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Hello Hunters!
It’s hard to ignore more than 2,000 players. That's how many of you have completed our survey so far! So we sat down, looked at what you liked, what you disliked and what you wanted, and put a plan together for getting it done.
Sadly, we can’t do everything. And not everything we can do or plan to do made it onto this list. What it should do is give you a clear idea of what the next update for ZERO Sievert should look like and how we’re planning to make the wasteland a little better.
Enemy AI Is Being Re-Built
Enemy AI comes up in every feedback channel we have. The survey, Steam reviews, YouTube comments... You type it, we see it.
The current system has a ton of spaghetti in it. And instead of keeping that and hanging more rules off it, we’re rewriting it from the ground up. The goal is an experience that actually makes sense. Enemies that feel like they’re hunting you, not running laps around a bush because a script lost track of where you were.
It isn’t only individuals getting smarter. Enemies will work together. They’ll move as a squad, flank you and try to run you down as a group instead of taking turns walking into your sightline. That’s the kind of fight you’re supposed to have in the Zone.
A lot of you said late-game combat stopped feeling like a hunt and started feeling like the same sprite with a better gun. That’s fair. So this is us tearing the current behaviour apart so the next version has somewhere to stand.
Good luck. You’re gonna need it...
More Guns
Enemies need something to carry, right? More content sat at the top of the list. And at the top of that list were guns, ammo and accessories.
Right now the plan is to get more guns in. One, some, however many we can get over the line properly. If new ammo or accessories make it in the same pass, even better! We’re not going to promise a whole armoury just because it polled well. We are going to put more fun boom sticks in your hands because that is the thing you already enjoy and then immediately asked for more of.
What guns would you like to see? Tell us in the comments. This is a real chance to see a favourite firearm, or for legal reasons a close approximation of one, make its way into ZERO Sievert.
Rabbit Footsteps
What the title says... Proper footstep sounds for rabbits. Finally.
Wildlife audio came up more than once, so rabbits are getting proper sounding footsteps. It was a small line in the survey and it comes up in more Steam reviews than we’d like to admit. So we’re fixing it.
Steam Deck
We’ve known for a while that the Steam Deck experience isn’t as good as it could be, and we’ve shipped updates aimed at the control scheme, usability and performance. The survey made it pretty clear that mobile Hunters still aren’t getting the experience they want.
We are aiming to do another pass, likely for an update beyond this one. But we wanted to let you know that we hear you and we’re working toward it.
Containers
We had some very specific feedback about containers. Clicking Collect on each one after a raid, especially when you’ve come back with a load of different ammo types, is a pain.
More specifically, we looked at a Collect All Containers option that would start every container collecting ammo at once. The problem is it would also hoover up the ammo you’re actually using. You’d collect everything, then have to put your active rounds back where they belong before you could go out again. That is not less housework. That is different housework.
We went down the rabbit hole of toggles, special slots and other ways to make the system work. It got to the point where the feature only existed to explain itself. Too many rules, too many checks and far too complicated for something that should be simple.
So for now, we’re not making any changes here.
What we’d recommend is to keep all of your containers on one stash page. After a raid, right-click the new ammo onto that same page. When the page is full, and it will likely take a fair few raids to fill a page with a random collection of ammo, click Collect on each container. It isn’t elegant. It is faster than doing it after every single raid.
If we find a version of this that doesn’t create a new mess, we’ll look at it again. In the meantime one of the talented community modders might build a better solution. If you do, we’d love to see it.
Co-op
Finally, co-op. We’ve toed the same line on this since shortly after the 1.0 release. We will not be adding multiplayer to ZERO Sievert 1. That has not changed.
What has changed is the community. There are some genuinely fantastic mods that bring a co-op experience into the game. When we first saw them we were as surprised as we were excited. Talented modders built the thing a lot of you have been asking for, in the game you already own. That is awesome.
It still doesn’t mean officially supported multiplayer is coming to ZERO Sievert 1. Co-op for us sits with ZERO Sievert 2. If you want to run Zakov with a friend in the game right now, check those mods out and catch the train.
Thank you again to everyone who completed the survey. If you want to add more feedback, please do. We run reports on it periodically, so we will see your comments and review them. There’s a link below if you want to do it now. If you’ve already filled it in and have more to say about what you love, loathe or want to see, complete it again. And leave a Steam review while you’re at it.
Survey: https://forms.gle/dXaNbndMxXNuS6DGA
If you'd rather watch than read this update, check out the video here:
[dynamiclink href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdcR98Yq9iE"]
If you or your friends haven't yet bought ZERO Sievert, get it now on Steam with 30% off:
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1782120/ZERO_Sievert/"]Stay safe Hunters. See you in the Zone!
