Alien Dawn News

[p]​Hey, so I know it's been over a year since I last posted here and that sucks. [/p][p][/p][p]The gist of what has been going on is that in order for this game to work in any capacity I needed to advance my understanding of the Unreal Engine and game design.[/p][p][/p][p]I've worked pretty much non-stop on both of those things since the last update in 2024, and I hope you see this latest update as evidence of that.[/p][p][/p][p]I've already had a handful of completely new people I've never met try it, and while their reaction isn't 10 out of 10, I can tell you it's very different from what I used to get with other builds of the game.[/p][p][/p][p]On that note, I've always enjoyed the community aspect of making this game. Besides loving making the game in itself, my interactions with the players of this game are something I've genuinely missed.[/p][p][/p][p]If you're interested in helping play test the latest update, please reach out to me on Discord and I'll send over the passcode for it. Otherwise please keep in touch either through here on Steam or through my social accounts (links are on the store page).[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p]

I tested this myself with a Quest 3 using Air Link and it worked great! (Previously I was developing on a Rift S and Vive Pro)

Very smooth experience on medium settings on my i9 9900 & 2080ti.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]➕New NPC Behaviors➕[/h2]

• Alien now appears from the air in Alien Drop Pod
  
• Alien has projectile fireball attack with VFX
  
• Alien has teleportation defence with VFX
  
• Alien has shield defence ability with VFX
  
  
• Soldiers now have voices and talk
  
• Soldiers communicate with each other
  
• Soldiers alert each other of nearby enemies
  
• Soldiers throw grenades
  
• Soldiers take cover
  
• Soldier can crouch
  
• Soldiers have improved rifle animations
  
  
• Wolves eyes glow bright red
  
• Wolves have new fur material
  
• Wolves have new sound fx
  
  
• Zombies have new melee attack animations and behaviors
  
• Zombies have new sound fx
  

[h2]📈Other New Features📈[/h2]

• Nvidia DLSS now works in VR!
  
• New map locations
  
• New damage materials for crashed helicopter
  
• New music tracks
  
• New sound fx
  
• "No Ammo" indicator when gripping ammo from backpack
  
• AutoStore hint icon appears over items on the ground
  

[h2]🔧Fixes🔧[/h2]

• Fixed multiplayer client removing mags from inventory when grabbed from behind back
  

If you're here from the Steam Summer Sale, I'm the developer of Alien Dawn and I'm currently beta testing a new version of the game.

If you're interested in the game and would like to play this new version, switch to "update-22-preview" in the Steam Betas tab.



Things I'm currently working on:

• New NPC A.I. & Behaviors
  
• New NPC Audio
  
• New NPC Animations
  
• New Sound FX
  
• New Music
  
• Updated & Improved Graphics
  
• Difficulty Modes and Balance
  

If you have any questions or feedback, please reach out to me here or on Discord, thanks!

Xtian

If the last update was about porting the game to Unreal 5, this one is about refining the core experience.

That means improved performance, better motion controls, and a more fluid gameplay loop.
​
Big thank you to everyone on Discord that helped me play-test this version and gave me their valuable feedback (theloneranger, livid, valor_fall, Thayden, WavformVR, ThaAnimalOne, droneattack, Samuri, bootleg, chaunteuse, Nick, and TROJENxxMCDANK).

• Big performance improvements (especially in later game segments with many NPC enemies)
  
• New vehicle motion controls
  
• New reload mechanic
  
• New map locations
  
• Added more realistic red dot, holographic, and reflex optics
  
• Added many interactive physics objects
  
• Added visual notifications for full inventory slots
  
• Improved gripping and locomotion
  
• Revised Item Wheel
  

As always, I love to hear from people playing the game, so please reach out if you want to talk about your thoughts about it.

I hope everyone enjoys the improvements in this new update!

Xtian

Hey yall, Xtian here.

I'm close to releasing the next version of Alien Dawn (1.21), which is the first update since releasing the Unreal Engine 5 version, and a lot more has been smoothed out since then.

This update is primarily focused on quality-of-life game play & performance improvements.

The biggest hurdle I've overcome in this update are the multiple solutions I had to find that ensure smooth gameplay throughout each playthrough, in particular on harder difficulties with hundreds of NPCs in the world. I plan to do an in-depth video going over this journey, but for now I want to get this update released.

I've never seen the game play better, but I want to get some more feedback before I release this update.

If you have some time to do this, I would love to hear from you and have your help, just DM on Discord.

X