Black Forest Games.

GUILT UPDATE (release notes 1.0.1123)

Not much intro necessary today. Because the release notes for the GUILT update mainly speak for themselves. Apart from new content, we finally introduced the mighty Feeder into the wilds, we gave you Issa the Sniper as support, opened a whole new region – The Glare – for you to explore.
And there’s more. But, before we shut up and let you read the important parts, we would like to apologize.
We did announce the missing translations for the GUILT update. Unfortunately, we weren't able to import them in time. We will deliver them in a hotfix, very soon!

The Glare and Shuttle
The new region, featuring an icy ravine leading up to a broken dam is now open for exploration. You can reach it via The Pit.

Introducing „The Feeder” – the bigger brother of the Crusher!
Vicious, slow and deadly. The Feeder has a tongue that darts out of the maw in its underbelly. On impact, it drags you back to the feeder – into the perfect position for its devastating attack.

Introducing Issa – The Sniper – new follower
Always armed and ready to hunt, Issa enjoys the thrill of the chase. She doesn’t give up until she gets what she wants. Issa only makes an enemy if she knows it will gain her a valuable friend...or lover. Issa laughs easily, but her smile rarely reaches her eyes. She is likelier to join if you have other people with you as tracks of your other followers may lead her to your camp.

Game-Over Cutscene
You lost all your precious lives? Now we show you what happens to Ash once The Inner Voice eventually claims him.

Reverse Finishers II
Dying is now more fun. Because the new finisher animations for all the monsters are now in. Go ahead. Try it. It’s fun.

Social Events & Leadership
The first batch of social events that occur in your camp and force you to make tough decisions. As your followers’ worldviews warped by the eternal winter clash, you must manage the intricate relationships for the sake of your camp. Each decision you’ll be forced to make will have an outcome and impact the overall morale of your followers. Do you dare to choose between them? Keep in mind that not doing anything is the worst you could do but if a follower decides to leave... That’s a burden on your camp, but a blessing on your resources?

Base management
The “Feast” hut upgrade has been implemented. This upgrade has a significant upfront cost and will raise the morale of your followers every hour for 24 hours, as well as keep them warm and fed for free for the duration.


New Claiming Mechanic
We have changed the way gathering areas work: Once you approach a new resource area, the game will tell you that you have discovered it. From that moment on, it will show on your map. Depending on the type, the game will also tell you the necessary tasks to claim it (such as „hitting a deer with an arrow“). Once you claimed the resource, followers can be assigned to it by using the map, the overview screen, or by using the radial menu option within the gathering area.
Your followers will continue to gather resources until an area is depleted. In these cases, they will return to camp for rest. Once rested, they will be auto-assigned a task, or you can assign them their new job.
In your map & compass, an area that is not claimed will be displayed by a yellow star under the resource type icon. Once claimed, the icon is a blue diamond. If the area has no more resources left, the icon is transparent, and the area is no longer available for gathering resources to you or your followers.
This has no adverse effect in your existing games, as areas you have already visited will now be auto-claimed.

Combat Improvements
Following your feedback, we have done the following changes and fixes to the combat mechanics and the Spitters:

• We have decreased the Stamina required to perform a dodge/roll. You can roll four times in a row now and have a smaller delay before Stamina regeneration starts.
  
• The player will now get up faster after being knocked down to avoid follow-up attacks that would hit him otherwise. In the same vein, player control over the character during the get-up animation is also given tot he player earlier.
  
• Fixed multiple issues where dodging while locked on a monster would make the player roll towards another monster.
  
• Fixed and revised the conditions such as max and min range where auto-lock could engage and disengage.
  
• Fixed the orientation of the player when auto-locked and after disengaging from an enemy.
  
• Revised monsters‘ leash distances to the way they should be such as suiciding Spitters following you longer and larger monsters breaking their leashes sooner.
  
• Spitters now have a better telegraph and shorter invulnerability period when engaging their suicide mode, making them easier to avoid. This makes the Spitter less deadly by allowing a single attack in a chain to go through before detonating them on a hit. This way, you can react more efficiently with a dodge or a counter.
  
• Spitters projectiles are no longer homing to the player characters, their hitboxes and damage rates have been rebalanced.
  
• We implemented an audio cue to warn the player that he is out of Stamina in addition to the visual effects.
  
• Revised monster placement in the world for a better balance between challenge and reward.
  
• Fixed issues where players using the mouse and keyboard would suffer from artificial lags resulting in weird camera and/or character movement making fights harder.
  
• Revised Armor benefits provided crafted armor for players and followers to make them more resilient
  
• Optimized Physics code and other optimizations
  
• We implemented new physics code in addition to other optimizations to bring up the overall game performance. Optimizations will be ongoing targeting the best possible balance between gameplay and visual quality, prioritizing gameplay.
• With the new physics code, there is less strain on the CPU for calculations, and it helps avoid most „getting stuck“ issues on the player character.
  
• We have also optimized to use the GPU resources more efficiently. Multiple areas of the visual side of the game such as lighting, models, etc. have received optimizations.

• Fixed various issues where weather conditions and game mood weren’t reset appropriately in different cases of deaths.
  
• Fixed multiple crash issues.
  
• We have fixed various bugs regarding in our UI for better usability and polish.
  
• We have updated some UI icons for better legibility.
  
• Overall quality and stability pass on game events.
  
• Many points of interests have been re-balanced in regards to location, loot, and stability.
  
• The Inner Vision feature received multiple stability fixes, such as destroying the outlines properly, a range rebalancing, color-coding review, etc.
  
• Saving checkpoints have received stability fixes.
  
• Polished and revised navigation paths for followers in event locations.
  
• Fixed many instances of invisible monsters.
  
• Fixed many cases of hero or followers clipping or falling through the world.
  
• Fixed many cases in which hero could get stuck between objects.
  
• Fixed many instances of wrong sled placement.
  
• Revised the tutorial fight difficulty by lowering exploding corruption bulb radius, damage, and the aggressiveness of the first monster.
  
• Fixed multiple instances of HUD messages displaying too fast in order.
  
• Fixed many instances in the UI where the mouse or the gamepad would lose focus.
  
• Fixed issues with the tornado physics, and other various bugs in relation tot he player dying in a tornado.
  
• Fixed many instances where calling the sled would result in erratic behavior.

• In rare cases, Rhys may glitch. If you see his corpse in your camp’s social area, resurrect him. He will display some erratic behavior, and may not correctly join your expedition when told to do so. You can work around this issue by sending him off to work manually by assigning a gathering task to him via the Overview menu. Once you dismiss him and add him in your expedition, he should behave normally.
  
• The game crashes after changing the Playback Devices settings while the game is running in the background.
  
• The character may remain stuck inside the train tracks after crashing the sled into the Crusher.
  
• Monsters from Jin's recruitment event may be missing in the Forestland Resort but does not prevent the event from being completed.
  
• In rare cases where the character may fall in front of the sled, the character can be placed outside of the playable area when crashing the sled against the tunnel walls in rare cases.
  
• A crash occurs on a new game after reaching the Game Over screen while overview tab is open
  
• The player character is misaligned during the (blue) Ice Crusher finisher.
  
• In particular hardware configurations, having too many buildings may cause an FPS drop.
  
• In rare cases, the game may crash after the Wolf recruitment scene in the Flats outpost.
  
• In rare cases, a lens flare may remain after the hero dies during totem cleansing.
  
• If the player hard quits the game via ALT-F4 in between dialogs during events, last visible event state will not be saved. Always see the saving icon before quitting.
  
• The game crashes in RX 480 OC video card machines, especially using older drivers. After updating the drivers, the crash is 10% likely to happen.