Big Update for Dead Static Drive

Hi, it's Mike here - I wanted to post a news update showing what we've just pushed to the game. We've made some important changes to some of the core of the game and it's much more in line with how we hoped it to be on launch.

We have some fixes to storylines and quests, but a lot of quality of life improvements so it's much clearer where to find NPCs and how to progress the story. Combat is better - combat is harder, but fairer - and locking on and aiming is better at doing what you intended.

I appreciate all the encouragement and we're so happy to be finding our audience. We also have a few updates nearly ready that didn't quite make it through this week, so we should have another smaller update out soon with some of those.

UPDATES

• Enemies now better detect you though vision and sound. Sneaking is now a much more viable strategy, as monsters are now quite aggressive. Monsters also detect other NPCs and animals, so you can be chased by a creature only to have it veer away when it sees a deer.

• All types of enemies have modified behaviour, with many enemies patrolling. Police and monsters and survivors will interact when near each other, creating firefights.

• Creature spawning has been altered, with creatures spawning in more varied locations.

• Fixed the achievement "Bond with Shane" which wasn't triggering correctly.

• Updated the manner in which achievements are sent to the server and updated code that ensures achievements are checked and registered under certain conditions.

• Further work to make monsters less likely to spawn near the player's entry point to a level or near a restore point.

• NPC locations have been added to their bios.

• NPC locations are displayed on the mini-map, with green dots for story characters and coloured dots representing your party members.

• NPCs asked to leave your party will leave and return to their home location immediately.

• NPCs in your party can now be moved around and staggered by player attacks.

• The current chapter in the story progression is now displayed on the pause menu.

• Some more buttons and prompts have been made interactible by mouse and keyboard.

• Work to reduce foot skate and improve animations.

• More types of motion are available to some monsters.

• More types of attacks are available to some enemies.

• Updated visual effects for some creatures and environmental effects like gasoline to be more consistent with the game's art.

• Camera distance option has been added to the gameplay settings. It gives three distances for the camera, letting the player play with a bigger view of the world.

• Some enemies can now properly interact with each other to alert of dangers.

• Combat aiming has been improved, particularly locking on and targeting.

• NPCs and enemies also now have better target selection.

• Some additional sounds for vehicles.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a targeting issue where monsters and enemy combatants would fail to identify a seen target as a threat unless they were already identified as a priority target (e.g. bosses)

• Customisation options now honoured for colour selection throughout the game for player and NPCs.

• Busses now have accessible storage.

• Busses and larger vehicles now have more storage.

• Fixed climbing for some types of world objects - fences and flooring and building/vehicle roofs are easier to now get on top of; stepping animation plays less frequently when navigating building roofs and other sloped surfaces.

• Bags now will no longer be filled with additional items after a reload.

• Title screen and pause menus now render more consistently with the style of the game and are optimised on older devices.

• Fixed a bug that made triggers exit the pause menu, making it hard to navigate the map using a gamepad.

• Reduced padding in bios for some screen resolutions.

• Fixed an uncommon bug where some monsters would consider wrong targets.

• Fixed a bug that would stop Buddy from initiating the hunter boss battle under rare circumstances.

• NPCs using objects in the world now stop trying to use them if the object becomes destroyed.

• Some objects like cash registers correctly hide on destruction.

• When the player sneaks, adjusted animations and directional facing to match inputs better.

• Updated some assets that were on upper levels of buildings but didn't fade out correctly when building was entered.

• Street signage that was missing braces at their base have been corrected.

• If you break into and try to drive an occupied car, the game handles it better.

• Police more readily notice crimes like assault against an officer or stealing a police vehicle.

• Adjusted some NPC spawns

• If NPCs are targeting an enemy, no longer shows highlight around the enemy.

• Fixed an uncommon bug where it was possible to have incorrect car in the endgame.

• Adjusted seating positions for some vehicles to avoid characters popping out of the vehicle body.

• Corrected some code detection for saving that decides whether the player was safe to save in a vehicle or bed.