What's next & updated Roadmap

[h2]Hey everyone,[/h2]

Hope you're all doing great!

Today, we're sharing some (not-so-little) news along with an updated roadmap. But before diving into the future, we thought it would be cool to take a step back and look at everything that's been done in Dark Hours. It's already been 5 months since the launch in Early Access!

Here's the breakdown of this news so you can jump straight to what interests you most:

1. Key statistics from the past 5 months
2. All new features added since launch
3. Community-requested features
4. What's coming in the next few months: Roadmap update & more

We already have a lot of ideas and new features planned for the future of Dark Hours. Let us share our scheduled plan with you. Our goal is to gather your feedback as we may adapt this plan based on your inputs.

[h3]1. Key Statistics[/h3]
Since Early Access of October 2024, we've already released 3 major updates and 33 patches in total. Over 350,000 players have joined us on this journey. It's just... wow... insane!

During the first weekend of March, we even hit our highest peak of concurrent players, with more than 1,800 players online at the same time. That's incredible!

[h3]2. All new features added since launch[/h3]
To better review everything that has been done, we’re listing below all the additions since launch in bullet points. It’s a great way to see how far we’ve come before diving into what’s next!

3 New Monsters
2 New Environments
6 New Gameplay Items
1 New Game Mode: Golden Tag
3 Difficulty Settings
Spray Tags with 4 tags to help navigate in the maps
14 Emotes (Ranging from gameplay communication to social emotes)
3 Dances (because dancing while your teammate gets grabbed by a monster is always funny)
2 Seasonal Customization Sets
1 New Playable Character
5 Customizable Backpacks
2 new Mini-Games and 1 vault puzzle
A brand-new 3D Lobby
5 new localizations: Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish (for 24 in total)

[h3]3. Community-requested features[/h3]
You've given us tons of great suggestions to make Dark Hours even better. We've done our best to implement some of your requests and address your needs.

Here’s a list of features that were added based on your feedback:

Ability to ban multiple monsters
Ability to kick & ban players from your lobby
Leave your marks to help you find your way more easily: the Spray Tags
A way to revive dead players: the Defibrillator
Highlighting key objects in the levels (sparkles/items glint)
Key rebinding
Push to Talk option for voice chat
Option to disable camera shaking
Option to hide the UI
Quickplay mode to find other players more easily (will still be improved)
Network improvements (will also still be improved!)

And yet, we still have a long list of community-inspired features that we’re planning to add in the future:

Facing multiple monsters at the same time
Monster Codex for better understanding creatures
Increasing the player limit beyond 4 players
Personal objectives
Advanced Items
Ghost cam improvement for better interaction of dead players with the environment
Maps with multiple floors
Minimap
Final score & medal system rework
Achievements (Planned for the full 1.0 release)
Placing fuses more easily, without having to manually take them out of your bag
Switching items using hotkeys

Other highly requested features, like rejoining a match, text chat, shop system improvements, and a FOV slider need more particular design and technical work, but we are working on it!

[h3]4. What's Coming Next?[/h3]
In addition to the list above, we also have plans to enrich the game with some exciting new features & improvements.

New Maps: Since you've made it this far, we're revealing the next map of Dark Hours: the Nuclear Power Plant! More maps will follow but we’ll keep it for a next devlog if you will!
New Monsters: And our next challenger will be the Electric Poltergeist! Stay tuned for more!
Monster Variants: We’ll let you guess what this could mean!
The arrival of the Nightmare Mode in difficulty settings!!!
New Contracts, Objectives and Mini-Games
PVP Game Mode
Community Features: This might sound a bit vague, but we’d love to introduce the idea that you’re not the only team of thieves in the game. So, expect features like leaderboards, an in-game friends list, and shared data like the number of heists happening at the same time and so on...
Progression System: We also want to introduce a progression system, but the design is still being explored. I won’t say more!
Seasonal Events: We’ve already had two seasonal events with some cool customizations. But we’re excited to make them even better by adding in-game decorations and themed loot (for instance, a chocolate bunny for Easter—just throwing that idea out there!).
We already have some ideas to further enrich the customization features currently available, and we thought it would be great to let you customize your team bag as well!
Expanding the Game's Lore: We’d like to develop the concept of the Mafia Boss, where he wouldn’t be the only one giving you missions but would be in competition with other bosses.

We’ve also got some features already in the game that we want to improve, and we'll keep working on them! These are long-term tasks that will be addressed in future updates.

Rework of the game loop : To start, we are exploring ways to allow players to return to the level if they leave in the van. We might also make a few other changes to the game loop, gameplay items, and shops.
Monsters Balancing and Improvements: there’s still room for improvement, whether it’s balancing them, clarifying some mechanics or fixing some remaining bugs.
Kisser Rework as we want them back in the game.
Difficulty modes balancing follow-up at each regular and major updates.
Loot improvement: either regarding loot placement, repetitions in the same room, and values regarding your progression in the maps.
Improvement of Procedural Map Generation: we will add more verticality to the levels with multiple floors. We are also working to be able to add more freedom in the discovery of new maps seeds, and more variation in map sizes.
Network Improvements: there’s still work to be done on network performance, particularly with physics, latency, and disconnections! We’re on it!
Performance Enhancements: It's a long-term effort that we've already started and will continue with each patch release. Our goal is to improve Dark Hours so that as many players as possible can enjoy it, no matter their setup.

[h3]Roadmap[/h3]

We've also taken the opportunity to update the roadmap for the upcoming major updates. Feel free to check it out; it’s also available on the Steam page if needed!

We're really excited about everything we've shared and hope you are too!
Do not hesitate to leave a comment under this news, email us at [email protected], or come chat with us directly on Discord. Feel free to let us know what you think about all the new features announced? Are you hype? Have we missed anything? Let us know!

We are thinking to make more news like this one, to talk to you more about the developpement. Is it something that you want? If so, don't hesitate to tell us! We're curious about it!

Thank you all for taking the time to read this far!

Piece of Cake Team

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