Suit for Hire News

Hey everyone,

We've received a numerous amount of bug reports revolving around the new update we recently released, this patch should fix those issues (if not, let us know!):

• Changed color of input text in Tutorial to be more readable
  
• Extended the environment execution trace to make it more likely to happen
  
• FIXED destructible mesh in Mansion being invisible until shot (hopefully)
  
• FIXED level select on main menu starting you at a different checkpoint than the start (0)
  
• FIXED the warehouse level camera getting wonky if you went back through the door entrance
  
• FIXED the knife enemy not appearing in the Tunnels after dying
  
• FIXED the camera (and running direction) being incorrect when reloading from the checkpoint in Tunnels
  
• FIXED some overlap boxes blocking melee attacks (e.g. bottom section in the warehouse)
  
• FIXED the sniper in the City Square not firing at the player after death
  
• FIXED the counter not working in the tutorial
  

Let us know if any of these bugs are persisting after the new patch, thanks again to everyone who took the time to report bugs.

Hey everyone!

It's finally time to release an update full of new mechanics, levels and enemies. We'll have a video covering all of the new goodies soon for those that are still curious about grabbing the game.

For those that'll be giving the new update a try, we've been working hard on this update and may have missed a couple spots so if you encounter a bug, please let us know through our Discord or Community Hub.



[h2]3 New Levels[/h2]
We've added 3 new levels that change the way that you play the campaign and creates a more seamless transition as you hunt down the antagonist from level to level. On top of this, other levels have also received some adjustments and much needed love.



[h2]Environment Executions[/h2]
Use the environment around you to execute enemies, currently there's only one execution but we plan on adding more!

[h2]Checkpoint System[/h2]
A new checkpoint system allows for new respawn points throughout levels rather than at the beginning of levels. No longer do you have to go through the pain of killing 3 brutes with shields at the top of the subway level.

[h2]Kickable Doors[/h2]
Take out enemies by kicking doors into them in an unrealistic fashion (we've got some editing to do in this regard), a new fun way to enter rooms.

[h2]New Music[/h2]
Turn up your music in this update as our music artist, Tallowahh, has added and adjusted the current soundtrack- we've got more plans for dynamic music in the future but definitely give it a listen.

[h2]Controller Support in Settings Menu[/h2]
For those that only use controllers, we've finally added support in menus such as the settings menu, let us know if it works well now!

[h2]2 New Enemies[/h2]
We're working hard to add more to the enemy AI, for this update we've added 2 new enemies- an enemy with a knife who attacks multiple times in a row and a hidden sniper.

and much more...

• Added a falling animation state
  
• Added a checkpoint in the subway level (and other levels that needed it)
  
• Added new grenade VFX
  
• Added countering in the tutorial
  
• Added a 100% chance to get an execution popup if you have 75% willpower and 0 ammo
  
• Added ambient sounds in some of the levels (where applicable)
  
• Added feedback when a button was pressed, and it also disappears when necessary
  
• Added a hot dog burning sound
  
• Impact Audio now only pans when you're farther from it to reduce confusion/weird audio feeling
  
• Audio spatialization now uses the player camera's rotation rather than character's rotation
  
• Improved the airducts that got in the way of visibility in the Trains/subway level
  
• BUGFIX: Enemies that fire now visually release magazines
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed the collision of some pickups that would block shots and could be punched
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed an issue where the reload key in the death screen no longer worked
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed inputs in the settings menu not working while paused
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed a bug where the player and enemies could not attack each other in door frames
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed being able to shoot bodies after they die causing perfect shot to increase
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed an issue where the camera zoomed in too much in the Office level
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed being able to die while countering an enemy
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed being able to execute enemies through walls
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed enemy execute popups persisting after death
  
• BUGFIX: Fixed being able to execute enemies while transitioning levels
  

This update may be a lot larger than normal (almost doubled the space it takes), we'll be optimizing the game overtime to reduce the space it takes, but at the moment it's now at 2gb (rather than 1.1gb).

Thanks again for all of your support, we're looking forward to adding more content and features to the game. We're super excited for the future of Suit for Hire!

Hey everyone,

Last time we made a post was last month when we released update #11 where we mentioned that the next update would be a month from then. Well, it's been a month and you're probably wondering where the new update is, unfortunately it's been pushed back a bit due to a few things still needing to be completed.

We don't have an estimate but we're hoping 3-5 days from now we'll have the November update ready for all of you, in the meantime here's a list of all the things we worked on and what's to come!

Checkpoint System

A new checkpoint system has been worked on to improve respawning during levels! This should improve player's experiences while we adjust the difficulty curve of the game, and should also allow us to make larger levels without requiring loading screens to create save points.



Kickable Doors

As we continue to update the game and add more mechanics, we like to update the game environment to mesh well with the game's mechanics- in this update we've made it possible to kick down doors rather than simply opening them!

We'll have a video for you soon as we work on it.

Controller Support in Settings Menu

We've continued to add more controller support to the game as requested by the community, the settings menu should now completely work with gamepads. As always, once the update drops, please let us know if we missed anything or if something isn't working!



New Levels

A big issue we had with some of the levels in the campaign is odd transitions from one area to the next- we've made some changes to a few levels and we're currently creating new levels to fill in those gaps!



That's only the beginning, there's a ton of bug fixes, improvements in terms of gameplay and QOL improvements, audio improvements, and a big revamp to our music system!

We're excited to bring you this new update and we'd like to apologize for the delay, we're figuring out our bottlenecks and should hopefully be able to improve our workflow for the next monthly update.

Let us know what you think in the discussion hub and we hope you have a great start to your December.

Hey everyone,

First off, happy Halloween- we wanted to do a whole content update for Halloween but unfortunately we've been planning quite a bit for November/December. Nonetheless, we still got a bunch of stuff done including a new enemy that may terrify some players.

Ninja/Katana Enemy

The Katana-wielding enemy has been readjusted to have a much faster movement speed when running towards you, opening up some pretty tight situations where you have to quickly roll away from an attack or kill the enemy before the attack could ever happen.

We still have quite a bit to do to the Katana enemy such as giving them a unique character model, but we're excited to finally add some more unique enemies to the game. We've got tons of plans for adding more enemies which should be happening in the month to come.

There's more to come for the Katana enemy, but this is a start.

Feature Requests, Improvements and Bugfixes

• ADDED: Backstab UI Popup (when available)
  
• ADDED: Sound effect when the player dies
  
• ADDED: Added a setting to turn off the player flashlight [feature request]
  
• ADDED: Added a setting to auto-continue loading screens [feature request]
  
• IMPROVED: Shield enemies now ricochet bullets like the mirrors instead of right back at the player
  
• ADJUSTED: Brutes/shield enemies now turn a bit slower
  
• FIXED: Enemies clearing aggro after getting punched a couple times
  
• OPTIMIZED: We've converted some stuff into C++ from UE4 Blueprints to hopefully optimize some systems for the future
  
• OPTIMIZED: Electrical pole cables no longer use physics which should make levels run better where they're used
  

November Plans

Now you're probably wondering "Hmm, not much added this update around.", we've been hard at work planning and coming up with how we'll be tackling November- our plans for November involves doing one single big content update at the end of the month. If there's any issues/bugs that are relatively game-breaking due to this update, we'll make sure that's all fixed- but other than that we'll be working on the first big content update (finally).

We'll be releasing a roadmap post to discuss our goal for the end of this year, super exciting stuff to come!

Thanks again for all of the support, let us know what you think about this update through our Discord!

Hey everyone,

It's update day, this time we have some exciting stuff to show off. In this update we've completely adjusted AI perception, added a backstab system, and much more.

Let's get into it.

AI Perception

We've completely adjusted the AI Perception in Suit for Hire, for those that may not understand what this means; AI Perception is essentially how the enemies perceive things within the world using senses like sight and hearing.

Before, we simply had a sphere around enemies and once you've entered that sphere and they had line of sight of you (even behind them), they would become aggressive and run at you.

Now enemies use proper perception by using sight in front of them, alongside that we gave them some simple hearing to start with- once an enemy sees you, they'll call out to enemies nearby them. We imagine this may make the game harder as more enemies will aggro on players right off the bat, so please let us know how it feels as this is a pretty big adjustment.

There's still a lot to do in terms of enemy/AI perception, like being able to see dead bodies in front of them, etc. so we'll be working diligently on this aspect in the next few weeks.

Backstab System

The reason we adjusted the AI perception was to allow players to backstab enemies. This mechanic is still pretty early on and we still have to provide the player with an interface popup when they can do a backstab, but it works and gets the job done for now.

If you ever get the chance to get behind an enemy undetected, you can hit the Execute key behind them to do a backstab (which is essentially a free execution)- we plan on designing levels around this and opening up potential scenarios for this. At the moment, our level design doesn't fully support this as most enemies face in the direction where you come from, we'll work on this a lot in the next few updates!

Improvements and Bugfixes

Other than the AI Perception and the Backstab System, we've improved a few other things and fixed a bunch of bugs that you've submitted (thanks to everyone submitting reports/feedback, you're a big help in making this game better).

• Lowered the brightness in L9 Subway Entrance and L5 Office so it's not as blinding
  
• Fixed up more of the execution animations, making it better when blending back into gameplay
  
• Adjusted main menu movement to be smoother on gamepad
  
• Fixed being able to shoot while loading
  
• Fixed the timer in the ending screen
  
• Fixed gamepad button not showing over difficulty level buttons
  
• Fixed gamepad screwing up in the main menu (more improvements to be made, let us know if you experience any issues)
  
• Fixed an issue where caution prompts could appear multiple times if you're spamming input keys
  
• Fixed the caution prompt not having gamepad support for some scenarios
  
• Fixed an issue where getting a perfect dodge and then executing an enemy played both execution animations at different rates
  
• Fixed mercs being able to fire while being staggered/attacked
  
• Fixed an issue where the "Hold to Throw Weapon" UI got stuck on screen
  
• Fixed a rotation issue when countering and then executing afterwards
  
• Fixed being able to execute enemies while dying
  

That's it for this update, thanks again for all of the support, bug reports and feedback!

Let us know what you think of the new AI Perception and Backstab system through our Discord and Community Hub!

It's been a pleasure working on Suit for Hire and we're super excited to get more going in the weeks to come, we'll see you next week.