v1900

The Lost Metro

Chicago, Illinois

You have been here before.

"Focus on the screens. Let the images guide you back."

The Metro you knew was the boundary. This is what lies beyond it.

NEW ENTITY ALERT

Designation: “THE CEILINGMAN”

Classification: HAZARD

Threat Vector: Overhead Ambush / Vertical Predation

CHARACTERISTICS

• Stationary entity anchored to ceiling surfaces

• Extended prehensile tongue used to snatch personnel from below Targets are pulled upward and consumed

• Frequently mistaken for structural debris

ENCOUNTER PROTOCOL

• Maintain constant overhead awareness Avoid lingering in dark, narrow spaces

• If seized: SEVER THE TONGUE IMMEDIATELY Boltcutters required to escape

Failure to disengage results in fatal consumption

WORKFORCE ENVIRONMENTAL ALERT: WHITEOUT

Environmental stability has degraded beyond forecasted thresholds.

Dense fog saturation and snow infiltration have reduced visibility and erased environmental landmarks. Interior spaces no longer provide insulation from the cold.

Heat loss accelerates rapidly during exposure. Proximity to fire barrels is required to maintain body temperature.

NOTICE: The Endless Winter has entered an unanticipated escalation phase. Remaining survival windows are narrowing. Long-term survival probabilities have declined beyond projected limits.

Resource acquisition is now mandatory under all environmental conditions. Supplies recovered directly support continued survival initiatives.

Casualties are expected.

Operational failure is not.

Explosive Ordinance Authorization

Volatile demolition equipment approved for limited field use

• Thrown explosive with an approximately 3-second fuse

• Entities caught within the blast radius will be eliminated

• PERSONNEL WARNING: Workforce exposure within the blast radius will result in immediate fatality

• STABILITY WARNING: Dynamite is unstable. Rapid movement while handling may trigger premature detonation, resulting in immediate fatality

USE WITH EXTREME CAUTION

Valentine’s Observation

Command has permitted a brief acknowledgment of pre-collapse tradition within the metro carriage.

• Valentine’s bunting has been hung throughout the train

• A box of chocolates has been placed for workforce consumption

• A decorative candy bowl has been added

Some bonds are not so easily frozen.

Effective period: February 14th – February 21st

The Spider

• Increased the Spider's hearing multiplier from 2.3x to 2.4x

• The Spider can now hear player proximity voice chat again

• Removed the Spider's sensing ability. This system was originally added to help the Spider track players when alerted due to its lack of vision, but it caused unintended behavior. In some cases, it resulted in unfair player deaths and caused the Spider to incorrectly target players directly instead of sound sources such as thrown soda cans

Cosmetics

• Added Patch and Pin bundle for community member Uncle Larry in recognition of their art contributions in the Discord server (use code: unclelarry)

• Added Spider Butcher shipping art Pin - art by Uncle Larry (use code: spiderxbutcher)

Codes can be redeemed in the"Edit User"menu from the main menu

Changes

• Engine Update to Unity 6

• Added The Lost Metro destination

• Updated vegetation shader with wind effects, normal map support, rendering and lighting fixes, and performance optimizations

• Players now respawn if they die on the train while it is not stopped at a location

• Respawn timer changed from 8 seconds to 6 seconds

• Added a dedicated volume slider for train audio

• Spores no longer affect players while on the train

• Increased Spores risk-based loot value multiplier from 1.6x to 1.7x

• Reduced Hollow Spider hearing range from 3.6x to 2.4x

• Firecracker noise distance increased from 200 to 300 meters

• Gasmask and Pickaxe no longer spawn in Escape mode

• Increased loot value in the Warehouse and Mineshaft to better reflect their difficulty

• Plantation fireplace now provides warmth

• Increased Plantation fireplace lit chance from 50% to 65%

• Candles in the Plantation now have a chance to spawn lit, improving visibility in darker areas

• Vent added to Metro mega cell

• Data Deck transcend sound is now networked and audible to all players

• Updated textures for the candy bowl

• Candy bowl cooldown reduced to 3 seconds (was 6 seconds)

• Removed a leftover manually placed landmine from the bunker elevator cell, predating the procedural landmine system

• Optimized procedural landmine spawn and cleanup logic

• Introduced procedural Ceilingman spawns across all locations, with location-specific spawn chances

• Added the ability to cut the Ceilingman’s tongue using boltcutters to escape when grabbed

• Entities can now be killed by explosions

  Due to time constraints for this update, some entities will disappear on death until animations are completed

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the player's backpack would be dropped during end-of-run execution

• Fixed an issue where The Abandoned One could attempt to execute players cocooned by the Spider

• Fixed an issue where The Abandoned One could attempt to execute players being carried by the Butcher

• Fixed the self-revive prompt to display the correct keybind instead of the hardcoded “M2”

• Fixed an issue where the soda can could sometimes be thrown from an incorrect position instead of the player's hand

• Fixed an issue where scaffolding prefabs were not appearing in a Metro cell

• Fixed oversized colliders on Pentagon chairs that prevented looting nearby items

• Fixed an issue where the swimming pool water in the Hotel appeared black and lacked lighting

• Fixed a Hotel wall light not being affected by Blackout

• Fixed an issue where props behind the Supply Officer were static and did not move with the train

• Removed a bunker blast door debug log that was impacting map generation speed slightly

• Fixed the Examiner’s shader causing slight transparency

• Added a safety check when syncing location data to late joiners

• Fixed an improperly configured light under fire particles that was impacting performance

• Optimized networking by removing synchronization of object Fairy ID's, reducing unnecessary bandwidth usage

• Fixed proximity chat logging so only errors are logged, preventing an unnecessary stutter

• Fixed excessive warning logs across multiple systems and netcode methods, slightly improving performance

• Internal reworks to lobby creation and joining to improve stability when connecting

Procedural World Generation Fixes

• Optimized network object spawning during procedural world generation to prevent redundant spawn attempts

• Fixed an issue where cells were being respawned every batch iteration, resulting in excessive network calls

• Performance impact - removes thousands of redundant spawn attempts during generation (for example, ~2,500 avoided when generating 500 cells across 10 batches in internal testing)

• Result - faster world generation and reduced network overhead

While we had no plans for further major updates, this one felt necessary.

Thank you for being here for it.

An altar of static.

It does not respond to crowds.

It responds to devotion.

Past the boundary, it waits.