I've been creating this patch for 14 months. But it wouldn't be possible without an extremely helpful and positive team made of community members. I feel like the previous versions were done by me and this is a joint effort of many great individuals (too many to list unfortunately, but you know who you are).

So I want to say THANK YOU and I do hope this remade version represents what the community actually wanted from Soldat 2.

Soldat 2 MAJOR CHANGES:


Check the gameplay video if you haven't already:



Some of the new and remade maps

dom_stronghold


dom_silo


ctf_snakebite


ctf_wretch


dm_arena


dm_arena2



Fixed a lot of things like momentum preservation, kick-jumping and flips to be exactly like in Soldat 1.

Balanced speeds and forces for greater fun!
Plus there's more:

hardrolls & glide rolls


front-flip


superman-dash (superman bump with high speed)


sliding (hold superman key)




Players can now vote what to play next before each round



Many modifiers including realistic damage, movement and Fog of War!




New main menu design with In-game news



End Results screen with match statistics




Made together with Norbo. The Gather known from Discord is now built-in the game!






Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch has more Arena-shooter like gameplay which means:
* limited ammo
* weapon pickups on the map
* dedicated spawns for health, ammo and grenades

There's a ClassicDeathmatch modifier if you prefer the classic experience!




No screenshot sorry :D

I've made major optimizations so you will have much more FPS and much smoother gameplay.
Network code is also MUCH better and smoother.





Maps based on editable polygons



Change everything including custom textures!



It's still beta, but extremely easy to prototype and create maps.




HUD on/off, custom colored cursors + much more



Custom background colors for greater clarity




Very useful for quickly inviting a Discord channel or friends to the game or matchmaking queue





Steam friends invite






+ 3-shot Rocket Launcher
+ secondary RPG launcher with a guided missile!
+ all weapons rebalanced


1. Ranked matches and statistics need a lot of improvement and fixes. Also DM 1v1 is coming.
2. Domination needs more work with more dedicated dom_ maps
3. More maps, possibly more weapons, more modifiers and more fixes as usual

See you on Discord for feedback.
Have fun!
MM

Just a few hours to go until the Rehaul update drops!
To commemorate this release, Soldat 2 is 33% OFF starting TODAY!

Only 5 days so...
get it NOW!

Are you ready for the biggest update to the Early Access version yet?

Please keep in mind servers will be unavailable until the update arrives! See you on the battlefield then!
All profits go to myself and the development of Soldat 2 :)
Have fun!
MM

The patch I've been creating together with the community for 14 months is ready to ship tomorrow. Are you ready? :)

Some of the major changes:


See the gameplay video!


Fixed a lot of things like kick-jumping and roll to be exactly like in Soldat 1.
Balanced speeds and forces for greater fun!
Plus there's more moves like hardroll, superman-dash and sliding.






Many modifiers including realistic damage, movement and Fog of War!













+ 3-shot Rocket Launcher
+ secondary RPG launcher with a guided missile!
+ all weapons rebalanced

This patch is launching tomorrow 6PM CEST. Check your local time.

Have fun!
MM

After 14 months of totally remaking the game, improving every aspect of it together with the community... I finally decided it's ready for public release. The major patch nicknamed "Total Rehaul" will be available Wednesday 13th April 2022.

Be sure to check out the new Steam store page and...
If you haven't already, please buy the game now so you're ready for the Big Release!

Check out the teaser for "Total Rehaul":



More details in upcoming news.
Have fun!
MM

We need to transition the official servers to the new release that has been in the making for the last year. Servers might be down for a week or so and will be back online again with the launch of the next patch. The specific date isn't announced yet.

Have fun!
MM

The BIG PATCH IS COMING! Just a few weeks if all goes well... Thank you for everyone's patience. I know it will be worth the wait!

As always you can play this on the test branch on Steam.
Join Discord for details.
Full changelog is available here: https://soldat2.com/changelog.txt

Literally hundreds of improvements have been made over the past 2 months. Here are some notable ones:


A window for waiting for players to join, arranging teams and voting for gamemode, map and modifiers is now part of the experience after joining a server.



Everyone can invite their friends through Steam or Discord with a link that will have them join the game immediately! No more copy pasting IP's and ports :). You can also view player avatar's and Steam profiles on this screen.




Statistics are now calculated during the match such as caps/returns, kills/deaths, accuracy, favourite weapon etc. and viewed as a summary at the end of each game.




Pre-game lobby can be disabled and instead a simple 3-map vote can be used.
This is also what will be used in the new Matchmaking/Gather system.




Many HUD and menu improvements. This is mainly thanks to the help of our testers community. Giving me feedback, suggestions and encouragement!








CTB has returned as Domination!
It's not done yet and there's only one unfinished map called dom_stronghold but it is a sign of what to expect.

Biggest addition is a very wide custom designed map instead of the generated ones.



Best played with "UltraTactical" modifier!



Second biggest addition are base areas instead of flags (indicated by a team colored outline).






Many improvements have been made to the movement system thanks to the support of testers.

Hard-roll is now possible like in Soldat 1. Use it to stop and change direction immediately! An enhancement over S1 is the ability to hard-roll off of walls.




There's a new move called FRONT-FLIP. Works just like back-flip but forward. It's a big change but it has been warmly welcomed.

(darDar showing off movement possibilties)






Dropkick has been replaced with Superman-Dash. Basically doing superman adds the ability to bump into people with your head. If you go fast enough - it's deadly!




Proper status display + ability to join a friends game directly










Lots of work on general cleanup, FPS improvements, sound clarity etc.
Ambient sounds have been added to maps.

Less particles for greater visual clarity.



Tons of customization options including "no backgrounds", "less HUD" etc.



Nicer 3D lighting.



As always you can play this on the test branch on Steam.
Join Discord for details.
Full changelog is available here: https://soldat2.com/changelog.txt

Thanks for reading!
... and back to work for me.
Have fun!
MM

In the past few weeks I've done quite a few new maps and redesigned all the old ones. Take a look! I tried to remain stylistically even, which is something S1 didn't have. Every map follows a consistent Vietnam/Apocalypse theme. There are some original maps and some remakes of classic S1 maps.

DM_ROGUE
(remake of dm_rr from S1)







CTF_WRETCH







DM_ARENA2





DM_ARENA





CTF_CROSSFIRE
(previously ctf_Guardash by darDar)
(there's two color versions - which is better?)





CTF_DOGBITE



DM_EPITAPH



CTF_COBRA



CTF_HORMONE



CTF_ROTTEN




OTHER NOTABLE CHANGES:

There are literally hundreds of improvements and fixes which are too long to mention.
A complete list is always available here:
https://soldat2.com/changelog_recent.txt

MATCHMAKING

Together with Norbo (known for #Gather) we're working on a full in-game implementation of gather/matchmaking. Here are a few screens of the new UI:







In the future there will be more options for finding matches like: players count, maps, ranks/skills, geolocation.

Matchmaking is still not working but everything else is available (as always) for preview in the test version.

We're very close to a new public patch release. I've decided it's gonna be a polished TDM/CTF experience. CTB is removed for later because it will require a lot of custom maps and I don't want to postpone any longer than necessary.

HAVE FUN!
MM

I spent the last few weeks updating yet again the visual style. I'm doing this until I am happy. Other than that I squashed a ton of network and dedicated server issues and we played the test version a bit online with testers. Here are some new map screenshots:

As you can see ctf_laos is constantly going through changes (I'm treating this as my base map - because... Laos is my personal favorite Soldat map ever)

CTF_LAOS



new overgrowth detail texture

CTF_SNAKEBITE




CTF_HORMONE



CTF_GUARDASH




CTF_SILO




In action:



Last but not least GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE with me and the testers playing multiplayer:

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

These are not final revisions. I'm still working on the maps.
Test version and latest development news on DISCORD:
https://discord.gg/stW9Jm4Nuk

Stay tuned for the incoming update and have fun!

MM

Big thanks again to all supporters that bought the game in Early Access. I can safely continue developing the game - moving steadily towards full release. Here's the gist of what I've been doing the past month:

(all of this is obviously a work in-progress - feedback appreciated!)

* REMADE MAIN MENU

Clean, minimalist emphasizing a return to a basic style of the game itself

* NEW MENU COLOR SCHEME

Simple militaristic in-game menus color scheme

* ADDED SERVER GREET MESSAGE

A new "Source engine" style greet message when joining the game. Shows basic game info + modifiers + greet message (editable by admin)

* ADDED FLAG CAPTURE CAM AND WIN CAM

If somebody captures a flag or wins a match in deathmatch he/she gets highlighted

* BETTER PERFORMANCER AND FASTER LOADING TIMES
Can't emphasize enough how much time and effort has gone into making this game FAST!
Everything is faster including the dedicated server and in-game editor!

* REWORKED NET CODE
I rewrote a bunch of the netcode and fixed multiple network issues. Net code is MUCH smoother now. However there are some new bugs which I'll be fixing in the upcoming weeks.

* ADDED CLIENT/SERVER C# SCRIPTING
A big addition for modders and server admins. The top-level scripts governing Rules like Capture the Flag have been moved to C# scripts available for everyone to modify. Also game mode files have been moved to editable .json files. Super easy to create new game modes now!

* EDITOR IMPROVEMENTS, FIXES AND BETTER UI LAYOUT

* CLASSIC MAPS REMADE

A community effort - thanks to all the contributors!


dm_rok remade by prototype


All DM Arena maps remade by darDar

* NEW COMMUNITY MAPS







* FUN STUFF FROM THE DISCORD COMMUNITY





* MULTIPLAYER TESTING HAS BEGUN THIS WEEK


Come join if you want to help out!

last but not least...

* I'M REMAKING THE VISUALS AGAIN
I was heading towards a public release this month but after network tests I feel the game isn't up to my standard. I feel the visuals and game feel aren't there. I decided to postpone a public release and return back to the drawing board... So I'm experimenting with improving the visual style. Here's a screenshot of a test called "comics + Apocalypse Now":



Stay tuned for more...

The TEST version - so everything I mentioned here - is available to play on the Steam testing branch.
To access the test version:
1. In Steam Library [right click] Soldat 2 - Properties... Betas... TESTING
2. Password: transhumandesign

Join Discord if you need help,
https://discord.gg/stW9Jm4Nuk

Have fun!
MM

First of all thank you very much if you've purchased the game. I appreciate your support!. I've been taking the time to make an amazing new version! So sorry for the big delay. I know there's not a lot going on in the public version.

But...

There's a lot going on in the test version! I'm working very hard and a lot has been going on under the hood. For example: I've downsized the game from ~600MB to ~217MB.

Also, I've been optimizing the graphics even further. The change of style increased performance enormously but I've done a lot more to increase performance. You can expect even +150FPS gain in the new version compared the current public.

As part of the major rework I've been redesigning the menus (this is Work In Progress so feedback is appreciated):



There's a new option called ProMode which basically desaturates everything gameplay-unimportant and emphasizes what is important:



Blood is redder! :)



And lastly - the community is hard at work having fun with the new map editor:









More updates soon!
And feel free to join our Discord: https://discord.com/invite/Ar3QM7d
It's where everything is happening. You can also find instructions on how to access the test build there.

Have fun!
MM