Samson - NEW UPDATE IS LIVE - Update #7

Hi all!

Today we're releasing a fresh update focused on combat refinements, QoL improvements, bug fixes, and overall polish across the game.

Before diving into the details, we want to thank everyone who played and supported our previous major update, Welcome to The Pit. Seeing you explore the new content, share feedback, and continue enjoying the game has been incredibly motivating for the team.

This update is more about improving the core experience. We've spent time refining combat feel, addressing community reported issues and improving performance.

As always, we'd love to hear what you think. Please continue sharing your feedback, suggestions, and bug reports on the Steam forums or in our community Discord: https://discord.com/invite/xPHpQgKUwG We read everything and your feedback continues to play a role in shaping the game.

One final note: after this update, we'll be taking a little bit of a longer break from releasing updates as much of the team heads off for summer vacations. Development isn't stopping, but update releases will be less frequent for a while. We appreciate your patience and support, and we're looking forward to returning refreshed and ready to continue improving the game.

Thank you for playing, and we hope you enjoy the update!

Below you'll find the full build notes: Combat

• Adjusted enemy turn-taking to improve overall combat pacing

• Heavy attacks have been tuned and got their range increased to increase their usefulness and make them more rewarding to use.

• Tuned stun times on all player attacks to avoid undesired interruptions of player attacks and flow.

• Parry has been tuned to be more rewarding to use and give players more time for different types of follow-ups.

• The light attack combo now flows better and is more responsive.

• Adjusted camera framing of combat camera slightly.

• Improved reliability of crush hazards

• Fixed some cases where an environmental hazard could cause a killed NPC to end up intersecting a wall.

• Fixed some cases where a hazard would trigger a second death animation.

• Fixed perfect parry sometimes playing the wrong animation.

• Perfect parry is now uninterruptible.

• Made NPCs bumping into other NPCs smoother.

• Player messaging for enemy attacks. Can be disabled in options.

  • Attackers glint yellow for parryable attacks. Attackers glint red for unparryable attacks.

  • RemovedEnvironmental hazards are highlighted in the world during combat. (NOTEdisabled on non-RTX graphics cards for now due to a bug)

Steam post image Steam post image

Localization

• Began testing Simplified Chinese localization. Feedback is greatly appreciated!

• Further refinements to Russian localization

Greet / Taunt

A small but perhaps little known feature that has been in the game since launch is the ability to Taunt enemies in combat using C / D-Pad Down.This is mostly there for light role playing purposes. With this update, you can now Greet or Taunt most regular NPCs out of combat as well. Standing in close proximity of a non-combatant and performing this action will result in a neutral greet and response, while doing so near a combatant such as a Grim Skull or Crow Lane gang member will result in a taunt that might lead to combat.

Visualizing Locked AP Slots

In order to help drive awareness that you can unlock additional Action Points, we are now showing locked AP Slots in the top right UI widget. You should now clearly be able to see that you start the game at 6 AP (2/2/2 for Noon/Evening/Night) and that you can grow to a maximum of 9 AP (2/3/4.) Steam post image

Visualizing your locked AP Slots. Unlock these to earn additional AP by interacting with POIs in South End.

Additional Save States

We save the game automatically in a number of situations. With this update, we are adding more such situations, so that the game should now in general be saved more frequently. The original save states are:

• When you bring up the detailed information from a Mission Starter in the world

• When you successfully complete a Mission

• When you Accept Defeat in a Mission

• When you wake up at the Clinic after KO

• When you wake up from Sleep

• When you have completed a Cab Fare

• When exiting Floyd’s Garage

With this update, we are also adding the following save states:

• When you have interacted with a POI (Point of Interest)

• When you have picked up a Combat Mag or a Car Mag

• When you have burned a White Whisper Stash

• When exiting a normal (i.e. not Floyd’s) Garage

  • For any of the above states, we only save if you are not in a Mission, not in combat, and some other checks for safety reasons

Additional Messaging

• Added input hints when on foot and not in combat for the new Greet / Taunt input, and for the Call Vehicle feature since that one has been proven easy to forget.

• Added a tutorial popup for when smashing your first alternate Auto Sandwich Board to make their gameplay effect clearer and added notifications when you smash them so you know whether they granted you a small Nitro top-up or a small repair of your vehicle.

• Added a reminder on Day 5 that you can unlock additional Action Points by collecting Points of Interest if you haven’t already done so.

• Added feedback showing the amount of money gained when picking up currency.

Bug Fixes and Tweaks

• FixedMissionFixed various issues with the “You Move me Man” Mission that could cause it to not progress on repeat attempts.
• FixedMissionFixed various issues with the “Bust out Barry” Mission that could cause it to instantly fail or progress incorrectly on repeat attempts.
• FixedMission “Am I My Brother’s Keeper”Fixed an issue where a 'Too Far Away' distance fail notification sometimes was activating wrongfully.

• Mission “Black Top Renegades”: The Mission will now complete even if you destroy the vehicles before finishing the beatdown.

• FixedMission “Skulls and Crossbones”Fixed cases of enemies getting stuck in rubble.

• Fixed an issue where the Debt Collectors would still be around in the parking lot or your apartment if you returned there directly after being knocked out by them.

• Fixed an issue where the Collectibles screen could show a higher number for certain items than what we are tracking for the purposes of Achievements and other unlocks.

• Moved first Action Point unlock earlier so that you only have to find 10 POIs to go from the starting 6 AP to 7.

• Chain-link fence climbing sound no longer plays incorrectly when interacting with certain unrelated objects.

• Vehicles no longer emit exhaust smoke when the engine is off.

• Added an updated Controls menu with aligned layout between Xbox and PS5 as well as an option to tab between On Foot and In Vehicle.

• Combat music now plays when you fight Debt Collectors, just like when you enter combat in Jobs or Missions.

• Hiding Nitro UI elements while driving a car that lacks the Nitro feature overall.

• The boombox in the streets now plays more upbeat music that better matches the dancing NPCs.

• Re-added the mysteriously missing dock by the harbour, allowing access to the POI on it once again.

• Improved vehicle entry behavior to prevent anyone from entering restricted seats, such as the driver’s seat or trunk.

• Improved hair physics.

Performance

• Reduced hitches on machines with fewer cores by improving how time slicing works during async PSO creation.

• Reduced hitches by general optimization, preloading vfx, improved parallelism and more.

• More general CPU and GPU optimizations.

• Optimized vegetation rendering.