Zach Fries · FPS Systems Designer

Okay, so there has basically been a lot of work on the player character, so from minor things in terms of how actions automate into each other. So we have something called a sprint toggle now, which is the default, which essentially means if I'm sprinting and I shoot, I have sprint to fire, so I don't start shooting when I'm down here, it comes back up, it's natural, it feels good. Even the new sprint pose, which is up here, which includes head bob. All of these things massively improve the experience that you get as you play the game. Previously, in 2023, when we showed all the FPS improvements at CitizenCon, where you think backpack reloading, you think ammo reporting and things like that, we're running on these things in Squadron and obviously polishing them up for the release. And all of the things that we are working on in Squadron will come to the PU in future. The action matrix is the biggest one. We've got sprinting while reloading. We've really been spending a lot of time dialing in that FPS experience and making it feel really polished. And even sprinting now, it's a really big thing for me, because the gun goes down here, it goes off screen, you can't see it. When it's up here and you feel like you're running and things like that, it just feels a lot more polished. It's very nice. The FPS experience basically has been dialed in a lot more. There is a bunch of stuff which escapes the top of my head right now. You know, I accidentally deleted the question, I realized. So yeah, as we said, with movement accelerations, melee improvements, that's a big one. So hey, you're not randomly going to go in front of you anymore. There's nicer animations there, how it follows up feels better. Weapons having consistent slots, so for people who have to constantly switch around and do those things, I know it's very annoying, but that is now, cool, I have weapon one, I have weapon two, they have consistent slots. The action matrix, oh yeah, for example, sprinting and medpenning now: if you press sprint, you press your medpen button, you medpen, then you automatically go back to sprinting, so sprint toggle, beautiful. And oh, my favorite one, weapon raise 2.0. So as you know right now, if you go up to a surface, you do this. We now have a procedural back like that, and it's very, very nice. We've also moved the pushback point to the optic. So for people who want to aim over railings and shoot over railings, you can now do that. I mean, the FPS experience overall is far smoother to play. FPS AI has basically been overhauled. Francesco Roccucci and Chris Roberts have themselves been very involved in that process as well. Chris has been very keen on making the AI experience in Squadron, so they've been working very closely together. Entirely new audio setup for guns. The guns sound absolutely amazing. The audio work on them has been incredible. Not just the sound that you hear, but also the mixing. So that's basically how loud shots are, how they feel. So if someone's down the other hallway and they're firing, it sounds like they're down the hallway, and it is honestly gorgeous. And all of that is planned to come to the Persistent Universe.