Poached : Hunt The Hunter News

[h2]Main Features:[/h2]

• Overhauled A.I.
  
• New physics-based enemy death animations.
  
• Active ragdolls.
  
• New enemy behaviors.
  
• Improved gameplay.
  
• Further graphical & audio improvements.
  
• Fixes & Optimizations.
  

The full change notes are below:


[h2]Enemies[/h2]

• New complex enemy death animations.
  
• New advanced enemy ragdolls that combine animation with active physics for more realistic death animations possible.
  
• Some enemies will now run and slide into cover.
  
• Some enemies will now choose to stay in cover, with new cover finding improvements and can now fire from cover, instead of only using cover to hide
  
• Enemies will now sometimes attempt to deploy strafing as a technique while firing and moving from one spot to another.
  
• Enemies will now also sometimes attempt to move backwards while shooting, moving towards potential cover.
  
• Enemies are delegated, so some will be denoted as tactical and others will be in "panic" mode where they engage without thought, based on game scenario.
  
• A.I. now has variable crouch heights powered by inverse kinematics.
  
• A.I. can now decide to stay crouched while shooting if they feel you too threatened by you blowing their cover, or the cover is low enough to fire from without standing, instead of only being able to stand up to shoot as in previous builds.
  
• Improved various other small enemy animations.
  
• Enemies can crouch lower now, and even run lower if needed.
  
• Fixed enemy aiming interpolation issues.
  
• Crouched enemies no longer shoot up in the air when killed.
  
• Further enemy crouch animation improvements.
  
• Each sniper shot now exponentially increases enemy awareness instead of a true/false comparison.
  
• Further general cover finding improvements.
  
• Improved enemy idle animation.
  
• Enemies are generally now more lively, even the non-tactical types.
  

[h2]Graphics:[/h2]

• Made vehicle lights for driving at night brighter.
  
• Amount of blood made slightly more realistic.
  
• Improved blood shaders and fixed new issues with occasional blue blood caused by linear color space.
  
• Large permanent blood stain decal pools now fade in instead of appearing instantly.
  
• "Sharp" is now the default anti-aliasing setting. Feel free to change back to "Soft" or "Overkill" if things are jagged on your screen, but for most purposed sharp should work perfectly. (I also wouldn't recommend using overkill unless you really need it as it uses a double antialiasing pass which might be unnecessary.)
  
• Improved vehicle "on fire" particles.
  
• Removed some ridiculously out of proportion grass meshes.
  
• Improved some more materials to go with the new V0.8.8+ Linear Color-Space
  
• Removed some more unrealistic tree placements on slopes.
  

[h2]Gameplay:[/h2]

• All characters now have double the sprint stamina than before, and the hiking boots powerup will still increase this even more.
  
• Audio mix and level improvements.
  
• Improved physics calculations.
  
• Game balancing.
  
• Chapter 2 is now a lot more chilled.
  
• Poachers attempting to rescue will now do so with more gusto.
  
• Increased leader (Mission 4) defeat/hands up radius for more realism.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a rare bug that would sometimes cause random objects such as rocks and trees to bleed when shot.
  
• Fixed some visual issues with buffalo dust clouds.
  
• Fixed an issue that could leave you stuck in the garage.
  
• Fixed issue with downward physics applied to ragdolls from the player sometimes causing ragdolls to shoot into the air.
  

[h2]Optimizations:[/h2]

• Optimized blood delivery system
  
• Third person avatars now only stream into memory when they are needed, and only relevant to the character the player has chosen.
  
• Decreased the amount of simulation processing taken by birds flying in the sky when they are not visible by the player.
  
• Improved animation culling for groups of flies that sometimes appear near fallen enemies.
  
• Please Note : There has been a lot of complicated systems introduced in this update, so there might be some slight performance optimization regressions on lower devices, but if that's the case let me know and I'll be looking into it.
  

This update serves as a foundational update for 2025, with roughly 100 crucial changes paving the way for many new features and mechanics going forward by making sure the game is presented in the best possible way utilizing best graphics practices.

The primary focus of this update is to enhance the game's graphics to be more modern by utilizing the latest technology. This includes transitioning the game from a gamma space project to a linear space project with High Dynamic Range (HDR) rendering and finely tuned Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) tone-mapping and light authoring. These changes aim to produce a more realistic and vibrant interpretation of screen space color and ambient lighting.

Additionally, special attention has been given to significantly improve the game's graphics while simultaneously allowing room for continuous enhancements throughout the year.

The update also features a rework of weapon audio to enhance the "remastered" feel of the game, alongside numerous other quality of life improvements and fixes.

Lastly, both SteamDeck and PC/controller players will benefit from the updated info-popups, which no longer pause gameplay, allowing players to remain fully engaged in the action.

[h2]Main Features:[/h2]

• Overhauled graphics & textures.
  
• Remastered weapon audio system from the ground up as well as player footsteps and other ambient audio SFX.
  
• Advanced terrain shading.
  
• Gameplay improvements.
  
• Quality of life improvements.
  
• A.I. Improvements.
  
• Enhanced immersion & quality.
  
• More logical/streamlined graphics menu.
  
• A Reworked introduction scene.
  
• Numerous bug fixed and optimizations.
  

The full change notes are below:

[h2]Graphics:[/h2]

• Improved color space from gamma to linear.
  
• Improved textures.
  
• Improved weapon materials.
  
• Improved post processing.
  
• Improved color balance.
  
• Vastly improved terrain shaders.
  
• More realistic terrain texturing, featuring more texture variety than before.
  
• Improved grass rendering softness.
  
• Realistic near-depth of field for weapon zoom/ads.
  
• FPS Weapons now also receive post processing.
  
• Reworked all interior lighting.
  
• Improved physical appearance of dust clouds caused by stampeding buffalo.
  
• Improved NPC eye shaders.
  
• Improved quality of moon seen at night.
  
• Entirely new rock materials and shader setup for increased realism.
  
• Improved animal appearance and material.
  
• Improved sunset/sunrise quality and interpolation.
  
• Made blood darker and more realistic.
  
• Improved quality of weapon muzzle flash.
  
• Improved quality of distant horizon mountain backdrops.
  
• New improved realistic convex scope glass for main weapon.
  
• Improved some of the metal building construction/shanty's.
  
• Shadows are now more defined and of a higher quality.
  
• Improved quality of reflections.
  
• Improved skin shader for first person weapon arms.
  
• Improved glass shaders for vehicles and other items such as lanterns etc.
  
• Improved appearance of grass dryness.
  
• Improved tree and foliage appearance.
  
• Improved sunshaft rendering.
  
• Loading screens are back to the minimal black and white text from Poached V0.01 to offer a stark contrast between the new HD graphics.
  
• Improved scope overlay realism.
  
• Improved waterfall water-mesh material rendering quality.
  
• General material improvements, as well as removing lighting errors where surfaces appear too bright to produce a color apart from white.
  
• Improved Obstacle Course commander (General Van Jaarsveld) skin shader with new ambient lighting model that looks good from all lighting angles with basic subsurface scattering for skin simulation..
  
• Improved distant horizon transition-fog appearance.
  

[h2]Audio:[/h2]

• New weapons foley FX.
  
• New gunshot audio, and more uniquely distinct sounds between rifles.
  
• New Sound FX and nature ambience.
  
• Improved player footstep audio.
  
• Rifle weapons use an array of fire sounds different sounds for the "tail" of the shot versus the shot itself, thus to create a realistic sense of reverberation from the shots.
  
• New intro scene monologue.
  
• New voiceover for introduction scene.
  
• New underground ambience for caves.
  

[h2]Gameplay:[/h2]

• Info popups no longer pause the game.
  
• Game balancing.
  
• Weapon wheel now shows mouse cursor when using PC/Mouse and is also more accurate.
  
• Improved some zone bounds for more seamless world streaming.
  
• Saving your game is now not possible during direct combat although available if enemies are nearby prior to battle. This is to prevent players from accidentally spoiling their save slots by quicksaving while 8 guys are about to blow your face off. The plan is to add infinite saves in a future update, but this will work for now.
  
• Introduction scene now also allows dialogue skipping via holding space for 3 seconds. Featuring the new VCR-Style FFWD effect.
  
• Daytime is now longer.
  
• Item pickup highlighting is now much more noticeable than before, assisting in spotting useful pickups in the heat of battle or when exploring camp.
  
• The radio switch is now interruptible if the player selects a weapon before the game selects the radio on level start.
  

[h2]A.I.[/h2]

• Made enemies slightly more decisive.
  
• Improved enemy crouching/take cover animation.
  
• Decreased the amount of times enemies will "blind engage" an area they think you are in when you've escaped from that area without them noticing.
  
• Improved enemy hearing, specifically in terms of being able to hear each other pass on alerts.
  
• Improved enemy general behavior, as well as new routines to help attempt to prevent enemies from attacking too close in large groups and will try harder to spread themselves out.
  
• Fixed unrealistic delay between enemies exiting a crouching a crouch state and opening fire, as they will now aim their weapons as they stand up and immediately open fire as they stand up.
  
• Enemy hearing can now react differently to louder volume weapons such as the sniper rifle.
  

[h2]Wildlife[/h2]

• Buffalo might decide to charge you. This will result in instant death so please don't get too close to the buffalo, they are officially known as the most vengeful animal in all of Africa so they might also attack you if you decide to kill another or fire your weapon near the heard. (Which you should not do)
  
• Fixed an issue with Buffalo/Warthogs sometimes getting stuck on trees while running away from gunshots as well as sometimes disappearing in front of the player.
  
• Some animals can now lie down to sleep.
  
• Game now auto-saves when you enter a buffalo zone. [See first point]
  

[h2]Improvements & Additions:[/h2]

• Added a small amount of extra detail to some of the asynchronous world streaming zones.
  
• Main menu now fades in naturally instead of zooming down.
  
• Improved goat ragdoll falling animation by adding forced horizontal velocity as often the ragdoll ended up with it's bum in the air and then baked.
  
• Blood puddle stains are now more moderately sized for increased realism.
  
• Death screens and end-level stat/score screens are now plain static black and white (instead of a film "cutting" background" to reduce flashing lights and potentially headache inducing flickering over long play periods.
  
• Various close-distance "texture detail" tiling normal map improvements.
  
• Improved Braai/Barbeque texture quality vastly.
  
• Improved Braai/Barbeque burning charcoal geometry.
  
• Improved character selection character materials.
  
• Added some small additional details to some exploration zones, as well as adding some gravel paths/dirt roads.
  
• Improved shebeen/bar interior.
  
• Improved warehouse interior.
  
• Improved caravan interior.
  
• Improved scratch detail on metal surfaces.
  
• Refined some of the hand gesture animations for NPC's.
  
• Improved character selection screen hair shaders for character #4.
  
• New high definition normal maps for buffalo and warthogs.
  
• Improvements to asynchronous world streaming algorithm.
  
• Improved and simplified anti-aliasing options.
  
• Throwback introduction scene with improved visuals.
  
• Removed redundant options from graphics menu and made layout slightly more logical.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Bug Fixes.
  
• Fixed issue with certain enemy entities being loaded in a few second after loading a save game that was saved during a battle.
  
• Fixed issue with cursor appearing in loading screens if the sleep action causes a new scene to load.
  
• Fixed bug that made it possible to scare away animals by pressing the fire while your weapon was reloaded, now ensuring animals only react to actual gunshots.
  
• Fixed issue causing radio station to sometimes lose it's timestamp progress when exiting the shebeen.
  
• Fixed weapon wheel binding display not loading correctly and other small U.I. bugs.
  
• Fixed bug causing some UI elements to crop weirdly after re-enabling the game hud from a game loaded in "hud disabled" state via the options menu.
  

[h2]Optimizations:[/h2]

• Performance optimizations.
  
• Removed all remaining left over third party post processing solutions in favor of a fully built in approach.
  
• Cleaned up enemy tracer spawning system to prevent error visuals and use less memory during intense gunfights.
  
• Optimized trees to use a single shared material and texture for all 17 tree types.
  
• Enemy animation optimizations.
  
• Integrated the warehouse portion of the map into the game's asynchronous world streaming system.
  
• Improved wildlife animation culling.
  
• More FPS weapon textures are now only streamed into memory from disk if the player has the weapon, as before but now covering all weapons.
  

And as always, in addition to the comprehensive list above - many other small tweaks, secrets and polishes have been made, too numerous to mention.

Note: Due to major internal configuration changes at this time all post processing effects [except for motion blur & screen-space reflections] will be enabled on default for new & current installations, but please feel free to disable them in the advanced graphics option settings. (Sun shafts are also disabled by default due to their experimental nature.)

I'm proud to announce this small update, the first for 2025! Amongst a few crucial fixes, I have been working hard on NPC animation and interaction to bring the game world more to life. I've done a few experiments before, and now with this update we are bringing a character to life.

'General Van Jaarsveld' who is heard providing mission briefings throughout the game, particularly in the early/first missions has now been brought to life as a living breathing NPC standing in front of you.
Featuring procedural blinking, synchronized facial expressions, inverse kinematics/looking and dialogue hand gestures coupled with movement and A.I.

He will react to you differently depending on how you behave, and features a comprehensive voice acting performance by the Voice Actor recorded at Asylum Studios over these holidays, which I am very excited to share with you!

This appearance comes with a brand new obstacle course led by Jaarsveld himself, which you can now access by selecting the "Tutorial" option from the main menu. The original tutorial is still available, but the first part now consists of the obstacle course. Any of the 3 tutorial segments can be exited at any time.

[h2]Main Features:[/h2]

• A new character brought to life as well as new voice acting.
  
• A new obstacle course level.
  
• New NPC hand gesture dialogue system.
  
• Enhanced NPC facial expression to dialogue syncing.
  
• New dialogue skip mechanic with VCR animation. Activated by holding spacebar for a few seconds while an NPC is talking.
  
• NPC spoken dialogue will change and react to your actions in the obstacle course based on weather you choose to take things seriously or not.
  
• New NPC's added to "Noise Complaint" secret mission, as well as new improved dance moves.
  
• New wind SFX.
  
• Fixed bug causing arrow buttons on controller to select weapons while using the inventory.
  
• When receiving radio transmissions, the player will now only automatically select the radio if there is no danger as well as being able to interrupt the radio switch by selecting a weapon.
  
• New "Scope Strength" slider in options which can be used for increasing or decreasing the zoom scope lens lines.
  
• Weapon wheel can now be assigned to a custom binding in control options.
  

A massive thanks to the users who have reported bugs to me on Discord as well as on our public Steam Forum. It's a great help and I please encourage people to let me know of any other issues they might find. Or even just to let me know what you did like, I am always down for a chat!

I hope you enjoy this first update of the year, it will be the first of many!

A small update to kick off the festive season, focusing on environment and wildlife with other regular maintenance updates.

[h2]Main Features:[/h2]

• 5 New animals.
  
• 7 New locations.
  
• Population of animals increased.
  
• Detail of outskirt environments has increased.
  
• New seamless sunset transitions.
  
• Various game performance optimizations.
  
• Various bug fixes.
  
• Various other improvements, listed below.
  
• Environment improvements and detailing.
  
• Improved vegetation and terrain texture painting.
  
• General visual enhancements.
  
• Many new models and items.
  

[h2]New Wildlife:[/h2]

• Buffalo: Are mostly docile but are known to kill humans. Comes in two varieties, clean and dirty - the dirtier the buffalo the more flies it will attract.
  
• Warthogs: Unendangered, relatively harmless, numerous.
  
• African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus): Not known to attack humans, but a fearless predator amongst its peers.
  
• Scorpions: Good thing you're wearing those boots!
  
• Geese: Known to chase people up trees.
  

[h2]New Locations:[/h2]

• Reserve Entrance: The reserve now has its own actual entrance gate which visitors and guests would use to enter.
  
• Groundskeepers Cabin: The groundskeeper now has her own cabin and garden, this area will be further expanded on in other updates.
  
• Chicken Truck: Is now available at anytime in the game for the achievement mission, as opposed to only in chapter 2.
  
• 4 x Warthog Zones: containing additional detail.
  
• 5 x Buffalo Zones: containing additional detail.
  
• Forest Zones: shadowy biomes.
  
• Other new hidden areas and secrets.

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

• Fixed issue with enemies firing before they finished reloading
  
• Numerous small other bug fixes and improvements.
  
• Reduced terrain flickering.
  
• Fixed some broken terrain seams.
  
• Fixed some areas you could get stuck.
  
• Fixed some skinned mesh renderers/animals/characters disappearing when halfway off the edge of the screen.
  

[h2]Improvements/Additions:[/h2]

• Increased likelihood of certain enemy bark audio.
  
• Removed trees that were placed on slopes unrealistically.
  
• New vegetation such as mushrooms and tomato plants.
  
• Improved Gazelle Texture.
  
• Improved warehouse exterior model material and texture.
  
• Improved other small building[s] material lighting.
  
• Improved intensity of "Sun Shafts" effect appearance, but can also be disabled from advanced graphics menu if not desired.
  
• Sunset transitions are now seamless when playing on high environment settings.
  
• Improved color quality and synchronization of distance fog at the base of mountains.
  
• Decreased the monotony of certain tree clusters outside of the main reserve.
  
• Improved the blending quality of certain asynchronous streaming zones.
  
• Improved quality of transition from terrain to distant mountain objects.
  
• Improved quality of waterfall rendering during night time.
  

[h2]Optimizations:[/h2]

• Implemented animation hashing for enemy reload action.
  
• Limited the amount of "miss" bullet decals that enemies can produce globally.
  
• Improved culling of bird flocks when not in camp.
  
• Improved culling of enemies when player is exploring outskirts far away from enemies.
  
• Removed more trees hidden under rocks.
  
• Improved cleanup of animals that have become invisible.
  
• Improved culling of animals and meshes inside the main camp while the player is out exploring.
  
• Removed trees growing under rocks that weren't visible using precious resources for nothing.
  
• Numerous other internal performance optimizations.
  
• 'Environment Quality' setting now affects the ambient lighting interval for time of day transitions.
  

[h3]This update now brings the total count of species in the reserve to 34.
The list of all creatures is below:[/h3]

Mammals:

• Rhino
  
• Zebra
  
• Elephant
  
• Giraffe
  
• Wildebeest
  
• Buffalo
  
• Warthog
  
• Wild Dog
  
• Gazelle
  
• Hippo
  
• Ostrich
  
• Goat
  
• Rat
  

Insects:

• Dragonfly
  
• Dung Beetle
  
• Rhino Beetle
  
• Common Fly
  
• Hornet
  
• Scorpion
  
• Snail
  

Amphibians/Reptiles

• Crocodile
  
• Salamander
  
• Frog
  
• Snake
  

Birds:

• Pigeon (bos duiwe)
  
• Crow (Swartkraai)
  
• Owl
  
• Sparrow
  
• Chicken
  
• Duck
  
• Goose
  

More species & locations to be added soon!

As always, thank you everybody for the continued support, encouragement & bug testing. It is greatly appreciated!

Happy Hunting and Happy Holidays.

While this update is relatively small in terms of content, it introduces a new system that paves the way for endless new content that is varied, exciting and provides a great new platform for the voice actors to express themselves as well as bringing life to the existing characters in the game.

Kicking off the new system is a short introduction scene that replaces the old cinematic introduction which featured a few fly-over shots with a voice over. You now get to meet in person the generals who are commanding you via the radio through the game, and one of them will communicate to you face to face. In future updates, you are going to be seeing a lot more of these NPC's and being able to interact with them directly and I firmly believe this is a necessary step for modern gaming to bring the world alive with living breathing characters.

The existing radio mission briefings will not be changed, only new content will be added featuring lip synced character NPC's, and will pave the way for hours of new content upcoming in 2025 and beyond.

Below are the main features, as well as other bug fixes, additions and optimizations as per usual.

Main Features:

• New introduction scene.
  
• 2 New character models.
  
• New character creation pipeline system.
  
• Endless potential character faces.
  
• New lip syncing system.
  
• Over 50+ possible Facial expressions.
  
• Procedural blinking.
  
• More voice acting.
  

Fixes:

• Fixed a recurring issue that would cause your ostrich race course progress to be reset if you played an earlier race again.
  
• Fixed issue making it possible to shoot NPC's while scoped.
  
• Fixed missing NPC colliders in ostrich racing.
  
• Fixed some boss fight related issues that I won't list directly due to spoilers.
  
• Fixed issue with B.I.R.D. scout being able to fly off and under the terrain bounds.
  
• Fixed some issues with weapon wheel responsiveness when using a mouse.
  
• Fixed numerical keys not working on Caravan PC main menu.
  
• Fixed missing colliders near Mission 5 drone control station.
  
• Fixed some issues with drone control station not triggering the next mission state correctly.
  
• Numerous other small bug fixes.
  

Additions:

• A few environment vegetation improvements.
  
• A new 'Potjiekos' model. (Traditional South African 3 legged cauldron).
  
• New "MelkTert" model. (A type of delicious milk tart pie).
  
• New coolerbox model. (Gotta keep those beers cool).
  
• Added better fencing for informal settlement area.
  
• Improved terrain seams and various terrain texturing near borders of tiles
  

Optimizations:

• All player triggers used for asynchronous loading now exist in their own layer so that they are never triggered by other non-player entities, even though only the player can activate them now the trigger is never called unnecessarily.
  
• Added all remaining elephants and giraffes into the asynchronous loading system for improved memory usage, as these animals never venture into the main reserve area by themselves.
  
• Deep analyzed texture compression and found (and fixed) a 21mb normal map used for the vehicle cabin down to 5MB without any loss in visual quality.
  
• Optimized specular maps used for outside shebeen walls.
  
• Converted some read-only static variables to constants for better memory efficiency.
  
• NPC Gardener character in ostrich racing now uses a single instance repositioned per race instead of multiple instances pre-configured.
  
• Implemented dynamic texture loading from disk for less common weapons that don't need their textures permanently stored in runtime memory.
  

Thank you everybody for playing! The next update V0.8.7.8 is going to focus on environment and wildlife, while I work towards a general large content update by V0.8.8. This is the beginning of an exciting new chapter, and I can't wait to share it with you all!

Keep those bug reports coming, and just general chats. You can always find me in the Discord or on the Steam forums, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

- Twelv [Ingozi Games]