Cyber Knights: Flashpoint News

Knights, we're just 4 weeks away from our full launch: Monday, June 2nd, at 9am Eastern Standard Time.

Each week we'll be counting down and sharing some special info to help everyone get ready for launch. This week: a bit about us and ways to stay tuned for future projects.


[h2]So who are we?[/h2]
My brother and I, Cory and Andrew Trese, have been making video games since 2011. We started in the early days of Google Play and transitioned to Steam-first in 2015, always dedicated to making deep, highly-replayable RPGs & strategy games.

Some great interviewers have gotten us talking more about how Trese Brothers Games has grown over the years; a couple of recent ones we recommend are this extensive written interview on Tom's Gaming Vault, and a fun video interview with strategy game streamer Sprigleaf.

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It's challenging to be an indie studio without any outside investors but we've done it by prioritizing players, carefully scoping based on player feedback and what we know we can deliver on, and staying directly connected to our community through Steam forums and Discord.

[h2]Don't Miss What's Next![/h2]
Every successful launch (this is our 5th game on Steam) helps us grow and build better games. So even as Cyber Knights will continue to be our near-sole focus for quite a while after full launch, if you like our approach and want to make sure you don't miss future projects from us, we want to invite you to join our community.


Joining our Discord connects you directly with us and an awesome community of 7,000+ other players as well. Following our developer account here on Steam is a great way to stay in the loop through Steam's own notifications. And we have accounts on most major social networks, particularly Bluesky and YouTube.

But we all know how platforms can change at any time, often to the disadvantage of independent creators like us, so I'd particularly encourage you to please sign up for our Just-the-Big-News mailing list.

We have sent only four emails to this list in the past 5 years! It's an easy, no-distractions way to make sure you don't miss out on our next game! Hop on to get a notification when the time comes.

[h2]4 weeks to go![/h2]
We'll see you next week with some info on what kind of post-launch content you can expect from us for Cyber Knights.

Knights and mercs, another early May update is touching down. This one has a big focus on polish for the Safehouse Timeline, perhaps the most core component of the strategy experience in the Safehouse. We've rebuilt its underpinnings, smoothed its animation and fixed all reported (over 200 F10s) issues with it in a big update. We've also further polished the headshots and their zoom, fixed a ton of minor map issues and a missing terminal, and continued to polish the Face Talents and balance.

We're hard at work making the game the best it can be and are not willing to let any stone go unpolished. If you are enjoying the game and relentless updates, please take a minute to leave a review ːsteamhappyː

[h2]Timeline Smoothing[/h2]

Update #242 is dedicated to a set of issues that have caused a huge number of F10s over the last year. Sometimes the safehouse Timeline was just a little ... odd. You might see an event suddenly jump back 6 hours, sometimes a mission would fail to give its "about to end" warning if there were a pile of events nearly finished, and most annoyingly, if you got a pile of events ending at 0h, it could be hard to be sure the order they would resolve in.

This is a "guts" rewrite, so there is no actual change in good behavior, just a ton of smoothness and niceness in how the timeline operates. Here are some other examples:

• If you add 2 characters to a Simstream at the same time, they will both finish at the same time.
  
• No Injury or Wound event will hang at 0 hours and refuse to complete.
  
• When a pile of events end up at 0 hours, they will complete in the most player-friendly order with Injury, Wounds, Simstream, Cybernetic Recover all finishing before Missions.
  
• Removed the chance that you can click "Play" on the timeline and be interrupted multiple time by pop up (story started, limit break happened ...). Now, at max you'll get a single interrupt before it gets to the next Turn.
  
• There are a lot of other little, specific behavior changes. But in every case, we aimed for consistency and player-friendly behavior.
  

[h2]Further Headshot Work[/h2]

Thanks for all the feedback about the headshot update! We've further improved the lighting, shadow and post-processing used for taking the headshots to make them even nicer in all conditions. You can now just open the Appearance tab and select each character in turn on the Roster and their headshot will update to the latest. It takes about 1 second, so don't go too fast :D

We've also fixed some "over zoom" on the faces in places like the Timeline. It is much nicer to see a slightly wider shot of the Contact or Merc there.

We're excited to keep improving, so keep pushing us!

[h2]Map and Prop Fixes[/h2]

We've executed a number of fixes on map issues today as well as improving a number of props that were used throughout the game and missing certain metadata about how they should work.

There was a certain type of corporate desk where the middle of the desk was ethereal - you could fall or walk right through it. There were a number of rebar-and-concrete ruined walls, columns and arches that all had minor issues with their colliders, meaning that they didn't do a good job accurately blocking lines of fire or providing good cover.

We also fixed a bug that could lead to a missing terminal in the Decommissioned Core mission map on a number of different objective types.

[h2]Continued Face Class Cleanup[/h2]

With a huge release like Face, there is always a lot of cleanup todo. We've added their Talent listing to the safehouse help section, fixed a ton of typos in the new Leverages and further improved the text of their Talents and upgrades so that it can read more naturally.

Also, we discovered that some of the upgrades to their Field Coordination Talent did not cost any Level Points. If you happened to buy those, you may suddenly find yourself at a negative Level Point.

There is, of course, more to be done! We're working on fixing Face Limit Breaks and class node icons and then we'll get into fixing their Backstory and Traits to be exciting as the rest of their class.

[h2] v1.10.43 - Update #242: Tight Timeline - 5/2/2025[/h2]
- Rebuilt flow, pop-ups and event handling in timeline - all shifting, jumping, out of order, hung event bugs fixes
- Fixed issues with missing terminal in "Decommissioned Core" on some heists (F10)
- Fixed issue with some Field Coordination nodes not costing any Level Points to purchase
- Fixed issue with some ruined concrete and rebar props not having accurate sight line blocking
- Fixed issue with some corporate desks not stopping movement or colliding with dead bodies
- Fixed issue with victory reward text rendering
- Fixed issues with some hack only missions generating achievements incorrectly
- Added Face Talents bar to screen help system, tooltips
- Fixes issue with "Terminator Mesh" having 3 Armor Points
- Fixed flickering in hologram on cybernetics screen that was too much
- Fixes typos in safehouse token offers, Face focus offer upgrades

Knights and mercs, tonight's update has some major upgrades for controller and Steamdeck support as well as a full refresh of the character headshot component in the game. We've also fixed tons of issues reported with maps, typos and dialog misattributions and resolved mission generation issues where primary objective files could end up behind a Gold Key door on a terminal or lootbox.

If you're enjoying the relentless pace of updates and improvements to the game, please take a moment to leave a review. Now -let's dig in!

[h2]Upgraded Headshots[/h2]

We've completed another round of visual updates for the headshots used in the game for all characters and contacts. This round has improved the rendering by zooming in a bit more, improving the centering of the shot, improving the pixel clarity, adding a better anti-aliasing solution to the saved image and also using the same post-processing stack that the rest of the game uses so that you get richer colors with more contrast and shadow. Also, this has removed the "flip" that was baked into every headshot where the final resulting 2D was horizontally flipped before being rotated (why, no one remembers or will admit to remembering ːsteamhappyː lol)


This update is automatic for all Contacts and for all new games but for your existing games and save slots, we cannot automatically go through and regenerate all the headshots. The fastest way to do this is to head to your Roster > Appearance and mouse over a few items without changing anything. This will update the headshot. Then pick the next merc and repeat. Apologies for this one!

This is an area (appearance in general) where the work doesn't really ever stop. We're just going to keep grinding to improve as much as we can.

[h2]Steamdeck / Controller Improvements[/h2]

Update #241 has a lot of nice improvements for controller and especially Steamdeck players. Let's just go through the list!

• The center cursor on the main mission map should no longer disappear (usually caused by accidentally touching the trackpad)
  
• When using Steamdeck or controller, the "invisible copy of the mouse" that might cause grids and tables to operate oddly, refuse to scroll or show double selection is now completely cleaned up.
  
• Removed all tab sets from standard D-pad navigation, so you don't accidentally nav in there. Use the LB / RB to move quickly between tabs, as shown in hotkey helpers.
  
• For anyone swapping between mouse, keyboard and controller, this is much cleaner now, requiring a keypress, button press or mouse click to force the mode swap for input. This also helps anyone who was struggling with a high sensitivity mouse that could just kind of kick the game back into mouse mode all the time.
  

This is a big set of internal changes to the input handling guts of the game so if you have any issues or we accidentally broke your input setup while fixing so many others, please let us know and we will jump all over it.

[h2]Files in Gold Key Terminals[/h2]

In some of the mission maps where a Terminal can appear behind a Gold Key Door, it was possible that some of the primary objective Files could therefore be hosted on that terminal. We've updated the metadata and the intelligence in the proc-gen builder so that it will avoid this scenario for all missions that involve hacking files off hosts. Objective Files will no longer appear behind Gold Keys in Terminals (and haven't appeared in Lootboxes in Gold Key areas for a while).

[h2]New Camera Control Option[/h2]

With Update #241 we moved the Camera Controls section of Options from the Gameplay tab to the Controls tab, where it makes more sense to live. We also added a new option that allows you to flip the rotation direction for all rotation inputs - from controller sticks or Q/E keyboard - in case the other direction feels more natural to you.

[h2] v1.10.41 - #241: Headshot Controller - 4/30/2025[/h2]
- Improved all headshots for all characters and contacts - update your headshots by opening appearance tab for each character
- Fixed issues with some appearance options (beards, glasses, hats) suddenly not fitting right
- Fixed issues with Heist File generation that could result in main objective Files being locked behind Gold Key Doors
- Improved navigation for controller D-pads by removing all tabs from navigation (use LB / RB to page through tab sets)
- Improved navigation for controller in grids and tables, the "invisible mouse" no longer causes odd second selection
- Improved controller cursor on main map, will no longer disappear if trackpad is brushed
- Improved game's handling of changing between controller and keyboard/mouse, touching mouse no longer swaps
- Added new option to swap direction of camera rotation for all inputs (keyboard, controller)
- Moved Camera Controls from Gameplay to Controls tab in Options

Knights and mercs, with the Face landing last week the strategic dust has settled a little and it is time to get back into the major update grind on the way to release. We dropped 5 separate small patches and hotfixes over the weekend for the Face, if you want to see those details you can check out the previous update notes. For Update #240, we've extended the Field Ops and Hacking Station room maximums, smoothed out Token generation numbers, added Team Power Level display to mission success screen, fixed issues with the Loot Box Injection Leverages, made the Initiative timeline and popping up status screens controller friendly, added hovers for Face Talents in the safehouse, improved ragdolls ... whew, hold one, I need a break ... fixed rules with Blend not ending for Grenades and ... never mind, forget it - we did stuff! Thanks for all the F10s, this one fixes an absolute mountain of them.

If you are enjoying the game and its direction as we race to the end of Early Access, our small team of 3 game developers would love you to leave a review. Thank you!

[h2]Field Ops and Hacking Station Upgrades[/h2]
Three new levels of both the Field Ops and Hacking Station rooms have been added in this release.

[h2]Loot Injection Leverages[/h2]
With Update #240, we've completed a sweep to ensure that Loot Injection Leverage offers should not be made if there are no lootboxes to buff up. This is a big help to reduce confusion or misses with your Leverage. Second, we've fixed a number of issues with the loot injection routine that could give the offer when the mission Power Level is too low to really inject anything of value. Generally, #240 should reduce cases where you pay your Token for Loot Injection and don't feel like you got something out of it.

[h2]Controllers for Initiative Timeline[/h2]

You can now use the D-pad on your controller (or arrow keys) to navigate up into the Initiative Timeline in the main mission map. Hit (X) to jump your selection to the HUD and hit up twice to reach the Initiative timeline. From here, you can use (A) once to focus the camera on a character or enemy and hit (A) a second time to pop up a character or enemy status window.

This also cleans up the clicking routine on the Timeline faces for mouse players as well, making it far more reliable that you will click once to center and click a second time to get a pop up, no further questions asked.

We also improved status page for enemy infantry drones (Po-Bot from the FSC and S-Class Brakka from Brave Star) to be clearer that they are Drones. We'll be continuing to work on making this more obvious as we roll out new types of drones in the coming weeks.

[h2]Team Power Level Gains[/h2]

The increase of your Team Power Level (which is often small and fractional) is now clearly displayed in each mission you beat. Especially in the early game, late game and for proc-gen or hack only missions, these changes could be hard to track on your own, so now they are nicely displayed at all times. As your Team Power Level grows (by winning missions) the challenges you face will grow, so this is the key scaling metric.

[h2]Talent Hovers for Face in Safehouse[/h2]

We've completed the necessary work to make Talent hovers for your Face Talents work in the Safehouse. This allows you to see the Talent details and rules at a glance as well as dig into any additional charging data you might need.

[h2]More Passive & Talent Fixes[/h2]
With this update, we've further fixed issues with passive Talents like Steamroll that were not always activating on kills. These should now be 100% consistent across all attack types. Except Grenades, which do not count as killing with a weapon and do not activate "on Kill" passive Talents.

However, we did fix the rule that throwing a Grenade should drop your Blend or any other Talent that ends if you make an attack.

Finally, we fixed some issues with extracted mercs still having their passive Talents run sometimes. This was most obvious with the Vanguard's Glasswalker.

[h2]Ragdoll vs. Living Characters[/h2]
Before, it was almost guaranteed that one or both of these deadies would be stuck in midair

If you ever saw the situation where a dead enemy or character might ragdoll into another enemy or character and get "stuck" on them ... we've resolved this. Living and dead characters no longer collide. This can lead to dead bodies flopping directly through living characters but also completely removes the conflict that might leave the dead body hanging in mid-air for every because it was hung up on a live character. This also helps the enemy corpse reach a good spot on the ground, making it less visible. When the dead were hanging in the air like that, they might be unfairly easy to see!

[h2]v1.10.39 - Update #240: Chrome Rip - 4/29/2025[/h2]
- Added three new room upgrade levels for Hacking Station and Field Ops
- Smoothed and rebalanced token generation timelines for all Hacking Station and Field Ops levels
- Added display for Team Power Level change on mission success screens
- Fixes issues with Loot Box injection token offers being made when no loot boxes existed to fill
- Fixes issues with Loot Box injection token offers being made when power level of mission is too low
- Enabled controller navigation into the Initiative Timeline during mission to select faces, focus on target, open status window (double tap)
- Improved routine for opening status window (click or A twice, no more on odd camera centering rule)
- Improved status page for enemy infantry drones (Po-Bot and S-Class Brakkas) to be clearer that they are Drones
- Contacts who are in hiding have a clear red (instead of gray) message about it when buying / selling
- Added hover for Face Talents in the safehouse top right
- Added some ladders to make some spawn points more obvious in several street maps
- Fixed bug where dying ragdoll could get caught on living enemy or character
- Fixed visual hitches with enemies turning on patrol, characters turning toward lootboxes
- Fixed issue with Hacker's marked as "Under Equipped" when deck is in repair
- Fixing Steamroll and other On Kill Talents not always working for Full Auto, Grenades, Slashslide
- Fixed issue with Vanguard Blend Talent not clearing if you throw a Grenade
- Fixed issue where some extracted mercs could still have their passive Talents activate
- Fixed issue with appearance previews with Face sometimes reverting back to old outfit
- Fixed issues with connecting lines between mission stages in Safehouse Command HQ