Development Update 24.04.2026

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's progress report. 

Level: 
During this week, we continued to work on the large tasks, namely finishing all foliage assets and their implementation. With them being imported into the engine, we updated some aspects of our landscape material to improve the transition between different textures, in preparation for updating the Umbar Forest and the Pillar Region jungle. We also continued working on mini-location bandit camps and started polishing paths and roads to feel more integrated into the landscape. Our 3D artists also continued to implement more finished assets for Apoc and Adûn.

Code:
This week, we worked on overhauling the dialogue camera system to ensure characters are properly in frame.
In the sandbox, some improvements for text rendering have been implemented, for example, UI Texts and Speech Bubble props now have a new option to load external fonts. The text in the Speech Bubble now also renders at a higher resolution when the font size is increased instead of just scaling up the low resolution text.
We also added a cone shape to the trigger prop, added a Raycast Automation prop, and added 4 new Lua functions for handling input directly:

wl_key_get(key_name) - (to check whether the key is currently up or down)

wl_key_get_down(key_name) - (to check whether the key went down this frame)

wl_key_get_up(key_name) - (to check whether the key went up this frame)

wl_key_get_list() - (returns a list of all available key names)

Character:
We made a few more character outfit transfers that were needed for the story mode, this includes warrior outfits for a few of the big Kerpali like Shandor and Lake Villager for Indra as well as the SciFi outfit for Milanna. The Aoi outfit is also in a presentable state now and we are really looking forward to the finished result.

Animations: 
In the animation department, we are currently implementing the four bathhouse scenes. We also made some improvements to the charged shot of the energy pistol and helped code and game design improve the dialogue camera, especially when NPCs are on routine destinations when you talk to them.

Design:
In the design department, we are planning out the chapter 4 zones in more detail. We have a first plan now for the distribution of all narrative beats: NPCs you talk to, logs, holos etc. All of these sprinkle some background lore to help the player understand the events that led to the state the world is in.
We also went over the perk UI, streamlining the wording of all perk descriptions and adding rich text styles to improve the readability. We are now mainly working through an enormous list of bugs and improvements that came up while playtesting.
On the quest side, we reviewed the Maya x Shiva story and planned some restructuring to improve player guidance and flow of the quest. We implemented a first version of the Maya x Zuri quest, as well, which still needs a bit of extra animation work to be fully finished, and started work on embedding the Maya x Gulhragg scene into the story. 

Thank you for all your continued support,
- Wild Life Team