6 skins: REYAB character head, hands, and body, AK-12 primary weapon, PL14 secondary weapon, and Kanto melee weapon.

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added Prestige 8, REYAB Space Program.

• Large game mode refactor — this will enable us to fix some longstanding bugs and other issues with certain game modes, as well as allow us to add new modes more easily in the future.

• Possible fix for teams occasionally having more than 5 players.

• Added end-of-round team balancing.

• Removed the option to swap teams in certain matchmaking servers to prevent exploits — swap teams is still available in custom games and social modes.

• Added better support for parties to stay on the same team when matchmaking.

• Updated the Artifact heaven spectator UI

• Large mining refactor to fix bugs and improve performance.

• ORE crit locations are now visible without needing to hit it first.

• Fixed ORE clusters spawning all as one rarity — each individual crystal now has their own individual chance to appear as each rarity instead of the whole cluster.

• Fixed ORE clusters spawning in a set order of locations on the map instead of always choosing a random location.

• ORE clusters will move to a new location if not mined within 10 minutes.

• Added missing ORE sounds including idle buzzing for crystals, idle sparkling for each shard, and the ORE crushing sound.

• Added a wheel spinning animation to ziplines.

• Hide vote to kick button for players in your party.

• Citadel - Fixed out of bounds exploit.

• Maar - Fixed some ziplines being hard to reach.

• 1v1 Nine - Swapped slime to a better version.

• Possible fix for phantom headshots.

• Fixed hands blocking bullets.

• Fixed weapon crates not opening quickly.

• Fixed travel to map fading to an infinite black screen while in a server.

• Fixed ORE shards appearing laggy when falling to the ground.

AEXLAB

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added the March Drop // FW26 featuring the Chosen Colonist Bundle

• Reyn - Added a new and improved Lab

• Reyn - Added a new lighthouse

• Reyn - Added grassy areas throughout the map

• Reyn - Misc. collision and clipping fixes

• Reyn - Misc. set dressing and loot spawn passes

• Added the version number to compiling shaders screen

• Fixed all HUD UI stuttering with movement

• Background work on future content

RECENT CHANGES (from previous patches)

• Reduced the game package size significantly

• Added new optimized nameplates with a slightly improved look

• Optimized and improved ziplines, the main player facing change is they now are more consistent at maintaining player velocity when let go early

AEXLAB

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added the February Drop // FW26 featuring the Biohazard bundle and some VAILENTINES themed skins

• Added a VAILENTINES themed Kanto skin in the Citadel that’s only available as a gift for a limited time

• Updated the engine to Unreal 5.6

• Possible fix for friends list getting stuck loading

• Added the correct button sounds to ORE smelter and will only play when there’s something to collect

• Increased PL14 and G17 ranges to make them more useful at mid ranges, extending 1 tap headshot from 12m to 20m approx.

• Increased MK23 ranges extending 1 tap from 31m to 40m

• Increased DEagle maximum damage at max range and extended 1 tap from 51m to 60m

• Fixed occasionally seeing an incorrect error message in the VOID for a split second before successful login

• Fixed an issue where guns could get a round in the chamber on the server but not on the client, causing them to not be able to be fired after reloading

• Fixed an issue with DLC content incorrectly displaying as Owned

• Fixed ejected shotgun casings making rifle casing sounds when falling to the ground

• Reyn - closed the security compound temporarily

• Reyn - added new tower mesh for security compound

• Reyn - set dressing and clutter pass in Habitat

• Reyn - added lighthouse light

• Fixed misc. crashes

• Background work on new content

AEXLAB

GENERAL CHANGES

• Reyn - Fixed some missing colliders that allowed players to shoot from inside walls

• Reyn - Misc. optimizations, fixes, and improvements

• Guns will reholster if they are pushed out of your hand by a wall

• Possible fix for audio clipping in certain spots of Frio

• Fixed shield chargers causing players to crash while in a match

• Fixed being unable to purchase 2XP Tokens in the post match screen

• Fixed Kanto audio getting stuck on a loop occasionally

• Fixed weapon dispenser button not playing audio

• Fixed various crashes

• Background work on content to be revealed soon

AEXLAB

GENERAL CHANGES

• Add the January Drop // FW26 featuring the Lave REYAB Bundle

• Removed holiday themed assets from the Armory and Citadel

• Removed the temporary free kanto gift

• Fixed headshots not dealing extra damage in Extraction

• Reyn - Visual improvements to Habitat

• Reyn - Visual improvements to a cargo area between docks and security

• Misc. backend cleanup and refactors to enable us to add more content

• Misc. map asset optimizations across all maps

• Lots of work on content to be revealed soon

AEXLAB

WEEKLY MISSIONS

We’re getting ready to introduce a new and unique progression system for Extraction, and the first step towards that is the addition of Weekly Missions.

To start, we’re offering three weekly missions related to Extraction with a small amount of GEL as a reward. Getting GEL as a reward is a temporary thing until we introduce the full progression, to be revealed soon. So get it while you can! You can view and claim rewards for the current weekly Extraction missions on a board in your Armory.

We’re also planning on rolling out missions for all other aspects of VAIL. In coming updates, you’ll see missions added for VAIL Combat and Social, all with unique rewards.

TG-SHOOTOUT

Our latest Training Grounds map is based on an old western mining town. Travel back to the days of yore, where technology blends with a simpler way of life. Each match starts with a daring face to face showdown with only the NXS Hammer, but progresses to all out madness as players find shotguns scattered around the map. Between all of the fighting, bet sure to stop by the rooftop bar for a drink of Graviti.

SHIELD CHARGERS

Is your shield low from a firefight? Well grab the latest shield chargers and get back in the fight faster and more protected than ever! Shield chargers use wireless charging to boost a shield back to full charge. To start, each tier of charger carries a flat amount that works the same with each tier of shield. But in the future, we plan on introducing unique mechanics where a charger might be more or less effective depending on it’s tier relationship to the shield. We’ll also add these to the gear tickets in a future update.

TWITCH DROPS

Join us on Twitch all holiday long with our second VAIL Twitch drop This time, you can get three Pearl weapon skins alongside several supply capsules!

https://aexlab.com/vail-vr/posts/vail-twitch-drops

EXTRACTION

• Added shield charge to HUD, loot info widget, and a progress bar on the mesh itself

• Reyn - new blockout for Lab area — this is a simpler, less confusing blockout that we’ll continue to improve in future updates

• Reyn - new architecture pieces for lab facade

• Reyn - new blockout for landing pad

• Reyn - new architecture pieces for landing pad

• Reyn - new chapel architecture

• Reyn - misc. map fixes and visual improvements

• Reyn - loot spawn passes at power plant, shuttle landing pad, labs, and more

• Reyn - added security rooms to various compounds where weapons have a chance to spawn

• Fixed flip magnifier sights not extracting

• Fixed shields being held backwards in the left hand

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added Prestige 7: Etana

• Added the ability to gift consumables and bundles

• Added Citadel holiday decoration

• Added to the Citadel a gifting leaderboard and a free Kanto Gift that you can only get from someone gifting it to you

• Fixed NXS Hammer not despawning

• Fixed off hand failing to let go of the NXS Hammer when moved far enough away

• Misc. optimizations to reduce memory usage

AEXLAB

GIFTING (Beta)

We are adding the ability to gift items to friends, just in time for the holidays! For now, you can only gift individual items from the tablet or armory marketplace. Soon, you’ll be able to gift bundles and consumables. To send someone a gift, they must be your friend and must not already own the item you want to give them.

As part of this, we’ve added a new inbox feed where you’ll receive notifications for gifts you’ve received and other messages or announcements. You can open this inbox by clicking the newly added button above your friend’s list.

EXTRACTION

• Fixed being able to place Vortex Mines on revive orbs

• Tuned loot spawns at Power Plant, Habitat, the little shop near Habitat, and the bus stop near Shuttle Landing Pad

• Vending machines now have a chance to spawn Graviti Energy Drink

• Adjusted Legendary Backpack animation

• Reyn - adjusted fog and lighting colors

• Reyn - more visual pass on bus stop next to Shuttle Landing Pad

• Reyn - visual pass on the park area next to Shuttle Landing Pad lighthouse tower

GENERAL CHANGES

• Since our last update, we added over 100 skins to Supply Capsules

• Allowed players to click on items in the marketplace for gifting, even if already owned

• Added snow to the Armory temporarily

• Added a temporary message feed underneath the friend’s list

• Extended MK23 1 tap headshot from 23m to 31m

• Extended DEagle 1 tap headshot from 41m to 51m

• MK418 increased 1 shot headshot from 15m to 20m

• GrotB increased 1 shot headshot from 16m to 22m

• AK-12 increased 1 shot headshot from 24m to 30m

• AK-303N increased 1 shot headshot from 30m to 40m

• Increased APC9Pro recoil while moving and shooting

• Adjusted AK12, MK418, and APC9Pro recoils to be more balanced when moving as well as standing still

• Adjusted NXS Hammer to 1 tap at all ranges, 2 tap on upper torso up to 60m, otherwise a 3 tap unless you hit the legs past 60m

• Fixed milk splatter having a white outline

AEXLAB

GEAR TOKENS

In this update, we’re introducing gear tokens! These are pre-set loadouts for Extraction to allow you to quickly gear up without spending any EXA. There are three tiers of gear tokens: Enhanced, Rare, and Elite.

• All players will get an Enhanced gear token every day that they login

• VAIL Alliance subscribers get more daily gear tokens, depending on the subscription tier

• You can purchase more gear tokens for a small amount of GEL

For now, these are set loadouts for each tier; but in the future we may tune these loadouts based on your feedback or even introduce random loadouts per tier.

EXTRACTION

• We are preparing to add some progression before Christmas, and so we'll likely do a wipe when that releases.

• Fixed and readded shield sound effects that were playing globally

• Added a new Legendary Backpack mesh

• Adjusted weapon slots on all backpack variants

• Reyn - Visual pass on the bus station by Landing Pad

• Reyn - Visual pass at Habitat

• Reyn - added various map optimizations

• Reyn - Fixed various holes

GENERAL CHANGES

• Add December Drop // FW25 featuring the Candy Killer bundle and other holiday skins!

• As part of last week’s update, we added the ability to buy Supply Capsules with GEL and granted all players a FREE legendary capsules and some GEL.

• Set Party Homes to use global positional voice chat

• Added ballistic hit decals on Quest

• More TTK balance tweaks

• Misc. crash fixes and optimizations

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION

• Added healing sprays, more tacticals, and backpacks to loot lists

• Added compound names to the map on Reyn

• Made it more forgiving to put backpacks onto back slot

• Made it easier to grab knife instead of backpack

• Made it easier to grab Cloud Safe on alternative tac rig options

• Adjusted revive UI to be more subtle — more visual changes to come

• Backpack slots are now two-sided — with this change, we’ll adjust firearm slots and other things to make it better

• Fixed being able to slot empty healing sprays into the backpack

• Fixed not being able to grab tacticals or mags out of backpacks with trigger grip setting enabled

• Adjusted downed screen to be lower and more out of view and added an open animation

• Reyn - Fixed bad collision in Power Plant causing some items to fall through the floor

• Reyn - Fixed various holes

• Reyn - Fixed ground collision doing weird things near roundabout

• Reyn - added a new bridge mesh

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added more set dressing to the new Armory layout

• More TTK balance tweaks

• Removed Extraction Pre-Alpha from subscription rewards details

• Added Cloud Safe to subscription reward details

• Fixed initial subscription reward popups not showing OREX Pickaxe as a reward

• Potential magazine desync fix

• Fixed GEL and DLC purchases sometimes failing to consume purchases -- PLEASE TEST

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION EARLY ACCESS

With this release, we are launching VAIL: Extraction into Early Access. It is now FREE TO PLAY, accessible to anyone that downloads VAIL.

This is a very early version of Extraction. Over the coming weeks and months, we will be working hard to keep improving the mode and add lots of features we feel are important (or just fun) for this kind of mode. You can see all of the planned features here:

In this release you can create a loadout with shields, ammo tiers, healing sprays, and more. In the match you can fight off autonomous drones, revive players, and extract with as much loot as possible. Between matches, you can visit the new armory layout where we’ll be working to add lots of features you see in the graphic above.

If you’ve been playing Extraction while it was in Alpha, here’s some recent changes with this release:

• Wiped all inventories. Upon the full release, we hope to not have forced wipes. But until then, you can expect rare wipes. Now that we’re in Early Access, we’ll make sure to warn everyone ahead of wipes if/when they occur.

• Locked Extraction points: the random extract will be locked for 10 minutes while the Lab extract will be locked for 15 minutes. We’ll add this to the Map UI later, but for now you can see the timer next to the objective marker.

• Added more tiers of Nanobot Spray

• Added a new mesh for the Elite Backpack

• Added a variety of Streamer themed loot items

• Added the ability to revive players infinitely — we’ll limit this again in the future in a more elegant way

• Added death VFX to Angels

• Added descriptions for more items such as sights and ammo.

• Fixed other players being able to grab items out of backpacks they’re not holding

• Fixed Cloud Safes not persisting after a revive

• Fixed kill trace remaining in the world even after a revive

• Fixed loot values not appearing correctly in the match summary screen. It now excludes any gear you brought in.

• Possible fixes for not remaining on the same team as your party when joining a match

• Fixed Extract point alarms not working as intended

If you want to support the development of Extraction, you can get the Seeker Gear or Seeker Character bundle:

GENERAL CHANGES

• In this update we’re introducing a brand new Armory layout. This is redesigned to be a true player home. For now, this is just a visual change. But this will allow us to add home customization, crafting, physical storage, trophies, and much more to come in the near future!

• TTK balance adjustments

• Added new health icon

• Significant matchmaking improvements to make the system more reliable and consistent. We’ve already observed matches remaining fuller for longer!

• Added the name of the matchmaking playlist when matchmaking so that party members know what they’re queued up for.

• Fixed occasionally being stuck on Recent Players in the social window

• Misc. crash fixes

• Misc. performance optimizations

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION ALPHA

• Added VAIL Alliance exclusive safe boxes. These are still using placeholder art assets, but allow you to loot items that you’ll keep even if you perish in Extraction. There are three tiers of safe boxes, one for each tier of VAIL Alliance.

• Added music to Extraction on spawn and extract

• Improved Nanobot shaking interaction

• Removed the ability to holster Nanobot spray after it’s depleted

• Nanobot spray now highlights the player where it’s healing and doesn’t clip through the player

• Added sound effects for the Nanobot spray

• Added sound effects for shield taking damage and being destroyed

• Added sound effects for Angels

• Changed extraction point VFX to red and made other minor adjustements

• Increased the extraction point radius

• Added new mesh for the Rare Backpack

• Improved the backpack tac rig grab area to prevent grabbing the backpack when aiming for the knife

• Improved the Extraction match outcome screen placement and behavior

• Fixed Extraction match outcome screen not appearing when successfully extracting

• Fixed grip position on various loot items

• Fixed backpack slots not showing the correct tier colors after hovering over it with another item or your hand

• Fixed backpack weapon slots showing primary weapons as extremely small

• Fixed loot crates appearing in map but not being interactable — crates will only spawn if they have loot inside of them

• Reyn - Fixed map exits in power plant

• Reyn - Fixed some rain appearing/disappearing in some incorrect places

• Reyn - Significant performance improvements for Quest

• Reyn - Replaced blockout cover pieces with new assets

• Reyn - Fixed some spawns

• Reyn - Adjusted loot spawns

• Reyn - Improved all ziplines

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added the November Drop // FW25 featuring the Scorched REYAB Bundle

• Fixed joining parties not working if you’re not in a server already

• Misc. party fixes, they should be much more reliable now!

• Made the player login flow more reliable — let us know if you’re still seeing the “Offline” screen in the VOID even if you have internet

• Various fixes for matchmaking sometimes not working reliably — backfilling appears to work much better now!

• Fixed map exits in Shuttle

• Fixed tablet cursor disappearing sometimes

• Custom games are still slightly broken in this build. But we’ll be pushing a patch ASAP with fixes for that.

AEXLAB

PARTIES

This update includes the beginning of the long awaited parties refactor. There’s still a lot of issues that we’re working through, but when it’s fully working this is what you can expect to see:

• You can now create parties while in a server, which will allow you to effectively invite friends to your existing game.

• When you’re not in a server, inviting a friend will transport both of you to a new party home. In the future, you’ll have more customization options for your home and when joining a party you’ll be joining the host’s home.

In our most recent testing, there seems to be a few issues that make it not work most of the time. We'll be patching this in the coming days to make it more reliable than ever before.

EXTRACTION ALPHA

• Visual improvements to the revive orbs

• Added some visual effects for extraction points

• Misc. improvements to loot crates

• Adjusted some loot to lay flat

• Reyn - opened up new areas in the lab

• Reyn - reopened the new and improved reactor and control rooms of power plant

• Reyn - Added more bot spawns

• Reyn - Misc. mesh fixes

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added the new Cyclotron Colonist Character and Weapon Skin Bundle

• Spatial audio acoustics improvements

• Removed obsolete voice chat output device settings

• Removed collision from inaccessible vista objects on various maps

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION ALPHA

• Added player revives. This is a very early system that’s still lacking a lot of polish and art, but you can now revive any players that are killed once.

• Added new meshes for the Standard and Enhanced backpacks

• Added a menu for equipping healing items in your backpack

• Added a warning message for entering a raid without minimum gear requirements

• Added hover animations for the Angels

• Added an anti-camping alarm at extract points — we’ll replace the audio and tune the distance in future updates

• Possible fix for spawning with only the lab extract

• Fixed shields not preventing as much damage as intended

• Added a check to make sure players don’t spawn near enemies

• Reyn - Increased the number of spawn points and ensured all spawn points have some amount of cover

• Reyn - Fixed out of bounds area near lab extract

• Reyn - Visual improvements to the reactor area of Power Plant

GENERAL CHANGES

• Earlier this week we pushed some fixes to the Killhouse and reset the top 50 scores on each leaderboard to ensure all scores are legitimate

• Added a new ammo pouch mesh

• Fixed tacticals not working as intended in all situations

• Fixed observer input not having dead zones for controller thumbsticks

• Fixed Killhouse and weapon dispenser showing the wrong skins on weapons

• Fixed music not playing correctly in certain situations

• Misc. fixes for voice chat

• Misc. crash fixes

AEXLAB

SOCIAL REFACTOR

We’re now hard at work refactoring all social features including friends and parties. With this update, we’ve fixed a lot of issues with adding and removing friends. You can now reliably add friends by clicking on their name in the scoreboard, searching their name, or clicking on them in the recently played tab. Player profiles are also fixed with player stats and profile pictures showing more reliably. In upcoming updates you’ll see major improvements coming to parties, player presence, and more.

KILLHOUSE

Alongside other improvements to the tutorial, we’re now introducing a brand new timed mini-game: the Killhouse. This timed mode includes global leaderboards for the fastest times with all firearms in VAIL. The mode will be introduced at the end of the tutorial for new players to get comfortable with shooting and movement together, but can be revisited at anytime with the new “Tutorials” button in “Play” page of the tablet. Try it now and top the leaderboards early!

EXTRACTION ALPHA

• Added Nanobot Healing Sprays, currently equippable as a tactical. To use the healing spray, shake until the progress bar is full and then spray anywhere on yourself or a teammate. We still have a lot of polish to do here, particularly on sound effects and the charging interaction, and we’ll be adding more variants in the future.

• Added a new mesh for shields

• Added over 100 enemy spawns throughout Reyn

• Tuned the fire rate, movement speed, and other variables on both enemy types

• Fixed bots not respecting line of sight

• Fixed bots shooting dead bodies

• Fixed not being able to kill bots with a knife

• Added textures to the two Angel enemy variants

• Adjusted the size of some loot items

• Added 20 new loot items

• Adjusted loot spawn lists

• Increased the price of all sights

• Updated misc. UI related to Extraction

• Added a new mesh for extraction points — more improvements, particularly with SFX and VFX, coming soon

• Reduced the time players are allowed to backfill into existing matches

• Backpacks are now visible on players’ backs

• Fixed loadout items brought into a match counting towards EXA Looted leaderboard

• Reyn - massive visual improvements to power plant and other nearby areas

• Reyn - fixed some player spawns being inside walls or floating

• Reyn - adjusted the blockout in Lab

• Reyn - added new “Crash Site” point of interest on the beach with loot spawns

GENERAL CHANGES

• Fixed deafening not working with positional voice chat

• Fixed voice chat not initializing properly for new users on Quest after accepting microphone permissions

• Made the STF-12 slightly easier to push forward

• Adjusted how some assets are packaged, which should reduce future patch downloaded sizes and potentially fix some crashes

• Add a “My Rank” filter to see your position in the leaderboards

• Fixed hole in the Colonist mesh behind the ears

• Tutorial - matchmaking prompts now start over from “open tablet” if you close the tablet early

• Tutorial - players are now prompted to reload each weapon 3 times

• Tutorial - fixed map exits

• Tutorial - fixed going to tutorial on new install if you’ve already completed it

• Fixes for voice chat related crashes

• Misc. server optimizations

• Misc. map optimizations and cleanup

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION PRE-ALPHA

• Added new Angel variants — we’re continuing to improve and expand the enemies in Extraction. Now there’s three variants of drones that use a new projectile based weapon.

• Added pumpkin heads to Angels temporarily

• Fixed Angels not dealing damage

• Added 17 new loot items

• Reyn - imported new exterior mesh for power plant

• Reyn - improved the interior block out and set dressing for power plant

• Reyn - improved the dock area with new set dressing, improved collision, and other improvements

• Reyn - improved graphics for the vehicles

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added the FW25 // October Drop featuring the Pumpkin Head bundle and other Halloween themed skins

• Decorated the Amani Market with spooky Halloween decor

• Improved shader compilation time

• Potential fix for golf ball occasionally not spawning

• Adjusted fog to make it less distracting on Quest

• Fixed weapon spawners in Citadel not granting ammo to the player

• Frio - added the mini-map for Artifact Frio observer mode

• Tutorial - adjusted the hint UI pop up to be more visible

• Tutorial - added weapon grip highlights for the reload sections

• Citadel - Fixed hole in collision

• Citadel - Fixed some z-fighting

• Backend improvements to voice chat — possible crash fixes and bug fixes related to voice chat

• Optimizations to server performance

• Misc. crash fixes

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION PRE-ALPHA

• Adjusted loot probabilities to make it harder to find high tier loot. This is something we’ll continue to tune and improve.

• Until now, all types of loot could spawn anywhere. With this update, we’re starting to change this so that only certain types of loot will spawn in certain areas. For example, only food items will spawn in the new Energy Plant cafeteria. This is something we’ll continue to change and improve with each update.

• Extraction match outcome now properly shows the amount of value extracted, Seeker kills, and Angel kills

• Made improvements to Extraction Match Outcome animation

• Extraction points now appear when the player is near

• Hit indicator colors will now match the tier of shield you have equipped

• Fixed backpack items being left behind if a player extracts while holding the backpack

• Fixed sights not extracting properly

• Fixed ammo not extracting properly

• Fixed teammates being able to destroy each others’ shield

• Fixed stash sell price not taking into account quantity

• Fixed purchasing ammo sending players back to play page instead of gear up page

• Reyn - updates to the Docks

• Reyn - overhauled the blockout at Energy Plant — this is still a work in progress and you’ll see more improvements soon

• Reyn - added new experimental loot containers

GENERAL CHANGES

• Significantly improved fog on various maps

• Fixed fog causing materials to look too dark on PC — we left this on Quest as it had the unintended side effect of making Quest materials look closer to their intended PC look

• Tutorial - fixed some soft locks and other minor issues with the reloading sections of the tutorial

• Tutorial - fixed GEL not appearing in wallet after completing tutorial without a game restart

• Tutorial - the target for learning bullet penetration now sticks out a bit to make it easier to see where it is

• Tutorial - fixed loading into tutorial automatically every time you launch game if you never finished it.

• Tutorial - fixed a soft lock if you die from grenade at the same time as completing that step

• Tutorial - added new sound effects for completing each step

• Tutorial - fixed some z-fighting and clipping

• Tutorial - added a message for players leaving tutorial early to inform them that there’s a reward for completing the tutorial

• Tutorial - locked player movement while choosing dominant hand

• Tutorial - fixed observer mode being taken to the tutorial

• Small server optimizations

• Improved shader compilation time on Quest

• Fixed Wassies playing walking sound effects after they’re killed

• Fixed some server crashes with Artifact

• Fixed some crashes related to matchmaking

• Fixed some crashes related to Citadel

• Fixed misc. crashes

• Fixed REYAB hands sometimes clipping into the sleeve

• Fixed blue artifacts on Citadel vista

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION PRE-ALPHA

• Increased the number of max teams from 4 to 6 and total players from 12 to 18

• Consolidated all ammo types into 4 types: compact, rifle, heavy, and shotgun

• Added 6 tiers of ammo — these ammo tiers do not change their base damage, but instead change their penetration in relation to the new shields

• Added 6 tiers of shields. The shield is projected around your entire body from a small device on your right shoulder (the model is placeholder for now). Bullets can still penetrate the shield, depending on how high a tier of bullet vs the tier of shield.

• Added 18 new loot items to extraction

• Reyn - remade all of the basalt rocks with new improved meshes and a new material with moss

• Reyn - adjusted floor materials to match the new basalt better

• Reyn - improvements to the dock area of the level

• Fixed some items not extracting consistently

• Wiped all inventories for testing

GENERAL CHANGES

• Set the default turn option to smooth

• Added new sound effects for redeeming double XP tokens

• Tutorial - removed the settings screen and replaced it with one single prompt to choose dominant hand

• Tutorial - improved the final section of the tutorial, added GEL reward for completing the tutorial and skins to purchase in the tutorial

• Tutorial - Adjusted the layout at the end of the tutorial to be able to add a killhouse section

• Upgraded some of our online infrastructure

• Fixed occlusion culling on Citadel not working as intended, causing significant performance issues

• Fixed shaders compiling extremely slow on Quest

• Fixed helicopter nameplates in observer mode

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION PRE-ALPHA

• Wiped all player inventories for Extraction testing — wipes will happen frequently while in alpha, but we do not plan to have forced wipes after the full release

• Added a Loot Extracted leaderboard and we plan to reward top looters every week with in-game rewards, so see if you can top this leaderboard!

• Added 27 new loot items

• Added 5 tiers of backpacks that are now purchasable with more storage. The lowest tier backpack is free but only has 6 slots for loot items while the largest tiered backpack has 20 regular slots and 3 primary weapon slots. The models for these backpacks are still placeholder and subject to change, but all of the functionality is now working.

• Added primary weapon slots to the backpacks. With this, primary weapons cannot be added to the inside of the backpack since they’re too large, but secondary weapons still can be placed inside in the regular slots. Instead, if you have a backpack with a primary weapon slot, you can now attach any primary weapon to the outside of the backpack. The highest tiered backpack has 3 primary weapon slots — one on each side and one on the bottom.

• Added an auto slot to backpacks that’s accessible by dropping items over your shoulder or at the top of the backpack. This slot will simply put an item in the next available slot in the backpack and you can use it by dropping items over your shoulder if you have a backpack equipped. SFX for this will be added soon!

• Added a UI widget for loot that will appear when holding an item and pointing your palm up towards your headset. This widget includes information about the item you’re holding including rarity, value, category, and more.

• All players will now get a maximum of two extraction points that are shared with some other players in the match.

• Fixed Extraction map not showing icons for a couple of seconds after opening the tablet

• Reyn - improved the texture quality and look of vehicles

• Reyn - minor fixes to various props

• Reyn - improved floor collision across the entire map to prevent loot and backpacks from falling through the floor

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added a new marketplace rotation featuring the Lekar REYAB Bundle and some new cosmetics from the community as part of the VAIL Artisans program (join Discord for more information)

• Added the first iteration of a beginner tutorial. For now, this is only accessible in the setting page of the tablet while we continue to improve it. Feel free to try it out and send us feedback! This tutorial is targeted at helping new players feel comfortable in a training grounds or quickplay match. In the future, we plan to add specific tutorials as needed for different game modes including Artifact, Extraction, and Mining.

• Fixed spectators being able to queue up for matchmaking

• Fixed tablet close button not working while matchmaking

• The Void - Improved lightmap res which should fix some blobby shadows

• Citadel - fixed upside down light props in the DJ booth and some other minor changes and optimizations

• Possible improvements to some hitches when loading different parts of larger levels

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION PRE-ALPHA

• Added very early prototypes of drone style enemies. These enemies are not close to being finished. They’re untextured, dumb, and somewhat overpowered right now. For these reasons, we’ve only put a handful in the level, but as we continue to tune and improve these drones we’ll add more throughout the map. This isn’t the only type of enemy we plan on adding as well, so stay tuned for more variants.

• Added a UI header to the backpack to show the total value of everything in the backpack

• Added distance culling for items in backpacks to improve performance

• When a player drops a backpack, it will show a closed variant of the backpack

• Added a new building in front of the lab on Reyn

• Added improved ambient sound effects to Reyn including new thunder sounds

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added the ELITE NYX character and weapon skin pack which includes 4,500 GEL and 6 skins

• Fixed players being able to move in unintended ways using external software — this is something we temporarily disabled for testing server performance improvements, but rest assured it’s back working like it did before.

• ART_Frio - Fixed some collision at REYAB spawn

• Fixed bullet casing VFX going through firearms

• Small optimizations to Thermite on Quest

• Work on future content to be revealed soon (maybe next week)

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION PRE-ALPHA

• Added functionality to the Extraction map — it will now show active extraction points and the player and their teammates’ locations and rotation. We plan to expand this further in the future to show teammates’ name, health, and other information and possibly even the ability to mark locations on the map for your teammates to see.

• All players will now automatically be granted 100,000 EXA

• Added a match time limit for Extraction

• Improved the look of various loot items with new graphics and details

• Purchasing ammo now works more like filling up a cart, then purchasing the full cart of ammo all at once

• Adjusted the amount of ammo granted per box purchased and the price per box

• Lowered the amount of max ammo slots from 16 to 8

• Fixed various UI bugs with the gear up page

• Fixed Extraction loadouts not always spawning everything equipped

• Fixed items in backpack not being centered in their respective slots

• Fixed items being difficult to add to the backpack — previously it used the bounds of your hand to select a slot to drop an item, now it uses the bounds of the object itself in addition to various other improvements.

• Fixed items simulating physics when intersecting with other items in the backpack — this will also improve performance of the backpack in general

• Fixed the backpack being difficult to grab from your back with either hand

• Fixed other players being able to force grab items out of another player’s backpack — for now we’re letting other players physically grab items in case one person wants to share items that way, but they’ll need to get close to another player while they’re holding it for them to be able to do grab it instead of using force grab.

• Fixed being able to add armed tacticals to the backpack which caused all kinds of entertaining bugs and issues

• Fixed the Kanto not respawning in Extraction

• Fixed death UI not displaying on suicide kills

• Misc. map improvements for Reyn

GENERAL CHANGES

• Made significant improvements to fades on Quest — more improvements to come!

• Fixed cosmetic renderer showing dark characters/weapons

• Fixed Social Hub scoreboard not being visible but being clickable even when not in the Social Hub

• Fixed DJ slider in Citadel not working

• Possible fix for ORE shards falling through the map — let us know if this keeps happening and where it happened

• ART_Frio - moved REYAB spawn towards B site slightly

• ART_Frio - added grenade blockers around mid and B

• ART_Frio - moved forklift at colonist spawn to help block angle from long A to long B

• ART_Frio - moved box on B site to make it easier to defend

• ART_Frio - fixed grates near B site not making noise and letting objects drop in water

• ART_Cliffside - fixed B site marker clipping in mid on quest due to slight difference in LOD on mesh behind it

AEXLAB

EXTRACTION PRE-ALPHA

• Added about 50 new loot items and tuned prices for all items

• Added an improved backpack that uses slots for physically placing items — more improvements to come!

• Fixed purchasing a backpack and it not loading into the level

• Removed all placed backpacks from Reyn — you’ll now have to buy and bring one with you

• Added purchasable ammo — you’ll now need to buy ammo to bring it into the game

• Fixed sights not loading into the level

• Added some loot containers to Reyn — more to come soon!

• Improvements to fog on Reyn

• Improved rain placement in Reyn

• Fixed loot items scaling down when the player gets close to it

• Made improvements to the extraction match outcome screen

• Made improvements to the water on the beach

• Fixed players being able to move around with invisibility after dying or extracting

• Misc. improvements and fixes for Reyn

GENERAL CHANGES

• Added more guns, utilities, repulsion sabers, and pickaxes to the new Quarry

• Added small platforming section the the new Quarry — we have plans to continue improving this

• Added the new fog that works on PC and Standalone to ART_Frio

• Fixed a player spawn that was inside a prop on The Citadel

• Fixed multiple map exits on the new Quarry

• Work on new content to be revealed soon!

AEXLAB