With the full release, we're also introducing two new map variants: Mountainside Sunset and Mountainside Night.
Alongside the updated Mountainsides, which are available right now, you'll earn 200% experience from Intruder matches until Steam's Autumn event concludes on December 4, 2024. Your double XP earnings should help toward unlocking a series of limited time cosmetic items as well.
Now, the view is good from up here. So let's take a look at what Mountainside is like after hours.
Mountainside: Sunset & Night
The sun has finally set in the mountains. In the sunlight, everyone was exposed and vulnerable -- incoming Intruders as well as eager Guards on the exterior. As daylight dims behind the rocky range, shadows begin to play a stronger role in developing new strategies for Mountainside Sunset. Keep an eye out for new angles and opportunities as you explore during the golden hour.
Meanwhile, with Mountainside Night's dramatic shift toward more severe nighttime shadows, teams will no doubt need to reimagine their infiltration routes, package extractions, and defensive tactics. Intruders can't linger in the dark forever, though....
The Guard team's helo strike also has more impact than ever now. While flushing out sneaks and snipers, the helicopter gunship now ignites a forest fire. But that's not the only way to illuminate the mountain trails...
The rooftop spotlight may prove to be an essential tool in exposing enemies slinking through the shadows as well. Intruders will need to avoid the sweeping spotlight to avoid exposing themselves in the upper levels as well as the facility exterior.
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Autumn Cosmetics
Each year, we try to put the giving in Thanksgiving, so as mentioned above you'll receive 200% XP bonus for the duration of the Autumn Sale! But that's not all -- for a limited time, you can also unlock the annual exclusive cosmetics for the season. Now get to playing, ya turkeys.
Improvements & Fixes
The Superboss Games team has also been quietly hard at work on long-term technical improvements for Intruder. We recently designed and integrated a custom occlusion culling system. This means that if you're in Mountainside's lower-level bathrooms, the engine now knows you can't see the upper-level executive office -- so it doesn't render those objects at all.
Occlusion culling is a common process in many game engines, including Unity -- but we have some specific needs for Intruder that made this custom upgrade worthwhile. We've been testing this enhancement with Mountainside, and you can expect to have up to a 40% increase in frame rate in certain areas of the map!
Here's a preview of the new system in action:
The camera is flying to multiple predetermined locations and figuring out what objects need to be enabled/disabled to improve performance.
Mountainside performs better than ever because of this, and we're working as quickly as we can to bring the custom occlusion culling system to Cliffside next, and more maps after that!
Checkpoint and Beyond
Speaking of more maps...we know the Intruder community has long been looking forward to the Checkpoint map, which we know we've been quiet about. While our focus has been on other maps and features, we can confirm that Checkpoint is in active development right now -- along with other exciting Intruder features to be announced.
We'll have more to say about this soon, Agents.
DiD yOu KnOw ThAt!?
The H2 shotgun is currently the only weapon with damage falloff! Shooting at enemies further than 10 feet (3m) away means that you'll need a third shot to finish them off -- beyond that distance, you also might not be able to knock down your target! Hammerhead headshots (Hammerheadshots?) will always instantly kill an enemy at any range, even if they are wearing armor!
THANK YOU!
A hearty thank you to the Intruder community for another amazing year of stealth multiplayer matches. It's been a delight watching you compete on the Mountainside remake, experiment with CQC tactics, and bait sharpshooters with clever decoys.
And an extra special thanks to the hardworking members of Secret Base Alpha for their fantastic help in releasing Mountainside Night. The value of these Agents cannot be overstated. To share your own feedback, or apply to join Secret Base Alpha for future tests, join us on the Intruder Discord server.