Rick and I started some early testing just to see how things were and there are lots of little bugs and some unpolished features but overall it was great. It ran better than ever (I was serving and running max settings and getting about 30-45 fps where in A11 I would get at most 30 with lag spikes down to 8-13 fps. The visuals are the first thing that grabbed me. At every turn stuff just looks worlds better than before. The new physically based lighting looks amazing and makes the whole scene just flow together. When something bright moves, you see that reflect off the world. Crawler zombies in the grass are actually tinted green because of the grass and world refracting light and color realistically.

The new item quality system needs balanced, but has a lot of potential. It took 4 swings with my damaged stone axe to fell a zombie instead of the predictable two hits. I imagine a flawless stoneaxe would kill one with one shot but I need to level up a lot before I can craft one. The feeling of deep progression is there now, with each part I find in the world having quality range that contribute to the weapon. Its going to be really cool when we get it wrapped up and balanced.



We also reworked the burnt zombie, hopefully people like him better than the “lava monster” version.