Hello everyone!
Thanks again for all the reports and suggestions you've been sending since launch. We've been busy behind the counter, and this update brings a new Difficulty tab, a bigger drink menu, a much clearer Streamer Mode and a big round of performance improvements.
🎚️ Difficulty & Game Rules
New Difficulty tab in Options: you can now change your save's difficulty and game rules at any time while playing.
Difficulty and most rule changes take effect at the start of the next day, so your current shift is never turned upside down.
New game rule: Wiping pushes items. Turn it off and the cloth slides over glasses and money instead of sweeping them off the table. It's off by default on Cozy Nook.
🍹 Bar & Gameplay
Drink menu capacity doubled from 8 to 16 slots.
Rebalanced healing and sobering: how much a drink heals now depends on how strong it is. A bottled lager heals about half, and the strongest cocktails give a full heal. Healing is also faster.
Coffee and Coke now sober customers up gradually instead of instantly.
Customers are no longer seated at counter spots where a fridge, barrel or other surface item blocks the serving space (no more drinks served into fridges!).
The "Pay all employees" quest now also counts when you pay everyone one by one.
Fixed staff and customers getting stuck around Drink Shelves.
The Property app is clearer: it only lists the requirements you still need, and rooms aren't shown as locked when you just need more money.
🌳 Garden
6 new topiary decorations: Cat, Chicken, Dog, Duck, Parrot and Unicorn.
Rebalanced garden decoration values.
Improved garden lighting and atmosphere.
📺 Streamer Mode & Twitch
Your Twitch status is now always visible: Streamer Mode shows whether you're Live, Connecting, Reconnecting or have an error on the main menu, in the Multiplayer lobby and in the pause menu.
Streamer Mode is now also available in the Multiplayer lobby and the pause menu (Settings is now called Options).
No more separate "Enable Twitch integration" toggle: linking your channel turns Twitch on.
Clear messages when Twitch isn't running, for example when you've joined someone else's game (Twitch only runs in the host's game) or linked your channel after the game started.
Much more reliable reconnection: if Twitch drops mid-stream, the viewer queue and HUD are kept, polls pause and live events pick back up once the connection returns.
Viewers now join your bar more often by default (every 2nd customer group instead of every 3rd). You can still change this in Options.
🐎 Horse Betting
Revamped betting screen with a livelier countdown, a "race started" notice, the finish order shown live and a TV-style winner panel with confetti.
Smoother screen transitions and a clearer bet selection.
🎸 Instruments & Characters
Strumming is now synced in co-op for all instruments, not just the guitar.
New electric guitar sounds, and instruments are now louder.
Voice selection: choose between two player voices (with preview) in the avatar creator.
The "Bartender" button on the Multiplayer screen is now called "Edit Character".
🖥️ Graphics & Performance
New Render Scale option with AMD FSR (100%, 85%, 75%, 67% and 50%). A great boost on lower-end PCs, laptops and Steam Deck.
Big performance pass: optimized shaders for liquids, bottles, foliage and most bar materials, lighter lighting and shadow costs, and lower CPU cost for item physics, name tags and UI.
Improved bloom and post-processing.
Polished loading screen: no more double loading screen, flicker or frozen progress mug, plus the new logo and fonts.
⚙️ More
Added a 12/24-hour clock option.
Options now always opens with every tab available.
The returning demo player message has been reworded and now only appears for players without a full game save.
Fixed aMart sorting items by price.
Fixed the Print Shop floor and flyer ads falling under it.
Lots of smaller fixes and stability improvements.
💬 You Asked, We Listened
A lot of this update came straight from your posts in the Steam Discussions:
"8 drinks on the menu isn't enough": the limit is now 16.
Waiters getting stuck around Drink Shelves: fixed. Drink Shelves are now properly avoided by staff and customers.
FPS drops and hitching: this update includes our biggest optimization pass so far, plus the new Render Scale (FSR) option.
"How do I buy the next room?": the Property app now only lists the requirements you still need. Rooms you can't afford yet are no longer shown as locked.
Stuck on the "Pay everyone" quest: paying every employee one by one now counts too.
Changing difficulty mid-save: now possible from the new Difficulty tab.
🔜 What We're Working On Next
We're reading every thread. Here's what's coming next, based on your most requested features and reports:
More staff, starting with Cleaners to help with the never-ending dishes. Bouncers and Bartenders will follow.
Staff will prefer the emptier sink when you have more than one.
A bucket for dealing with puking customers.
Changing your bar's floor textures.
Fixing the Coke's recommended glass.
More performance work, and ongoing investigation into crashes on some AMD GPUs and at launch.
Also on our radar: custom jukebox music, an option to keep chairs in place, and public lobbies.
If you run into a crash, please send us your Player.log through Discord to us as DMs or at [email protected] via e-mail. It helps us track issues down much faster.
Please keep the reports coming! We read every thread and every Discord message, and they directly shape what we work on next.
See you behind the bar! 🍸
Proto Division & Rock Paper Publisher
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/4159680/Barfender_COOP_Bar_Simulator/"]
