April 2024 Patch Notes

Welcome Sky Captains!

We have had a hard worked month, and there is a lot to show off with our migration to Unreal Engine 5.3 further behind us now. Key bindings have been a large focus through April, and we have the ability now to use controllers!

Key Mappings

This is the one I’m most excited about myself. We saw this begin last month, and this month we’ve seen the results in our beta test environment for our Friday beta tests. Former issues with remapping the mouse buttons have been resolved in a series of updates this month, and a new set of bindings has been made available for all commands in game(allowing easy access to controllers and partial support for joysticks). Come test with us!

Weapons Update

Missiles have had several fixes and changes this month. A target detection now takes into account the path of the missile and explosion effects. The intercept direction of the missile is calculated by taking into account the missile's acceleration, and its relative velocity between the missile and the target. This makes missiles that work more as you’d expect missiles to operate.

The projectiles from the shotgun, rifle, and machine gun now go through friendly shields.

Another fix for April is that missiles now explode on enemy shields, so keep those shields up Sky Captains!

Visual Effects

Muzzleflash effects for the shotgun, rifle, and machinegun have been cleaned up and optimized, as have smoke effects you’ll see in the game.

Surface types have been added, and surface effects have been implemented in a system that will now differentiate surface types for more variation as you shoot into walls and other surfaces.

Party and Chat System

Notifications have been added for chat messages.

The Party system has been created to allow you to easily join your friends. A chat system has been recreated as well for in game communication. There were some challenges with getting this chat system to operate properly in all menus and across Sky Link: Freefire globally, though with our latest update in April the chat system is much more robust and stable.

A few of the many improvements from April

While playing, after a moment the chat disappears completely Long messages are autowrapped to the following line The last channel you’ve used remains the default when chat is opened An icon has been added to let you know when you have an unread message / notification Added a notification in the case of an error when inviting someone to your party Number added to unread messages so you can see how many are waiting Limitation added to prevent sending messages to all during PreMatch Fixed an issues closing the chat box Party chat no longer shows you the messages you send Mouse cursor issues with the chat interface have been resolved

Notable Updates

The Deathmatch Tally screens’ issues with presenting all drone’s thumbnails have been resolved. The thumbnail images would fail to load if anyone had joined late or left the match prematurely. When you see the final screen, you can now recognize each player’s drone.

We’ve reworked our official Reddit. You can now provide suggestions, ideas, and feedback through our new Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/PlaySkyLink/

We have a public roadmap available so you can see the direction our developers are taking in real time! https://trello.com/b/nxt4Kfo3/sky-link-roadmap

Friday Playtests

During our Friday event we do beta testing; checking balance in game while learning to master the finer mechanics of flight. Sky Link: Freefire is difficult to master, though truly easy to pick up and just play.

This last week we had more playtesters than we could fit in a single match! I’ve met so many awesome individuals and I’ve been honored to fly alongside each of you. Thank you for all the support and I hope to meet many more incredible people throughout May.

Last Friday’s playtest was shared on Youtube live, and can be viewed here: https://youtube.com/live/OyvRivwr6Ws?feature=share

We get together every Friday at 1 PM PST, and it’d be awesome if you could stop by and check it out with us! Join the Sky Link: Freefire discord at the link discord.gg/playskylink