[2.0.6] Graphical Improvements, New+Reworked Vehicles, Budapest DLC Next Month!

Hello Soldiers!

This update includes a large amount of new content, technical improvements, visual upgrades, and stability fixes across Easy Red 2.

Our next major DLC release is also just around the corner — look out for it and all of its additions soon!

New Features:

• Vehicles

  • Added the Yak-9 (Stalingrad). Other Yak variants (Yak-3, Yak-9t, Yak-9k) will be included in Blood on The Danube.

    

  • Reworked IL-2 ground-attack plane with new variants (Stalingrad and Hungary DLC).

    

  • Added the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fight plane and several variants, distributed across the base game and different DLCs depending on their historical time period. It has replaced the Stuka in most missions taking place after 1943 (Normandy, Ardennes and Hungary DLC).

    

  • Added standalone M-13 rocket launcher (Stalingrad).

  • Added the BM-13 Katyusha, based on the ZiS-5 truck with the M-13 launcher (Stalingrad).

    

  • Added randomized scrim camouflage on the M10, M36, and Sherman Firefly.

    

  • Added the P-40E. Also converted P-40 Warhawk to new camo system.

• Map Editor

  • Added a new Road & River tool to the Map Editor. This allows for much more dynamic and easier to place roads on the map, as well as sidewalks in cities.

  • Overall, allows for:

    • Road junctions (up to 4 roads)

    • On/off sidewalks on each side

    • Auto terrain deform below road

    • Custom road and sidewalk width

    • River placement

    

• UI Improvements

  • Added a setting to disable sun and moon lens flares.

  • Added a new end battle UI. There is now an animated flag for the country you're playing as, a new layout for the victory/defeat statistics, as well as new music that changes based on if your faction was victorious or not.

  • Added a new High Quality Blur setting, improving Depth of Field and blurred gun sights on high-end PCs.

• Audio Improvements

  • Added DP-27 looping fire sounds

  • Added new grass footstep sounds

  • Added new plane distance sounds, differentiated bomber and fighter

  • Added new incoming artillery sounds.

  • Added BESA data and sound effects for British tanks.

  • Replaced the campaign menu mission appear sound with new audio.

  • Added new end battle victory and defeat anthems, currently available for UK, USA, Germany, and Japan. This system can be disabled in favor of the old “Gramophone style” anthems.

• Performance

  • Added new experimental settings to limit squad sizes on very low-end devices.

  • Added an experimental system to make vehicle physics less performance-heavy.

• Miscellaneous

  • Added a new camera tilt effect when walking sideways and leaning. This is tied to the camera animation toggle.

  • Added new furniture props, currently mostly used inside Normandy buildings.

  • Added new Modding SDK features, including a useful framework to test sounds such as loopable gunfire, distance sounds, directional sounds, and more.

  • Added new SS Tanker caps, including M40, M42, and M43 variants.

  • Various soviet clothing additions & reworks.

Fixes and Improvements:

• Reworked BA-10 armored car.

  

• Reworked the ZiS-5 truck (Stalingrad).

• Reworked the P-40C.

• Reworked plane bomb model.

• Made smaller improvements to the Spitfire and Beaufighter.

  • Temporarily replaced the M1919 on the Bristol Beaufighter with a modified Bren to better resemble a Vickers K.

• Improved and reworked several German aircraft and camouflage variants.

• Fixed issues in the new furniture props.

• Fixed LODs on some vehicles.

• Improved TPS aim animation system.

• Improved the far-vehicle physics system to look more convincing while also being less performance-heavy.

• Improved general vehicle handling and fixed several vehicle-related issues.

• Improved the vehicle sound system.

• Changes in the volume of vehicle reload sounds.

• Graphics

  • Improved shader performance.

  • Reworked SSAO / Post-Processing Ambient Occlusion. The system is now technically based on GTAO.

  • Improved Screen Space Reflections.

  • Improved the water shader.

  • Improved water foam and waves close to the shore.

  • Improved overall lighting and colors.

  • Improved grass rendering.

• Improved scope stability for picture-in-picture scope rendering and crosshair movement. Floating point precision issues on very large maps are not fully solved yet, but aiming with scoped rifles should now feel much better.

• Improved rigging and body shapes for Asian soldier models.

• Improved soldier face proportions to reduce clipping with headgear.

• Improved ragdoll physics. Ragdolls now maintain momentum in the direction the character was moving.

• Improved footstep volume balancing across different stances.

• Improved third-person animations.

• Fixed and improved several animations.

• Reworked Soviet railway station models with interiors and destruction.

• Improved performance of [c] setTimeOfDay [/c] and [c] setTimeAndWeather [/c] in the scripting system.

• Changed Steam API integration to help address cases where some Chinese clients could not properly connect Steam with Easy Red 2.

• Downgraded the Steam SDK version in an attempt to improve compatibility with older Steam clients that cannot update, especially some Chinese Steam client versions.

• Improved localizations.

• Fixed various clothing issues.

• General code cleanup and stability improvements.

• Various smaller bug fixes.

Wishlist Easy Red 2: Blood on the Danube!

Our next DLC, Easy Red 2: Blood on the Danube, is now available to wishlist on Steam!

Fight through the final brutal months of the Eastern Front in Hungary, from the Siege of Budapest to the Konrad Offensives and Operation Spring Awakening. Expect harsh winter battles, late-war armored warfare, and intense street-to-street combat, new Hungarian and Romanian factions, new weapons, vehicles, aircraft, and more than 30 missions across two new maps in the most content-dense DLC we have ever made!

Easy Red 2 Blood on the Danube A special thanks to Giuseppe Rava for creating the dedicated artwork for this DLC and bringing this chapter of Easy Red 2 to life with his incredible historical illustration style! Wishlist it now and get notified when it releases!

Additional Blood on The Danube Teasers

Vehicles

Here are Some of the Hungarian tanks that will be in the DLC. Pictured here is the Turan I, Turan II, Zrinyi I, and Zrinyi II. Also planned to come in the DLC will be the Toldi I and Toldi II as well as the 40M Nimród.

While many new planes were added recently for the Germans and Soviets, some variants of these planes will be locked behind the new DLC, as they only appear that late in the war: Examples include the Bf-109G14/U4, the Fw 190 F-8/R3, the IL-2 1943 and 1943 NS-37, as well as the aformentioned Yak-9K and Yak-9T variants.

Weapons

Many new weapons are being added within and alongside this DLC. Among these additions includes the Hungarian Solothurn S2-200 light machine gun, a derivative of the MG-30 as well as its derivatives, (31.M and 43.M). Besides this, 4 other LMGs are being added in this DLC. Look forward to it!

Uniforms

German M43 uniforms for the Heer and Waffen-SS are being added, among over 100 new other clothing pieces to be used in the DLC for the German, Hungarian, Soviet, and Romanian factions alike, some seen in previous update posts.

Maps and Missions: Budapest

Budapest is nearing completion, such with the completion of this DLC. Spanning 5x5 a kilometer map, the urban areas of the city (including both Buda and Pest) themselves make up approximately 2.3-2.5 square kilometers total. This will be the largest scale map in Easy Red 2 history.

Features and content planned to come over the current year!

You can read about all of our plans on our Roadmap here:

view Thanks for reading and sticking with us all this time... see you July 15th!

Marco and the Easy Red 2 Development Team