Winter Blow Up Part 2 - Where is it?!

Good afternoon everyone! We're happy to announce that the final part of the Winter Blow Up Update is almost ready to be released within the next week! This part has been a long time coming for a number of reasons, mainly due to performance improvements and large-scale bug fixes as well as working to make sure that the long promised third level is ready for its initial release.

What's included in the Update?

• Hudson City First of all, the third map is included in this update. Named "Hudson City", this level is the largest destructible level that is currently available. It features a large number of tall skyscraper buildings and small townhouse blocks allowing for large amounts of verticality. Some of the buildings may be replaced and objects added/removed in the future to improve the look and flow of the level based off of your feedback. We have also decided to update the loading screen snapshots for all of the level to be more interesting to the player. Here is a look at the new loading screens for each of the current levels: Nevada Ranges Serenity Falls Hudson City

• Steam Achievements We are proud to announce that the game now supports Steam Achievements which will go live with the release of the update. The first batch will include seven achievements that the player can unlock straight away, but we plan on adding more to the game as it continues to evolve. As always, we are open to suggestions from players regarding Achievements which can be added!

• Projectile Unlock Requirements To tie in with the new achievement system, we have also decided to add Unlock Requirements to the projectiles. These are actions that the player has to perform in-game before they are able to purchase the projectile. This will not affect projectiles that you have already unlocked, so projectiles that have requirements introduced will still be unlocked if you have previously purchased them. As with the achievements, we will add new requirements to projectiles as more content is added to the game. We hope that this will be a positive addition to the progression system within Megaton!

• Streamlined Camera System A new camera system has been implemented to reduce the number of camera-related bugs which have occurred, as well as to allow for the easy addition of a Cinematic Camera System in the next update. All of the camera views are now just one camera repositioned in the world to stop bugs from occuring when multiple cameras were being enabled and disabled across different areas of a level.

• Sound Fixes Over the previous few weeks, it has come to our attention that the sound levels for new players was VERY high. This was from a bug in the early versions of the Options Menu and Options saving feature where the audio levels would default to 100% when a new game had been started. Audio bugs within the game have also been fixed when a fast moving projectile is manouvered around the scene. Before, audio tearing could be heard when the player entered aftershock and started to quickly manouver the projectile, due to the game having audio listeners on every camera in the level. The multiple audio listeners would all 'hear' the 3D Sounds from different distances and the resulting noises lead to the tearing effect. This has now been fixed thanks to the streamlined camera system.

After the Update

So now that the levels we had planned for the North American region are finished, we are going to start working on the next region of the game. It will also contain three levels, working up in a similar style with the first level being relatively small, and building up to a final large level to close the region. Along with these new levels, we will revamp the main menu and level select screen. Here is some of the artwork our artist Matt has already mocked up for one of the new levels! As mentioned earlier, we are also going to work on implementing and adding a Cinematic Camera System. This is so that the epic explosions can be viewed from mutliple angles in styles similar to that see in games like GTA5. We expect this process to take at least a month, but any bugs or major issues will be fixed a lot quicker in smaller hotfixes. We look forward to releasing these new updates! - Jamie