Hidden Deep News

Greetings explorers!

The summer is reaching its peak, it’s getting hot not just above the ground though, but below the sea depths as well. Hidden Deep is getting a new content update: Kill it With Fire - introducing creepy new critters, a variety of new weapons, as well as first NPCs in the game!

In the Kill it With Fire update, you’ll be able to burn new enemies like the zombie-like transmorphs and scuttlebugs to a crisp with the scorching hot flamethrower. If you’re more of a projectile-weapons kinda fellow, there’s a new shotgun, the new standard small-caliber pistol as well as a new submachine gun for you to riddle monsters with! If things are getting a little too close for comfort, you can always fall back on a crowbar. What's good enough for Mr. Freeman is good enough for our rescue team.

You’ll be able to combat the fresh hideous faces with these weapons in three horrifying new levels. You’ll also find NPCs scattered around the game, they may appear friendly for now, but there’s no telling how events will develop…

TL,DR content summary:

• 3 new Levels
  
• NPCs
  
• New weapons: Crowbar, Pistol, Submachine Gun, Shotgun, Flamethrower
  
• New Enemies: Acid spitting creeps, cute little scuttlebugs and Transmorphs (not to confuse with zombies)
  
• Physics overhaul (water, lighting)
  
• Visual and level structure overhaul (new textures, background assets, acid pits, dynamic health monitor)
  

For now, these features are limited to the three new levels - but we are working hard to bring this improvements to the existing content as well in the near future. If you have played through the existing content of the expedition mode already, the first of the new levels is unlocked automatically via the menu point ‘Load Mission’.

Important Notes:

• Due to changes to the standard equipment, mid-level save points from before the update will become unusable. Please start the according level from the beginning.
  
• Due to complications in the localization pipeline, the new content is not available in all languages for now. We intend to have this fixed as soon as possible.
  
• Since the game is still in Early Access, you may still encounter random bugs and glitches, please feel free to report those back to us and help us improve the experience.
  

Greetings Rescue Squad,

New caves ahead! With this patch we bring you new content and features, so prepare for the things to come with the following new introductions:

• New feature: Inventory. With the amount of items and usables increasing, we implement this feature for better oversight and manageability of all the equipment needed to face the horrors below.
  
  
• New feature: modular difficulty level. You can now adjust the difficulties to your liking.
  
  
• Two new levels to explore (and to die in).
  

Inside these levels you’ll not be alone, prepare to encounter adversaries not seen before.

New music tracks to soothe your nerves while stumbling through the dark. Or not.


Also this update serves as preparation for more new stuff to come, some of it pretty soon, other a little more far away. So stay with us while we further optimize our content pipeline and hopefully increase the output in the not-so-long run.


Spooky noises in the distance intensify


Take care,


Cogwheel Software & Daedalic Entertainment

Hello again, dear Rescue Team!

The patch from the experimental branch is now live on default! The core feature it introduces are automatic savegames, please see the details here: Experimental Branch Blogpost
In the same move we’ll update the experimental branch with another patch that should address random crashes, especially in the level Blue Mineral. If somebody of you repeatedly encounters random access violation, we would highly appreciate it if you could jump into the experimental branch and give us some feedback Experimental Branch FAQ

More and new features are already underway, also we are looking into ways to ramp up the content output. So keep an eye out for future announcements!

Best Regards,
Daedalic Entertainment and Cogwheel Software

Attention Rescue Team,

A new savegame system now live in experimental branch!

To mitigate the frustration that stems from the elusive crashes we are still hunting, and to make your progress more enjoyable, we are working on an improved save system that will allow intermediate saving within the missions. A first iteration of this new system is now available, but since this is a complex feature, the roll-out will be step-by-step and for now as an opt-in function via the now publicly available experimental branch first. Here you can find a link to the according FAQ: Experimental Branch FAQ


What to expect from this feature:

Progress now should also be saved within the missions. So if you have to exit the game or encounter a crash, there should be an automatically created savegame close to the point of exit. While it is still possible that you’ll have to repeat some steps of the last session, you won’t be forced to restart the whole level.
The “Continue expedition” option now should load your latest save point, close to where you left.
The “Load Mission” option still lets you select a particular mission, which starts from the beginning.
The new option “Load Savepoint” lists your last five automatically generated savepoints.
Minor adjustments and additions in the menu structure.


Other fixes in this patch:

• 
  
• Implementation of indicators for "hidden" vents.
  
• Fixed a memory leak that could lead to crashes in Challenge Mode games.
  

As stated, this is the first iteration of the save system overhaul. You can expect further adjustments in the future, also neighboring fields of the game design will be subject to change. Stay tuned for more, we will follow up with another announcement when we deem this patch ready for the default branch and all players.

Heyho rescue team,

We are so excited about all the feedback and hype you threw at us the last two days - so first a big Thank you from Wookie, and the publishing team at Daedalic, you rock!

Based on your feedback we are working to mitigate the issues you brought up. Some approaches will take more time to lead to a sustainable solution so we aimed for some initial quick fixes while we continue our effort to make the game enjoyable for all explorers and their various playstyles.

This hotfix contains the following changes:

• A bug was fixed that deleted your ropes from the inventory and let you only be able to use it via the hotkey [ . ] Ropes were always meant to be unlimited and now are visable like that as well.
  
• Reduced the time needed for weapon handling. This should make reloading/swapping/drawing faster.
  
• Crucial items are now increased in number, and in some cases resupply got placed in the levels where needed. This is intended to mitigate the potential of softlocks while we look into further options to eliminate this issue completely.
  
• It is now possible to reload the pistol while hanging on the grappling hook.
  
• Adjusted the (critical) hitboxes and lifepoints of enemy creatures to reduce ammo consumption.
  

Obviously this is just the beginning of our journey and we are so glad that you are on board!
Looking forward into the future,
Daedalic Entertainment & Cogwheel Software