We've made a little teaser trailer to show off our progress! We scrapped the idea of making important NPC's with the character creator, instead they have their own unique models so they can stand out more. Characters emote, eyes dart, mouth movement, animated backgrounds, multiple choice etc. We've added more complex lighting and some new 3D environments, a lot of precursor work before the playable story mode next month.

Patch Notes

This update includes a large number of improvements across the early game, overworld, quests, dialogue, characters, visuals, UI and overall stability.

## World & Early Game

* Continued the Overworld overhaul, improving destinations, presentation and navigation.
* Improved Overworld destination popups and how location information is displayed.
* Fixed Overworld popups appearing in the wrong position after transitioning between scenes.
* Added and significantly expanded the Airport area.
* Improved Airport lighting, environment, sky and overall visual presentation.
* Finished and polished more of the intro sequence and its transition into regular gameplay.
* Improved transitions between Visual Novel sequences and regular game scenes.
* Added further polish and fixes throughout the Airport and early-game areas.

## Quests & Progression

* Added an on-screen Quest UI to make current objectives easier to follow.
* Improved how quests start, update and react to events in the world.
* Improved task and quest instructions to make objectives clearer.
* Improved quest triggers and progression behavior.
* Fixed incorrect quest-start text during Coby's foyer dialogue.
* Various fixes and adjustments to early-game quest flow.

## Dialogue & Visual Novel

* Significantly improved the Visual Novel presentation system.
* Visual Novel backgrounds can now make better use of both images and videos.
* Added a new horizontal character presentation mode with automatic player positioning.
* Improved backdrop colors, saturation and materials for more consistent scenes.
* Improved camera behavior and transitions during conversations.
* Updated dialogue presentation and speech behavior.
* Improved early Coby dialogue and related sequences.
* Fixed issues with some imported dialogue data.
* Improved loading and transitions when leaving Visual Novel scenes.

## Characters & Animation

* Updated and integrated new character work for Coby.
* Updated character work used for Cash.
* Improved character blinking behavior.
* Added more natural eye movement.
* Improved mouth movement and lip-sync/viseme behavior.
* Improved synchronization between facial expressions and character models.
* General character animation and presentation improvements.

Visual Improvements

* Introduced a revised toon-style color treatment across the game.
* Added new color-grading passes for a more consistent overall look.
* Reworked character and environment outlines.
* Added and updated several shaders.
* Improved sky and background colors across multiple scenes.
* Reduced excessive bloom and adjusted post-processing for a cleaner image.
* Improved panoramic backgrounds and scene presentation.
* Added support for more dynamic, handheld-style camera presentation.
* Continued visual tuning across the Airport, Club exterior and other environments.

## UI & UX

* Updated several parts of the HUD.
* Added new fonts and improved overall text presentation.
* Added a new interaction prompt/tooltip.
* Updated the Lust and Energy displays.
* Fixed issues with Perk Cards.
* Improved the presentation of dialogue choices with a clearer screen overlay.
* Added and improved tutorial popups for early-game guidance.
* Added more consistent UI opening and closing feedback, including interface sounds.
* Continued a broader interface consistency pass across the game.

## Stability & Fixes

* Fixed several crashes related to the audio system.
* Fixed errors affecting character IK and other gameplay events.
* Improved scene loading and scene-transition reliability.
* Fixed UI elements that could become incorrectly positioned after scene changes.
* Windows builds have been moved back to DirectX 11 to resolve crashes encountered during scene transitions.
* Various smaller fixes to dialogue, quests, cameras, interfaces and environments.

General Polish

* Numerous smaller improvements have been made to the intro, dialogue timing, camera movement, scene presentation and gameplay flow.
* Continued cleanup and refinement of systems supporting future quests, characters, interfaces and story content.