Full Changelog by Durante - 1/17 Update

New improvements have been made to graphics, performance/stability, and input/UI. In addition, an experimental local co-op feature has been added to the game.

Check out all the exciting quality-of-life changes that are included in the available game update patch:

Full Changelog

GRAPHICS/PERFORMANCE

• Arbitrary main rendering resolution enabled

• Improved frame-pacing and animation sync accuracy at all framerates

• Improved menu opening/closing behavior

• Character and enemy animations now correctly timed at 100+ FPS

• Support for high-refresh monitors and >60 Hz V-sync

• Replaced ineffective anti-aliasing blur filter with high-quality screenspace AA

• Bloom, refraction, and glare post-processing effects now scale with resolution

• Minimap rendering resolution now adapts to rendering resolution, preventing pixelated map at high resolution

• Greatly improved quality of menu backgrounds (replacing low-res screen capture)

• Improved standard shadow filtering without performance loss, plus two new, higher quality filter options

• Added option for rendering additional environment shadows

• Added supersampling/subsampling option (which also affects secondary 3D rendering)

• Improved shadow rendering performance by preventing unnecessary memory traffic

• Fixed animation speed of HUD elements at >30 FPS (e.g. full health bar)

• Improved the quality of volumetric lighting

• Implemented HBAO+ ambient occlusion as alternative higher-quality SSAO option

• Added a draw distance setting which applies to grass/clutter, monsters and NPCs

• Implemented anisotropic filtering setting

• Added high-quality texture pack (generated from original sources, partially with AI upsampling, and full mipmaps)

• Character poses in the equip menu now update at >30 FPS

INPUT/UI

• Improved camera mouse controls, replacing joystick emulation with direct 1:1 control

• Movement keys are now individually bindable

• Added keybinding for walking (slow movement) with keyboard/mouse controls

• Changed default bindings to fit common usage by PC gamers

STABILITY

• Fixed multiple video memory leaks

• Fixed potential crash when switching between languages

• Switched to 64-bit build to prevent address space fragmentation issues in long sessions

• Improved render thread synchronization to prevent specific types of race condition crashes

• Removed superfluous asset encryption

MISCELLANEOUS

• Fixed unlocking of some achievements when playing with mouse/keyboard controls

• Fixed several typos and dialogue/text issues throughout the game

• Fixed slightly-too-low cloud save limit when using a very large number of saves

CO-OP MODE (Experimental)

• 2-Player local co-op mode has been added

About coop mode:

• Need to supply two Xinput controllers

• You must have 2 or more characters in the party in order for the second player to join the game.

• SP is shared

• Second player does not receive the “AI cheats” (ie. AI controlled characters only take half damage, whereas second player in co-op mode will take the full amount of damage.)

• Not officially supported and limited support will be available for troubleshooting

To enable co-op mode:

• Open Steam libraries through the Steam client

• Right-click on Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA, and click “Properties”

• Click “Set Launch Options”

• Input “--coop” into the parameter and click “OK.”

• Launch the game

• Press “Start” on the second controller to enable second player