• Fixed an issue blocking players from completing the quest “A New Wayfinder” if they’ve already completed “Epilogue”.
  
• Fixed an issue causing a save rollback during the “After Despair and Hope” quest.
  
• Fixed an issue where “The Hollow Heart” quest would not complete if the player failed to defeat the encounter on the first attempt.
  
• Marrow should now properly appear frozen during the “The Lost Colony” quest.
  
• Fixed an issue causing a waypoint marker to persist after completing the “Spare Blades” job
  
• Fixed an issue causing Silo Bombs to sometimes fire in the wrong direction.
  
  
  
  Steam Deck
• Performance optimizations when in Highlands
  
• Fixed crash related to the pause menu when on the Steam Deck.
  
  PLEASE NOTE: We’ll continue to make Steam Deck optimizations and investigate rare crashes that players still might see. While this fix should dramatically reduce them, in some edge cases the Deck could run out of memory and crash.
  
  
  Known Issues
  
  
• Players will be unable to interact with NPC to progress the “Deal at the Crossroads” side quest.
  
• Silo's firebomb might still miss when firing at very large creatures
  
• When initially paused on Steam Deck, menus will be slow to respond
  
  
  

• Fire Alarms Switches added to The Classrooms and The Library Rooms
  
• Fire Alarms temporarily distract hearing enemies
  
• Each switch is single-use

• Entities no longer unrealistically despawn and respawn at long distances (Except in Poolrooms which is a bug that will be fixed in the next update), with the exception of Cursed Doll, Cloaked Figure, and Smiley which do so as part of their abilities.

• Looping sounds now mute when paused
  
• Fixed underwater audio not working properly
  
• Many looping sounds now stop when paused and continue on unpause

Replaced a lot of low-quality art.

• Fixed Controller Hotkey UI in settings
  
• Improved dropdown controller usability by auto-scrolling to the selected item
  
• Fixed unable to use various settings with Controller
  
• Fixed unable to toggle Custom Mode with Controller
  
• Fixed horizontal selectors in settings broken in-game using Controller
  
• Fixed controller Inventory navigation skips over slots 7-9 from below

• Level Title, Sink, Toilets now pause their audio with game pause
  
• Paper sound no longer plays on spawn.
  
• Added light to Snake kill animation to fix zero-light conditions
  
• Localized generation failed prompt
  
• Optimized a few expensive tiles to reduce lag in Poolrooms
  
• Fixed a few missing localizations
  
• Fixed entities not spawning in Tape 1 if you get the Elevator key first

1. Optimized texture quality to reduce VRAM usage.
2. Enhanced UI Lighting performance.
3. Improved performance of in-game assets and textures.
4. Adjusted default graphics settings for first-time launch, enabling dynamic resolution by default.
5. Reduced package size for more efficient downloading and installation.
6. Improved game balance

• Integration with Home Assistant via MQTT
  
• Function for VRChat player join/leave notifications
  
• Automations for changing your VRChat status based on the sleep mode & sleep preparation.
  
• Avatar automations for changing your VRChat avatar when you fall asleep, wake up, or prepare for bed.
  
• Option for changing your VRChat status description in the player limit status automations.
  
• Option to load and save VRChat player lists as presets for automatic invite request acceptance.
  
• Option to limit automatically accepting invite request based on the number of players in the world.
  
• Automations for switching between various player list presets for automatic invite request acceptance.
  
• Automation for disabling the sleep mode when you've been upright for long enough after laying down.
  
• Automation for automatically disabling the sleep mode when a (certain) VRChat user joins or leaves your world.
  
• Automation trigger for the shutdown sequence to run when you've been left alone in your VRChat world instance for a certain amount of time.
  
• Ukrainian language support (Community contribution by senkodev and Fanyatsu)
  
• Additional configuration options for the sleep detector (controller presence, sleeping pose)
  
• Options for forcing the power state of base stations (Right click the power button).
  
• Support for base stations that don't report their status. (Newer lighthouses sold through Valve, likely manufactured by HTC)
  
• Optional fix to delay initializing OyasumiVR with OpenVR.
  
• OVRToolkit as a notification provider
  
• Support for string parameters in OSC scripts (Community contribution by Fanyatsu)
  
• Support for sending multiple parameters in OSC scripts (Community contribution by Fanyatsu)

• Improved duration selection for sleep duration in shutdown sequence
  
• Made device edit dialog always show the device serial number in its title.
  
• Improved sleep detection by considering the sleeping pose
  
• Improved layouts for sleep detection configuration views
  
• When the overlay menu is opened while the controller is not tracked, the overlay will open in front of you instead.
  
• Custom window titlebar

• CJK fonts not properly being loaded in some parts of the overlay UI
  
• Brightness overlay not covering full view of some high FOV headsets (e.g. Pimax)
  
• Bigscreen Beyond fan speed often being reset
  
• VRChat accounts with 2FA being logged out after 7 days. (Now 30 days, if you store credentials)
  
• The overlay menu sometimes not showing when being opened
  
• Improved handling of failed configuration migrations

Some minor errors have been fixed.

With this new update, players will be able to enjoy Gladiators: Survival in Rome with their preferred controllers, offering more versatility and comfort. The Xbox and DualShock controllers are known for their ergonomic designs and intuitive layouts, making them a popular choice among gamers worldwide. The integration of these controllers is expected to provide a smoother and more immersive gameplay experience.

-One of Ivaan's expressions not appearing.
-Sometimes, after the final scene, the game jumped to a previous scene instead of the main menu again.
-Steam Achievements not unlocking (hopefully; I won't be able to test this feature until tomorrow).

Feel free to point me to any remaining bugs you might find, guys!

Good Morning! Good Afternoon! Good Evening! Good Night!

First of all, thank you to everyone who chose to follow gaming news.

I am pleased to announce the official release date of Underwater Diving.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2178190

The Steam release of Underwater Diving is set for:
Wednesday August 7, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. CEST.

The game is 99% complete.
I still need to refine the balancing and polish the game.
The demo will be updated regularly and will remain available after the game's release.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2427780

To wait, don't hesitate to take on the challenges of my first game, Ninja Scroller.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2150800

Its next update is coming very soon.

I wish you a good game!

Olivier Raveneau
Mars Touch Studio

Adjustments on some structure values and fixed an issue with prestige

We set out to make a game that felt 100% authentic to Professor Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Something for fans, by fans. The response from The Lord of the Rings community has been wonderful.

The podcast Keep on Tolkien said, “There are so many things... so many little lores that they created for this game that fits so well I couldn’t tell if it was just something I didn’t know or what. That’s good lore building. It's believable.”

And on YouTube, The Nerd of the Rings said, “It feels like this game was built specifically for me.”


Building out the lore started with the Dwarves. We knew we wanted something with a lot at stake. And what better place to survive than Moria? The great realm of Khazad-dûm would let us explore their entire history.

But fans like us know the War of the Ring inside and out. How do we avoid rehashing the same things we’ve seen before? With help from our friends at Middle-earth Enterprises it became clear: the Fourth Age! We could go beyond the end of the Ring to tell the epic tale of how the Dwarves reclaimed their ancient homeland.


When our story begins, decades after The Return of the King, there are two great Dwarven realms. To the north lies Erebor and the current King Under the Mountain: Thorin II, called Stonehelm. To the south lies the Glittering Caves, led by the new Lord Gimli.


He has promised his old friend Aragorn to rebuild the gates of Minas Tirith with Mithril. That precious metal is only found under the mountains of Khazad-dûm. And this makes Gimli impatient to get in there and take it back!

King Stonehelm refuses to let Erebor help. He believes they must wait “Till Durin Wakes From Sleep.” It’s a phrase the Dwarves often say to each other as a farewell, to remind themselves that their work here in Middle-earth is not done. But the King takes it very literally and believes any attempt to enter Moria is doomed unless led by the return of the great father of the Dwarves.


Gimli, being a less traditional Dwarf in experience and thinking, does not want to wait. That is where our players get involved in this tale. Along the way they’ll discover the history of Khazad-dûm, what happened when the Balrog emerged, the Dwarves’ own creation myth and how they see their role in the world.

That is a lot of weighty topics to adapt or invent! It had to be done in a way that felt authentic. So how did we do it?

It started with the team's experience. The game's Director, Jon-Paul Dumont, previously worked as the loremaster for The Lord of the Rings games at Electronic Arts. Many of the engineering team worked on The Return of the King game for the PlayStation.

Together with the rest of the team, we dove into everything Professor Tolkien wrote about the Dwarves. We set out a few key values that stayed with us the entire development of the game.

1. Only use Professor Tolkien’s actual words. Avoid secondary interpretations.
   
2. Every choice must honor the spirit of Middle-earth, as described by the text, its influences and his letters.
   
3. Reinforce and never undercut the stakes of the published works.

This last value is the reason we do not have a Balrog. We had to live our values and that meant we would not lessen Gandalf’s sacrifice to Durin’s Bane. That was his story, not ours.

With our values in hand, we enlisted the help of four experts to aid in our quest.


Writer TS Luikart
First, we brainstormed how the world building and gameplay could come together with veteran tabletop game designer and writer, T.S. Luikhart. He contributed to many of the published Lord of the Rings role-playing games. These sessions are when the framework for the player’s journey came together.


Second, we wanted to immerse ourselves in what it meant to be a Dwarf in the same way J.R.R. Tolkien would have – through language! We turned to famed linguist David Salo, who consulted on all six of the Peter Jackson films and published a book on the Elvish languages. For Return to Moria he invented an entire lexicon and grammar for Khuzdul. He also translated much of the game’s spoken dialogue.


Third, we needed to know if we were on the right track. Well into development we had concept art, built environments and a full story treatment. This is when we reached out to The Tolkien Professor, Corey Olsen. We frustrated him by refusing to tell him anything about the game until he read our planned narrative. We needed him to come in cold and tell us if our plans would feel authentic and would pass muster with fans who studied the lore as much as him.


Finally, it would only be right if everyone’s favorite dwarf reviewed things. It was a highlight of the entire project to work directly with John Rhys-Davies as he reprised his role as Gimli. Hearing him say the opening lines of the game just felt right. Only the real Gimli could say “Everything you know about Dwarves was told to you by Hobbits and Elves. It is time we told it ourselves.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFYTKnwRItA

From the beginning we knew the story of Khazad-dûm and Durin’s return is not our story, it belongs to Professor Tolkien. We were just the next set of hands and minds to try our best to tell the tale. And for those of you who have experienced the journey's end know its just the first part of that grand adventure.

The result is world building and a campaign story we hope will feel right at home with your love of The Lord of the Rings!