Gang Beasts News

Welcome, everyone!

You may notice that there’s a brand new update to Gang Beasts, and we know it’s something you’ve all been waiting for, so we won’t keep you in suspense.
Trawler has arrived! A brand new stage, filled with a deteriorating fishing trawler in an isolated sea and a whole shiver of sharks. That’s right, the lifeless black eyed creatures themselves will hop aboard and try to take you for a swim.



By “deteriorating fishing trawler”, we mean the stage will become just that. Survive long enough from either the assaults of your friends or the deadly sea swimmers, and the stage will begin to sink (quite literally). Remember to not let go for as long as you can, we all know what's awaiting in the murky depths.



On top of the deterioration of the stage, you’ll also have two interactive crane systems with fully functioning mechanical levers to get yourselves familiar with. On top of this, there’s a large shark cage suspended from a hook which can be detached, perfect for some “accidents” involving your friends and the deep blue, right?



And now on to some patch notes for v1.18:

Added content:
- New stage: Trawler
- New costumes:
- Sideburns
- Lifejacket
- Beard
- Moustache
- Sailor hat and outfit
- Shark kigurumi
- Deep Sea Diver helmet and outfit
- Captain hat and outfit
- Fishing gilet and hat
- Sailor jumper and beanie
- Air Rescue helmet and outfit
Graphics update with the move to URP
Fixed costumes appearing darker

That’s all for now, but head over to our Discord or Twitter channels for more updates and information as they go live.

Thanks!

Boneloaf.

Released on 16 June and updated on 25 June, 2021

• Known Issue: the XInput toggle in Settings has been temporarily removed. This will return soon! The game will only support a maximum of 4 Xbox controllers locally until this is back, but any other controllers will still support up to 8 players!
  

• Switched to a new matchmaking system.
  
• General optimisation pass over various stages, including Wheel, Aquarium and Tower.
  
• Made a general pass over most stages with eliminated player issues.
  
• Fixed various infinite loading screen bugs when playing online.
  
• Loading screen changed to correctly show loading progress.
  
• Changed online loading system to reduce chances of missing objects when playing online.
  
• Reduced loading times.
  
• Fixed issue where objects or players would not load on various levels online.
  
• Fixed an issue on Train that could make matches incorrectly result in a draw.
  
• Camera on Wheel no longer goes through the water when a player is sinking.
  
• Water rendering issue on aquarium fixed.
  
• Online players are now correctly eliminated on Blimp now, no more infinitely falling.
  
• Fixed issue where certain Waves AI would not be eliminated correctly and keep the round going.
  
• Characters no longer jerk upwards when resuming after being paused and resuming.
  
• Fixed Gondola appearing invisible occasionally.
  
• Fixed Vents railings moving erratically over time.
  
• Fixed the fishbowl hat flashing for a frame when being switched too.
  
• Fixed Wheel lamp posts from being so erratic online.
  
• Fixed issue where restarting a round from countdown 0 would cause a softlock.
  
• Updated credits.
  

There is an active community run Discord server where you can find people to play with, leave feedback and report bugs.

Discord - Join the community server here:
https://discordapp.com/invite/gXh2HRH

If you would like to find people to test the new Matchmaker or to just talk about Gang Beasts, join the community run Discord server here: https://discordapp.com/invite/gXh2HRH

We are aware of the issue with the M1 Macs. They are supported in a later version of Unity and we are going to upgrade our Unity version later in Q2 /Q3. We will have support available for Gang Beasts then.

We are happy to announce we have fixed the notorious loading screen bug, that has been plaguing some people, and we wanted to explain a few things to help shed some light on why it took so long for us t o fix it.

The bug initially was just incredibly hard to reproduce internally, which is the first step towards finding out what was actually happening. To find it we had to create a new debugging tool for the server and client builds to help us track it down. With this new tool we managed to reproduce the issue consistently, and in a way that we could generate logs to help guide us to a solution. This highlighted to us that in fact, it was several bugs manifesting as one! All of which we have fixed and should never rear their ugly heads again.

You may be wondering why we released the previous update with such a glaring bug? Well, to put it simply, it hasn't turned up before. The trigger case is very hardware and connection dependent. Although we have found out that some of the bugs have been there all along, they were very rarely triggered, at least on tests we did with the hardware we have.

It also appears that the more recent optimisations and fixes, which made certain aspects of the game quicker, inflamed the issue, making it more prominent for these users. In addition, there was a significant engine upgrade (Unity 2017 to 2020), which made unnoticed changes to the networking library we use, adding many more avenues for the issue to manifest.

It is annoying that these things happen from time to time (especially for us!), but we are always working to improve Gang Beasts, which has been evolving for 6+ years now. So thank you for being patient with us, and hopefully, we will not have anything as problematic in the future.


Another bug people have been experiencing lately is the characters not getting eliminated when thrown out of stages. This issue was a weird one, that seems to have manifested itself since the engine upgrade. Gang Beasts being such a physics heavy game, any changes to the engine’s physics can have knock-on effects with the gameplay.

We have tried to fix this a few times and, although each attempt reduced its frequency, it was still being triggered. In this update, we have added two more solutions: one that should stop it from happening, and another that will guarantee that if it happens the players get eliminated anyway. The first measure is adding a few more checks to the characters when they enter an Elimination Volume, so it is more likely to be detected, and expanding these volumes further to increase the chance of detection. The second measure bypasses the physics system entirely, and will always eliminate players regardless of velocities or any other issues inherent to physics that can prevent the first method from working.



[h2]General[/h2]

• Fixed the pesky infinite loading screen
  
• Adjusted the damage reduction timer from 10 seconds to 4
  
• Fixed server ping checks not properly connecting to Sydney
  
• Corrected PS4 online age rating check
  
• Corrected PS4 lobby nameplate UI not showing
  

[h2]All stages[/h2]

• Increased the size of Elimination Zones to better catch escaping players
  
• Added an Out of Bounds check that should stop anyone who does manage to escape!
  

[h2]Aquarium[/h2]

• Optimised the bubble particles
  
• Fixed bubbles crashing the game (!)
  
• Added blockers to prevent players from getting stuck in doors
  
• Moved pool knockout volume up
  
• Small physics optimisations