Suit for Hire News

Hey everyone!

After an extensive period of beta testing, we're happy to announce v20.0 is now officially released in the main branch of the game.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Update #20 contains AI behavioral upgrades, a big mechanical overhaul, a new Miami chapter, UEVR mode support, improvements to gamepad controls and a ton of bugfixes/QOL improvements. More details are found below.


The latest addition to our Miami series, Ocean Drive, is included in the v20.0 update. This chapter unfolds in an infamous Miami nightclub.

Engage in combat in diverse settings, including an expansive club area and a VIP bathhouse, all while enjoying a new soundtrack composed by our in-house music composer, Gerrard Wallace.



Give it a whirl and let us know what you think!


As we mentioned in our earlier Roadmap back in late January, we've made a ton of mechanical changes that beta testers have deemed as big improvements to the overall gameplay.

To make it easier, we'll list out the latest changes by mechanic/feature:

• Dodges have been updated to function with a specific Stamina system, improving upon the previous model
  
• Initially, dodges will appear as sidesteps, enhancing combat speed and flow
  
• Sprinting is no longer an automatic action; it can now be activated by a keypress. This change allows players to fire while sprinting and makes use of the new Stamina system
  
• The Willpower system has been eliminated. Executions now become available when enemies are worn down to near-death, offering players more control over when to execute
  
• The Slomo/Time-Focus feature now operates on the Stamina system instead of the discontinued Willpower system
  
• Weapon Ultimates now operate on their own resource, allowing players to use their ultimates with increased frequency
  

We've additionally made improvements throughout all mechanics and systems in the game, hopefully making the game feel better to play. If you experience any issues or have feedback, please let us know through our Discord or Community Hub.


The game's enemy AI has been improved, now featuring alert states and a heightened awareness of the environment.

Striking enemies with smaller weapons, such as dropped pistols, will now knock back or stagger them. This change enhances the viability of these lighter arms as effective tools for players.

We're planning further enhancements for the enemies, such as introducing more voiceovers and dialogue, refining their behaviors, and making other various improvements.



We are optimistic that this marks the start of significant enhancements to the game's overall challenges and difficulty level, and we look forward to introducing even more improvements in the future!

As always, please let us know what you think about the new AI changes.


We've enhanced various aspects of the game. If you've been experimenting with UEVR, you'll find a new setting in the Gameplay category that adjusts certain systems to accommodate a VR environment.

Also, we've refined the aim for Controllers/Gamepads and made the aim assist more reliable. We've added other settings, such as a UI Scale slider and an option to hide tracers, based on your feedback.

We've also improved the overall aim. Previously, players may have encountered issues when trying to shoot through car windshields or glass. We've adjusted this, so shooting through these surfaces should now be more reliable.

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Thank you so much for your patience and support, we'll be continuing to work on even more content and improvements in the next couple months.

More improvements and bugfixes have been made throughout the entire game, including some graphical improvements, the full list can be found below:

• REMOVED: Willpower system
  
• NEW: Miami chapter, Ocean Drive
  
• ADDED: Checkpoints in Cathedral boss and Art Exhibit final room
  
• ADDED: New Stamina system for sprinting, dodges, slomo and more
  
• ADDED: Sidestepping mechanic as a quicker dodge (can still roll after double-pressing dodge)
  
• ADDED: New Ultimate resource for Weapon Ultimates
  
• ADDED: New AI behavior between Passive and Aggressive, Alerted state
  
• ADDED: UI Scale slider in Settings
  
• ADDED: Setting to disable tracers
  
• ADDED: Hotkey for new/adjusted Sprint mechanic
  
• ADDED: UEVR mode support in Gameplay Settings
  
• IMPROVED: Auto-aim on different heights now does multiple body checks for more consistent hits
  
• IMPROVED: Overall aim should avoid some surfaces to allow for shooting over/through cars, etc.
  
• IMPROVED: Player animations including walk/running animations and more
  
• IMPROVED: Enemy perception through glass should properly work
  
• IMPROVED: Enemies now walk slower when strafing or moving backwards
  
• CHANGED: Description for Silenced Pistol primary weapon
  
• CHANGED: Silenced Pistol combo window now increased to 6 seconds
  
• CHANGED: Tutorial adjusted to new mechanics
  
• CHANGED: Enemies can now be executed/finished by beating them up, throwing them around, and more, no longer relying on the old Willpower system
  
• FIXED: Enemy ragdolls shouldn't be as messed up
  
• FIXED: Having a secondary weapon and going into the next chapter didn't clear the weapon on the HUD
  
• FIXED: Landing roll happening multiple times
  
• FIXED: On death, player's secondary weapon not being dropped
  
• FIXED: Attempting to use Revolver ultimate with a secondary weapon would not work
  
• FIXED: Level transition boxes showed [E] to proceed UI
  
• FIXED: Weapon switching unwillingly after an execution
  
• FIXED: Automatic secondary weapons immediately going into throw after firing all bullets
  
• FIXED: Using walk on controller freezed aiming
  
• FIXED: Doing a clean suit before a camera adjustment box would mess up FOV
  
• FIXED: Enemy getting teleported/pushed from a grapple push
  
• FIXED: Clean Suit perfect shots not being added to score combo
  
• FIXED: Door in Lab level can get stuck in the shelf
  
• FIXED: Slomo not being removed when resetting from checkpoint after death
  
• FIXED: Reset from checkpoint showing an extra mag that's not there
  
• FIXED: Checkpoints not saving score data (when in combo)
  
• FIXED: Some UI buttons not being clickable sometimes
  
• FIXED: Score streaks continuing while game is paused
  
• FIXED: Enemies opening a door didn't hide certain roof meshes
  
• FIXED: Every spitting out blood particles with melee weapons
  
• FIXED: Destructible pillars not having player collision
  
• FIXED: Having a bodyshield didn't guarantee protection when facing enemies with guns
  

... and more bugfixes/improvements!

We'll see you in the next devlog or update, thank you again and please let us know if you have any feedback or bug reports!

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Discuss the game with us and the community on Discord and Twitter. If you want to see the game developed live, catch Crimson on Twitch.

Report any bugs or feedback on our Community Hub.

Hey everyone!

As we enter in a new year, I wanted to provide an update blog to inform everyone about what to expect from Suit for Hire in 2024.

Our objective is to have Suit for Hire exit Early Access between Q3-Q4 of this year. We will work diligently to meet all the goals and promises that we've made to you, our community.

In the coming months, we'll release significant mechanical overhauls, introduce new content, achievements, and much more. We will delve into the details of what we have planned for v20.0 and the future of the game.


We've got a lot planned for this next update, primarily big changes to our current mechanics that we believe will improve the overall flow of the game.

What can you expect?
Firstly, we plan on adjusting the Willpower system by adjusting how slomo/time-focus is used and the weapon ultimate that currently requires 100% willpower to use. In v20.0 we'll be implementing a new Stamina system, replacing the 3 dodge bars in the corner and instead unifying certain mechanics together, here's a few keypoints that we'll be considering and looking into for the new Stamina system:

• Dodges will utilize the Stamina system, consuming a portion of Stamina that will regenerate in a manner similar to the current dodge system.
  
• Sprinting will no longer be an automatic mechanic. This change is intended to prevent players from running away from enemies without any risk. Instead, sprinting will consume the player's stamina.
  
• As sprinting will become a player-controlled mechanic, we will strive to implement new combos and rewards for players to discover, such as stronger punches and kicks following a short sprint. This is to ensure that the mechanic does not feel burdensome to the player.
  
• The Slomo/Time-Focus function will use the player's stamina rather than willpower, enabling players to use slow motion more frequently without being hindered by the Willpower system. This will also allow for more executions.
  

This will be a significant change, and we value your opinions. We believe that these modifications will enable players to adapt their playstyle without the constraints of the willpower/execution system. However, players will need to be mindful of their stamina usage. We plan to adjust the numbers until they feel just right.

Secondly, alongside the changes to the Slomo/Time-Focus system, we'll move the Weapon Ultimate to its own separate resource, allowing players to use it more frequently. We noticed that players don’t utilize the weapon ultimate since it consumes all willpower, effectively preventing players from executing enemies, which is unfortunate since executions are a crucial part of the gameplay loop.

Ultimates will now consume a unique resource that accumulates over time and with combo kills. When the ultimate bar reaches 100%, players can use the ultimate, which will deplete the ultimate resource.

We anticipate that these changes will permit players to use the slow-motion mechanic more often, and allow weapon ultimates to be used more frequently. We believe these adjustments will greatly benefit the game.

What else?
In addition to player mechanic changes, I am planning an overhaul of the enemy AI. Honestly, the AI in Suit for Hire is one of my first attempts at video game AI, and it is evidently flawed and makeshift.

In this update, I intend to rebuild the enemy AI from the ground up, aiming to make them appear more intelligent and equipped with enhanced functionalities to enrich the dynamic gameplay of the game.

The AI adjustments will persist over the next few updates, introducing new abilities to the enemies such as retreating or disarming and frantically searching for a weapon on the ground.

We will share more information regarding this overhaul as we progress.

There are plenty of other improvements and additions in store for v20.0, which we hope you all will appreciate. However, this is only the beginning.


Before we can consider Suit for Hire to be complete, there are quite a few things that we need to finish. Some of the additions in the next few updates will include:

• Steam Achievements
  
• 4 new Miami chapters
  
• A few other levels and modes like Endless and some challenge levels
  
• Player/Suit customization
  
• More Primary Weapons to choose from
  
• New and Improved Tutorial
  
• Improved auto-aim systems and general gameplay loop improvements
  
• New accessibility settings and customization
  
• Improved/overhauled Counter-attack system
  

... and more things that we may have missed.

As always, we welcome your thoughts on the upcoming changes we mentioned earlier. We continuously seek feedback to ensure the game is heading in the right direction.

We hope you share our excitement for all the new changes and content on which we'll be working. Our utmost effort will be poured into finally releasing this game out of Early Access. I personally apologize for the delay — no excuses will be made as, at the end of the day, it's our responsibility as developers to deliver to the community.

We anticipate seeing you soon, hopefully with the new v20.0 update. Once again, thank you for your patience and support. Have a fantastic week!

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Discuss the game with us and the community on Discord and Twitter. If you want to see the game developed live, catch Crimson on Twitch.

Report any bugs or feedback on our Community Hub.

Hey everyone,

Happy New Year! A new year means new patches (and probably new bugs...), thanks again to everyone that submitted bugs for this patch in particular (@Scott, @Dabt, @legend), if anyone ever has any feedback or bug reports, please let us know!

Without wasting any more of your time, here's the patch notes for v19.5:

• FIXED: Certain actions caused the player to swap weapons involuntarily
  
• FIXED: Cathedral boss UI would not disappear after restarting/dying (let me know if this continues to happen, I was not able to personally reproduce it so I put in some duct tape fixes just in case)
  
• FIXED: Player should no longer be able to stand on grenades
  
• FIXED: Player can clip into rocks in the Courtyard Level
  
• FIXED: Player can jump out of bounds on the Club level
  
• FIXED: Fade wall would appear on walls that were unintended (primarily fixed in Shipyard, let me know if other places look weird)
  
• FIXED: Player sometimes can't progress even after killing all enemies in the Cathedral boss room (again, I wasn't able to reproduce so I put some additional checks just in case, but let me know if this occurs again)
  
• FIXED: Swapping from a melee weapon back to gun doesn't show laser, flashlight, and other widgets even when enabled in Settings
  
• FIXED: Melee attacking and then attempting to use a melee weapon would have mismatching combo values causing the player to only target/attach to an enemy but not attack
  

Thanks to everyone playing/picking up the game and providing your feedback and bug reports, it helps us a ton in improving the game. More to come in 2024, cheers!

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Discuss the game with us and the community on Discord and Twitter. If you want to see the game developed live, catch Crimson on Twitch.

Report any bugs or feedback on our Community Hub.

Hey everyone,

We've made some major bugfixes and improvements to the game that should hopefully make things feel better, we also reverted our engine code back to the original code rather than source code which should resolve some other issues.

The full patch notes can be found below:

• FIXED: Bright lights in levels like the Subway Level
  
• FIXED: Black fade wall not disappearing in the Club level somehow
  
• FIXED: Enemies keep getting stuck in cover state (this is a duct tape fix for now, we'll be doing a full revamp of the AI in the near future)
  
• FIXED: Weapon selection would load before Game Instance causing weapons that were locked to appear unlocked on first start-up
  
• FIXED: Cathedral boss firing even when the player would start executing an enemy
  
• FIXED: Dive not working near objects and was being set to 'Standing' during dive
  
• FIXED: Secondary weapon execution being used even though primary is equipped
  

Thanks for all of your feedback and bug reports, keep them coming and Happy New Year!

[hr][/hr]
Discuss the game with us and the community on Discord and Twitter. If you want to see the game developed live, catch Crimson on Twitch.

Report any bugs or feedback on our Community Hub.

Hey everyone,

Super short hotfix of one particular bug happening during countering, kind of a duct tape fix but it should work better now: when the player would tap the counter key, enemies being countered would sometimes teleport far away.

The problem should be fixed or functioning better than before, let us know if there's still any more issues.

Cheers!

[hr][/hr]
Discuss the game with us and the community on Discord and Twitter. If you want to see the game developed live, catch Crimson on Twitch.

Report any bugs or feedback on our Community Hub.