Hello Soldiers!
Update 2.1.0 is now available. It rebuilds a large part of the interface, improves vehicle and infantry AI, refines pathfinding, adds two new infantry systems, and makes tank sights more historically accurate — along with new vehicles, improvements in road system, and a long list of fixes.
Quick Summary
Rebuilt Interface: Main menu, faction selection, respawn menu, and in-game HUD
Better Vehicle AI: Pathfinding, unstuck behavior, and driving through obstacles
Deployable Bipods: Locking in the gun to a height and sticking there much more consistently
Auto-Peek Over Cover: Around corners and over low walls not able to be aimed over normally.
Reworked Tank Sights: Most tank scopes were reworked to be more accurate in reticle and zoom level to their real life equivalent.
Road System On Old Maps: The newer road system is now used in Shanghai, Nanking, Stalingrad and Balaton and with many new QoL details added.
Hundreds of Mission Balance Changes: All missions now have repair stations and most have been made much more balanced, especially including those in the pacific.
New vehicles, including the Wespe, SOMUA S35 and F6F-3 Hellcat, plus reworked Panzer IVs with many new variants.
New Spectating Camera Mode in Respawn Menu
A Rebuilt Interface
The interface is one of the part of Easy Red 2 you have often asked us to improve, especially in the recent poll, and it received the single largest share of work in this update. The faction selection menu, the respawn menu and the in-game HUD have all been rebuilt, and the main menu gained a notification area for beta information and error reporting.
The respawn menu changed the most: information is presented far more clearly, the menu refreshes itself when the situation on the field changes, and camera angles have been reworked for better framing.
An optional automatic spectating cinematic camera can now run in the background while you choose where to deploy. Vehicle seats show the role of the soldier occupying them instead of a generic label, and battle information such as reinforcements, sector, and objective type is now fully localized.
The objective conquer bar has been rebuilt and is now fully scriptable through Lua. Mission creators can add custom values and icons to it, or hide sections such as the phase advancement display. This is particularly useful for non-linear scripted missions.
Squad markers now use more specific symbols, so squad types can be told apart at a glance. They also fade when out of focus and are hidden behind obstacles.
New UI customization options have also been added in order to allow players to find their favorite balance between immersion and UI information.
Vehicle & Infantry AI
Vehicle AI received a round of improvements: better pathfinding, better unstuck behavior, faster routes to their destinations, and more sensible clearance around small obstacles. Vehicles can now also traverse some trenches and rubble instead of treating them as walls.
On top of that, a new system lets AI vehicles drive through destructible props such as sandbags, barbed wire, fences, street lights, and small walls, rather than stopping dead in front of them or trying to path all the way around.
Infantry AI also received various improvements in order to act more tactically, more accurately throw grenades and use AT weapons, and various overall polishing to make the game experience more immersive than ever.
New Infantry Systems
Bipod Deployment
Weapons fitted with a bipod can now be deployed on cover with a completely redesigned system.
Aim on top of a suitable surface such as a low wall, a sandbag, a window sill, or the ground while prone, and the bipod settles onto its legs, cutting recoil and sway dramatically. Your view then pivots around the bipod itself rather than around your soldier, so traversing the weapon feels much more like handling mounted gun.
The system ships with a generic animation set that works retroactively with every weapon that has a bipod, including modded and Workshop weapons. Dedicated per-weapon animations are going to be added progressively, and will eventually cover reloads and barrel changes performed with the bipod still deployed; until a weapon has its own set, it simply lifts off its support to reload.
The third-person upgrade of deployed bipods is planned for a later upgrade.
Auto Peek
Aiming while behind cover now makes your soldier peek out on their own: leaning around a corner or rising over a low wall, and drops you back down as soon as you stop aiming. The system reads the geometry around you before committing, so you will lean out with a good sightline rather than still being obstructed by the wall at all.
Third-Person Movement Style
Third person now offers a "Camera-Relative" movement mode alongside the original "Aim-Relative" one.
With Aim-Relative, your soldier always faces where the camera is looking and moves relative to their own body.
With Camera-Relative, they run wherever you push the stick or press keys while the camera stays free to look somewhere else, and only turn to face the target once you start aiming.
A new option lets you choose how your soldier moves and turns in third person, so you can pick the handling you prefer instead of being tied to a single behavior.
Reworked Tank Sights
Vehicle and static gun sights have been reworked. Each gun now uses a reticle matching its nation and caliber instead of a generic reticle, and zoom levels have been recalculated against real optics data, so magnification now matches more appropriately what the original gunner would have seen. Tank sights also dim at night.
The reticles themselves are still being refined, so expect further polish in the coming updates.
Improved Roads
The new road system is now in use in many maps. These roads are not only more optimized, but allow us to add sidewalks, making cities like Shanghai, Stalingrad, and Nanking feels much more alive.
Roads are built as a network of connected nodes that generates its mesh rather than a decal and automatically creating 3- or 4-way junctions, producing cleaner intersections and letting roads follow the terrain more properly.
Also now available in the Map Editor, the road tool also received some additional quality-of-life work: deleting a node now automatically selects the adjacent one, so removing a whole stretch of road no longer means reselecting a node after every deletion.
Full Changelog
New Features and Content:
Interface
New faction selection menu.
New respawn menu, with an optional automatic cinematic camera.
Reworked in-game player HUD.
New objective conquer bar, fully scriptable through Lua.
New main menu notification area for beta information and error display.
Improved squad marker system with more identifiable and specific symbols.
Gameplay and Options
New bipod deployment system in first person.
New Auto Peek system for cover and corners.
New Third-Person Movement Style option.
New quick inventory actions (hold F) and quick inventory transfer (right click).
Vehicle zeroing can now be adjusted with the gamepad D-pad left/right while aiming down sights.
Weapons that support a bipod now gets one installed automatically in the in-game loadout selector.
Vehicles and Aircraft
Added the Sd.Kfz. 124 Wespe.
Added the SOMUA S35 along with German-converted version.
Added the F6F-3 Hellcat, now being added to Operation Flintlock, replacing the Wildcat. The Wildcat will remain in the Battle of Makin, however.
Reworked the Panzer IV family and distributed it across all campaigns where relevant.
Reworked the Daihatsu landing craft.
Reworked the Shōhatsu "Type B" landing craft.
Reworked the Citroën U23, also including German-produced camos and markings.
Reworked the PaK 38 textures.
Added a new Africa camouflage for French vehicles.
Added an invasion stripes camouflage option for Spitfires.
Added a new dust trail effect behind moving vehicles.
Environment and Maps
New road system added to most maps in the game, enhancing cityscapes and optimizing maps further.
Reworked Normandy Farm, Normandy Barn 2 and Normandy Barn 3.
Added new Screwpine plants and new rock variants.
Added new US helmet variants for the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions, with all other M1 helmets now receiving randomized chin straps.
Editor and Modding
The objective conquer bar can be scripted through Lua, including custom values, custom icons, and hidden sections.
Map Editor road tool: deleting a node now automatically selects the adjacent one.
The animation tester now works with all GenericGun-derived weapons and includes every compatible override animation, including bipod and magazine variants.
Fixes and Improvements:
Vehicles and AI
Improved AI pathfinding and vehicle unstuck capabilities.
Improved vehicle AI path following and travel times.
Vehicles now keep a greater distance from small obstacles in certain situations.
Vehicles can now traverse some trenches and rubble props.
Tank sights now get darker at night.
Visuals
Improved grass wind effect.
Improved rain: better droplets, stronger wind during rainfall, and random lightning in the clouds.
Improved various visual effects.
Improved the German first-person running animation.
Reworked the Type 96 LMG scope sight.
Fixed the sun ray effect not working on Linux, and improved the effect in general.
Fixed tree branches flickering on macOS.
Fixed 3D markers appearing bouncy during fast camera movement.
Fixed issues with some tree destruction.
Interface and Localization
Battle information in the respawn menu (reinforcements, sector, attack and defense, weather) is now localized.
Vehicle seats now show the role of the soldier occupying them instead of a generic passenger label.
Added mission localizations for Hungarian and Korean language settings.
Fixed various icons for vehicles and items.
Numerous localization fixes and smaller interface polish passes.
Missions and Stability
Almost all missions have been rebalanced to be fairer or winnable by each side. Some missions previously (such as those in the pacific) were much harder for one side versus another. Vehicle selection, spawn distance, loadout diversity and equipment has been modified for many factions across the entire game.
Some Stalingrad missions were renamed, and Stalingrad given a proper tree. Most missions in Stalingrad have also had many additions such as the Soviet use of lend-lease vehicles such as the M3 Lee, M3 Stuart, and occasional Matilda tanks. In general, a bit of a "soft-rework" of many missions has occurred, being the same missions but feeling upgraded from before.
Both Spring Awakening and Operation Konrad campaigns have had large reworks to mission balance and design in some cases.
Increased time of day variety including night or dusk for some missions
All missions now offer infantry spawns
New motorized/mechanized spawns for some phases with longer distances to cross
More phases to some missions, so walking distance between some phases is lower
Increased variety of phase "type", i.e. less frontal assaults, more envelopment attacks, ambushes
Tuning of difficulty for some phases which were too easy or hard (sometimes adds new vehicle spawns)
A few entirely new built-up areas for new objectives (extra farmhouses, extensions to existing villages, new trench lines)
Lots of minor pieces of cover added to many fields; visually interesting and helps infantry cross open ground
New Wespe vehicle added in places
Nightjager squads have AT capability
Improved network stability.
Fixed the keyboard button reassignment system on PlayStation.
Fixes in various missions and squads.
Various smaller bug fixes and several stability improvements.
Upcoming
US Pilot Uniforms
The US pilot uniform is being reworked, and instead of a single set covering every theatre it is being split into regional variants: US AAF, replacing the current uniform, a late-war US AAF version without the life vest, a US AAF Pacific variant, and a US Navy one. New squads will be added to make use of them.
Iwo Jima and Khalkhin Gol
Both campaigns announced in our roadmap are still in active development, and we are still aiming to release both before the end of the year. Neither will be sold as a separate paid DLC: they will arrive as part of the base game, or as free additions to the DLCs you already own.
Iwo Jima returns Easy Red 2 to the Pacific in 1945 and covers the full battle rather than ending at Mount Suribachi, with difficult amphibious landings, close-quarters infantry fighting, fortified bunkers, caves, and a dedicated system of underground tunnels forming part of the Japanese defensive network.
Khalkhin Gol takes the game to the largely overlooked 1939 border conflict between Soviet-Mongolian and Japanese forces, with large early-war armored battles fought across open steppe.
Alongside them, the larger Normandy rework is still planned, with more info below.
Normandy Rework in Progress
Work on the larger Normandy rework has started. The mission updates and new intros that shipped in earlier updates were groundwork rather than the rework itself: this pass goes over the campaign properly, on the existing Normandy map, and will add five new missions on top of the ones already there.
Various buildings have been already reworked and new troops and vehicles added already in this and previous updates as well.
Omaha Beach: Vierville Draw/ Widerstandsnest 71, 72, 73, and 74
Pointe du Hoc:
Utah Beach: La Madeleine / Widerstandsnest 05
It is still in its earlier days but well underway. We will show more of it as it comes together!
THANK YOU FOR READING AND PLAYING!
You can read more about our plans in the development roadmap:
You can also join the Easy Red 2 community to share feedback, report issues, publish your creations, and follow future development updates:
Join Easy Red 2 Discord Community
Visit the Easy Red 2 Steam Workshop
Our latest released DLC
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/4563790/Easy_Red_2_Blood_on_the_Danube/"]
Thank you for reading, and we will see you on the battlefield!
Marco and the Easy Red 2 Development Team
