The Anacrusis News

Thanks to everyone for the feedback during the free weekend and through our first year of release. Almost every change in this update is the direct result of suggestions, feedback, and bug reports from players. Your notes help us make the game better!

Our next big update will include the next iteration of our weapons system. We've collected a bunch of good feedback from players on the random drop system that's in the game now and are excited to show you what we've come up with.

This week's weekly challenge is Movin' On Up! Make the climb to the top of The Mall and Med Bay amid wave after wave of brutes. Expect more loot, more brutes, more fire, and a ton more fun! Complete the challenge and you'll earn the "Movin' On Up" title!

• We’ve added a new system to control Weekly Challenges. We can now create new challenges out of the existing components without having to update the entire game. We got a lot of great ideas for new challenges from the Discord in the past, so if you have ideas for new challenges (or new pieces to combine), please post them in the #suggestions channel of the Discord
• We’ve removed the “Low Ammo” weapon variants from the weapon mod system. The universal feedback on them was that they weren’t fun. This means you should no longer see weapons that have super-high rates of fire and really tiny magazine sizes. We may have missed some, so if you encounter any, please grab a screenshot of your in-game menu and post them in the Discord or Steam forum so we can remove them from the game
  
• Airlock Door Change - Airlock doors now open from the top. Players should be able to crouch under them at the last second if the situation calls for it
  
• Fixed a handful of instances of cosmetic environmental fire that didn’t do damage to players/aliens. Now all fire should cause damage as you’d expect
  
• We’ve made some adjustments to the Flasher effect in an effort to reduce frame rate drops when he appears. We’d love your feedback on the updated effect, since the appearance effect varies wildly based on your hardware and Windows settings. Please let us know what you think of this change in the Discord
  
• Matchmaking improvement: If you choose to leave a game session, the matchmaker will avoid putting you back in that same session if you immediately re-queue. If you’re disconnected unexpectedly, you’ll still be re-queued into the same game (assuming it’s still the top-ranked game when you hit the button)
  
• Mod Support: We’ve added support for custom animations to our mod kit. Modders, update your editor to get the latest version and then you’ll be ready to start making emotes and dances!
  
• We’ve removed Array Containment from the main game, so Henning373 can get back to work and make changes based on the feedback from players. It’s still available in the Steam Workshop if you missed it!
  

[h3]Bugs[/h3]

• Fixed an issue with the first door event in Episode 4, which sometimes caused an endless horde to spawn. The intensity tuning for that event is more appropriate for its place in the episode now
  
• Rebaked lighting in the Episode 1 Mall level to fix some issues that popped up in the last update
  
• When a player who has selected a non-default skin leaves the game, their character will now revert to the default skin when they leave the game. This works for both built in skins and mod skins
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented Season Pass progress from updating in-game for the host of the session
  
• We’ve fixed a bug with the This Is Fine title application. If you finished the Weekly Challenge last week but haven’t gotten the title, you should have it now. Let us know if you have any issues with this, but if you missed it, don’t worry, we’ll bring it back soon
  
• We’ve fixed several SMB variants that were previously unable to break glass
  

For our last update of our first year since release, we have something special in store for you. For a limited time, Henning373's new campaign, Array Containment, is temporarily baked into the game for all players, Steam and Xbox. You don't need to access is using the Workshop (although you should, because there are some amazing mods in there already). We're hoping to get a ton of feedback fro Henning373 between now and the next patch release, so head over to the Stray Bombay Discord and hit the #mod-feedback channel to leave a comment!

We've also added a new Weekly Challenge, which should be live by the time you read this. It's This Is Fine, which gives an eponymous title to anyone who successfully completes it. The challenge is straightforward--there are a lot of matter compilers, but they're all broken and summon hordes when you trigger them, there are a lot more flaming goopers, and all the airlock doors are broken. Enjoy!

We took advantage of the second patch this week to add a couple more matchmaking adjustments and some other small perf fixes.

As we close on our first year since our Early Access release, we're really grateful to everyone in the community who has played the game, given us feedback or suggestions, left reviews, or played games with us on the Discord. We're really excited about where the game is today and can't wait to keep pushing it forward. Thanks everyone!

We're rolling out Update 27 today based on feedback from players during the Free Weekend. These changes should have a major impact on the network performance of the game, especially for players who experienced network performance issues during the Free Weekend.

[h3]Netcode Improvements[/h3]
We've made some significant changes to the netcode that should improve network performance in almost all situations. Please try the game out and let us know how the changes are impacting you, either in the Steam forums or on the Stray Bombay Discord.

[h3]Matchmaking Improvements[/h3]
We've also added a host rating system to the matchmaking algorithm. Now, when you hit a matchmaking queue, the game will try to place you in games with the most powerful host computer, which should improve performance. We have more matchmaking fixes coming in future updates, including region-based and ping-based enhancements, but we're hopeful this will result in more people having better games. If you still have trouble finding a good game, you can always go to the Play tab, select the mode you want to play, and press Create Game instead of Find Game. As long as you choose the Public option, players will be able to match into you.

[h3]Fixed the Stuck On Orange Window/Game Takes 20-Minute To Launch Bug[/h3]
Fixed a bug with the Oculus app and other OpenXR clients that caused the game to take a really really really long time to launch. Thank you to everyone in the community who helped us troubleshoot this one this weekend. It's a really weird bug.

[h3]Changes to Enemies in Close Proximity to Players[/h3]
Improved weapon behavior when fighting enemies in close proximity to the player. You should always be able to shoot enemies who are standing extremely close to the player now. This is especially noticeable with weapons with long barrels, like the Minigun.

[h3]New Weekly Challenge - This is Fine[/h3]
We've added our 11th new Weekly Challenge mode (access the Challenge in the Play menu). This Is Fine puts you in an failing Isolode, lousy with flaming Goopers, where every airlock door is broken and takes forever to open. The good news is that players get a TON of special weapons and Matter Compilers, but the Matter Compilers are also broken, and triggering them summons a horde. This will go live on Thursday at noon PST.

[h3]Texture Fixes[/h3]
We've optimized a ton of textures, which will reduce memory churn on low memory GPUs. This is an ongoing process, but people with 4GB GPUs should notice less stuttering in some circumstances.

[h2]We're on Sale! [/h2]
The Anacrusis is still on sale for 67% off! Grab it now for the lowest price you'll see all year!

The Steam Free Weekend was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who played the game, whether you were a new or old player, we appreciate you! This episode, we talk a little bit about what we learned, the next update for The Anacrusis (coming later this week) and our strategy for tackling player feedback.

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The Anacrusis is still on sale on Steam for 67% off! Click the box on the right to go to the page where you can get that good good deal!

Join the Stray Bombay Discord and help us test The Anacrusis: https://discord.gg/straybombay • We're recruiting our first wave of modders at https://forms.gle/6Dh5yww5PVf3YJbf9.

From now until Monday morning at 10AM PST, you can try out The Anacrusis for free! it's the entire game, with 4 episodes, 3 holdout mode maps, the free Infinity Pass, a bazillion guns, special enemies, and more for the low-low price of Zero dollars. We just rolled out Steam Workshop support, so grab a few friends and hit the Workshop before you jump in the game. We recommend grabbing Array Containment by Henning373 and Infest by firebirdjr, as well as a character skin, gun charm, or hat before you jump in the game.

And if you enjoy The Anacrusis, it's on sale for 67% off! That's under $10 in US dollars!

Once you've played, please leave us feedback, either in our Discord or in the Steam forums. We've done 26 updates since we launched almost a year ago, and have integrated countless features based on feedback and ideas from players.