Yet Another Zombie Survivors - Changelog for version 0.9.2
Welcome, Survivors!
We're happy to announce that we've recently reached an important milestone: half a million copies sold!
This means now over 500,000 of you now own YAZS, which we're super happy about!
Please accept our sincere thanks for supporting us throughout the Early Access journey so far!
Today, I'll talk about not only the things that are coming, but also about our shared past together ❤️
We've created a very important anonymous survey that will help shape the future of the game, so I'd like you to spend a minute (or more) sharing your opinion on two important things, which are the following:
There is also one optional field you can use to share your ideas and thoughts with us, along with a question about a potential cosmetic support DLC.
This one's very important, just like the one we've made in the past! YAZS has always been a game shaped heavily by you, our players, and we would love to continue this trend in the future.
Stay a while and listen, as we share our story of the development up to this point in time. We hope that many of the memories related to the game's progress are tied to a great time for you as well, friend!
This was our first Next Fest entry, so tension was high. We've launched our first demo some time before the event to gather feedback and polish some things before the real deal. Back then, the game was composed of a single map, a single game mode, and the first four Survivors.
When the event started, we were surprised, both by the number of players testing our game and even more by the amount of time you guys and gals were spending playing it! We knew we had a compelling gameplay loop, but it was another thing to see how many of you enjoyed it too!
The above video was recorded after the Next Fest ended. We didn't want to take the fun away, so the demo version was kept alive after the event. It also helped us gather more feedback and learn what you'd like to see added to the game.
These were the things we promised you back in the day, long before the Early Access started:
Most of these promises were kept, while the few remaining are coming soon in version 1.0!
Fun fact: Engineer had an early prototype of the flamethrower back then (they borrowed it from Pyro)!
Working hard all the way from February to July, the game changed a lot, both the user interface and in-game elements were restructured and expanded.
SOS Signals were added, as previously you could add more Survivors to your team by selecting them as level-up options. Timed Power-ups, Item, and Item Chests systems were created. Ghost and Medic joined the fight against the Horde, and Endless (now Endurance & Infinite) and Hardcore modes were implemented.
We launched into Early Access at the exact moment the Steam Summer Sale ended, with a -20% launch discount. Next Fest did us a great favor by boosting the wishlists, so soon after the launch we reached our all-time peak concurrent player count - 10,173 gamers playing at a single moment in time - which still stands today! If you're one of these players who were with us at that time, thank you once again!
Keeping the crazy pace, we've somehow managed to push the first major update to the game in less than two months. This was also the first version that was tested by the players on the open public beta branch we've launched to gather your feedback and suggestions.
Similarly to all the future updates, we've implemented lots of your ideas thanks to the feedback we've gathered, the first of which was the manual aim & shoot modes. The second area was added to the game, and with it came new enemies, 6 new abilities for Survivors, 11 new items, and a single curly bunny in love with potatoes.
There are a lot more things that were added and changed throughout the 0.3.X, so we've slowed down a bit to catch our breaths and begin our work on less frequent but substantial updates.
This release concentrated more on adding and upgrading in-game systems. It included several much-needed improvements suggested by our great community and quality of life features.
Two game modes were added, one of which is currently on ice: Boss Rush & One Hit. You could now select from four different options on different power-up selection screens (for example, 4 level-up options when playing a 3-person squad), and the Lockdown function was introduced. Hence, the update's name.
While this version was a bit smaller than usual, most of its additions were really needed and stayed in the game for good. Naturally, we've continued to gather and analyze the players' feedback and also launched a special survey with questions on important changes we had planned.
The wild Pyro appears!
The first Survivor added in an update brought with him the Military Training and Damage Type Tag systems. Once again, lots of things were rebuilt and tweaked.
This was also the time we've added our own original soundtrack to the game, as previously we've used creative commons licensed tunes. We wanted to add a premium feel to the game's audio, so we've once again partnered with our good buddies at Music Imaginary, who worked on soundtracks for games such as The Witcher series, Shadow Warrior 2, Bulletstorm, and DOTA 2, among many others!
By the way, the old music is still available in the game - you simply need to enable the CC Music in the Audio tab in Options, and then play or queue them in the Jukebox (available in the pause menu).
This update was an absolute monster! The third area of the game was added. Green Hell enlarged the repertoire of foes, adding deep forest horrors such as Wendigos and Werewolves.
Extermination mode was introduced, bringing a new twist to the old formula: wave-based gameplay. Every standard enemy now could spawn as their Elite variant, with much better statistics and a greater reward for slaying them.
Item Pool Customization allowed you to remove a certain amount of items from your runs, and the addition of Zombiepedia made it easier to track multiple different statistics and in-game data, without requiring you to search the internet for answers.
In addition to all of that, we've worked together with our buddies at HyperStrange to improve the optimization, and our cooperation ended with a huge boost to framerates all across the board, with the biggest improvements to low- to mid-end PCs and handheld devices.
This update was… well… revolutionary.
The 0.7 version of the game increased the size of code by around 80%. A single skill tree with limited bonuses has been completely overhauled into a much bigger general tree and separate skill trees for each and every Survivor in the game, with each Survivor now gaining Specialization points and leveling up their ranks.
56 ability evolutions were added, making it so each ability can be modified into two separate versions. An unlockable Badge system was introduced to the game, along with the difficulty levels. All Items were remade to be more powerful and meaningful than ever.
The Damage Type Tag system debuted, changing the way we look at weapons & abilities and opening the door for both element-specific and rainbow builds. As if that weren't enough, per-Survivor stats made it so each character can specialize in a different field, and diminishing returns removed most caps from the game.
Had enough? We weren't done yet! Online leaderboards appeared! Survival Guide had its spotlight! New Horde AI changed how the enemy operates. Jukebox allowed you to play any song in any area or game mode, as well as to use the old, creative commons music. Leveling was made faster: Cash requirements were lowered, and Cash was now saved between runs. And more!
The aptly named "Tools of Mayhem" update introduced not only the tools but also the tool master herself: the Mechanic!
With a kit full of crazy homemade contraptions, a need to under- and overclock everything she comes in contact with, and the capacity to boost all of her squad's abilities, she added a unique flavor to the support side of Survivors: the one with a chainsaw.
12 new weapons were added, with one tier 3 addition for every existing Survivor. In addition, most of the existing weapons were improved and buffed. Additionally, new in-game events were added in the form of the Research Pods.
Save Slots / profiles were introduced, with per-device settings making it a breeze to switch between your gaming devices. One Hit game mode gained its own leaderboards, and on the QoL side, effects transparency became a thing. Also, Daylight Mode, yay!
All aboard the zombie-mowing train! A new map, the titular Dead Terminal, brought new content to the game, with unstoppable trains tearing through the entire area as the main highlight (but let's not forget all the new enemies!).
We changed the Endless Mode into two separate game modes: Endurance & Infinite. Doing so, we've made it so that both types of our players were fully satisfied with the result: the ones who wanted a harder Endless Mode (Endurance) and those who wanted to have fun breaking things and not be tied to things like item slot limits (Infinite).
Better Horde scaling made it so enemies aren't as fast and spongy as before but more intelligent - surrounding the player with much greater effect. Your run history and summaries for leaderboard entries were introduced so that you can display and analyze your and other players' builds. Furthermore, with newly added interface scaling options, we finally managed to secure a verified status for Steam Deck & Steam Machine!
Unfortunately, we ran into a bizarre Steam Cloud-related issue, which we've managed to fix after a few hotfixes, but some affected players lost their progression. We once again apologize for this situation. Since then, we've implemented another layer of local backups that won't be overwritten by Steam Cloud saves. As we try to mention everywhere, we're dedicated to restoring your progression if you were affected by the issue mentioned above, so please feel free to email us about it.
As always, another set of QoL improvements and new functions was introduced, bringing with it things like: game speed modifier, minimap radar, Item Pool presets, better manual aim, pickup range display, a new achievements interface, and auto-choices (random power-up & Skip). Oh, and let's not forget the first iteration of the seasonal events system, with winter holiday spirit captured with snow and Santa hats for the Survivors!
We've also since implemented a weapons effective range system and support for 7 more language versions / translations. Our original soundtrack was also released as an optional DLC! If you'd like to further support our work and grab lossless versions of the in-game music, you can check it out below:
With many additional tweaks to the game's performance and loading times, as well as PlayStation demo and Xbox Game Preview releases, version 0.9 proved to be colossal, which is why we've spent the most time overall on it compared to earlier updates. But… we aren't done yet, and we're working on an even bigger update, which is:
And now, we're getting closer to the most important milestone for YAZS: its full release this summer!
The 1.0 Update will by no means be the end - it's more like a huge checkpoint on the way to further content additions, improvements, and planned features we've not added yet. The level of success and reach we hope the release will bring will pave the way for all the things that are still to come.
Those of you who checked out the Super Important Survey (thanks btw!) know that version 1.0 will introduce the following:
In addition, we'll try to pack more stuff into it, but not at the cost of the quality of the above elements. We also don't want to push the release away any further, so if our health permits, prepare for one of the hottest game releases this summer 😉
As usual, we want to be 100% transparent with you - our players. As we stand today, we're roughly 70–90% done with the Hub, Story & Quests, the fifth area/map, and the ninth Survivor. Once we finish our work on them, we'll start implementing the main bosses into the game. We're naturally also implementing small tweaks, bugfixes, and quality of life additions as we work on version 1.0.
When everything is put in place, we'll keep on polishing all the different versions of the game (PC & consoles) so that they're all ready on the release day, and you can jump into YAZS on any supported platform.
The current plan is to release the game simultaneously on all supported platforms, but here's the plan in greater detail on how it looks at the current moment in time:
Ok, this is mostly everything we wanted to share today. We hope you're looking forward to the biggest update ever! Sorry for the wall of text in this blog post; I just wanted to share and look back on the journey we've shared so far. Let's hope we'll have a lot more stories to tell in the upcoming years!
But! Before we go, here's a small teaser for what's coming in version 1.0:
Stay awesome,
Kalafiorek @ Awesome Games Studio
Yet Another Zombie Survivors - Changelog for version 0.9.2
Information on the upcoming updates, new languages support coming this month, new systems in development, and more!
Yet Another Zombie Survivors - Changelog for version 0.9.1
Update 0.9+ teasers, new map preview, infinite mode, more challenges, incoming translations, price changes, development blog launched, and more!
