Upcoming changes and the way forward

---Introduction---



First I'd like to thank you for your continued support and reports!



After some thinking, we decided to take a slightly different method of communicating the update schedule of this game. From now on, we will be taking the following measures to keep everyone updated and to keep the updates hopefully a lot more bug free.



- From now on, between patches, either in this thread, or another, there will be a list of planned changes and fixes that will be coming in the upcoming patch. This way we can listen to feedback regards to the upcoming changes and adjust if really necessary.



- We will be slowing the time between patches and making the closed beta test period longer. This latest patch already took a month (as there are only 3 of us working on it), and that will likely be the norm from now on. We will also take likely up to a week of closed beta time, so we can find every new code-related bug that was likely introduced to the engine thanks to Fusion using the same branch as SS4.





---Upcoming Changes---





The next patch will hopefully contain the following changes:



- Flat-friendly mode will add a "recoil bar" to VR players, so they will have the same rate of fire as the regular player, without the weapon feeling weird. Flat-friendly and VR-friendly modes are also planned to be added to custom difficulty settings.



- There will be Serious difficulty rebalances to problematic areas. Regards to 400% increased health, we were thinking about adding SS1-style ammopacks to problematic areas, might happen, might not; it would easily unbalance the regular unmodified difficulties, which are of higher priority, so it's still in consideration. I do have to point out that those who play with such custom difficulty are around 0.1% of all players, so the priority of balancing that setting is miniscule.



- Will work on better telegraphing the Hard+ attacks; already got some ideas. There will be also a few changes to how and when the enemies will use them (not too close, etc.).



- Lots of bugfixes, as usual. Some level based ones are already fixed. Today we identified an embarrassing oversight that prevented the Russian voices to work, so that will be fixed too.





---The Way Forward---





Some might have already heard it, but this Fusion project originally started, when Croteam CEO Roman Ribaric (one of the main designers of TFE, inventor of the character and name of Serious Sam, the beheaded enemies and the voice of the kamikaze, among many other things) have proposed a list of changes to Serious Sam 3 to make it "more similar to the original games". This project was called the "Sam3 Remaster", and many of its changes already made it into the Fusion-version of Serious Sam 3.



However, as you might have also heard, SS3 had quite a problem with its console versions, so development on this remaster had to be post-poned until the so-called "Post-release" period.



With Fusion now covering all games, we were thinking about making changes to all of them, some smaller, some larger.

In general, we decided on three phases of Post-Release Remasters, which will be worked on as soon as we conclude the regular versions as "stable enough".



The three phases will all cover one (or two in case of SSHD) game. The order of which of these phases will be covered first is not yet set in stone, just as their planned features are yet to be set in that stone as well. (So don't take it as promises.)



The three phases are the following:





1. Legend of the Beast Redux





To be really honest here, I'm sure most of you didn't really like this DLC. It barely gave anything new, just three levels with questionable design. It really wasn't that fun.



- The levels will receive a rebalance; the new design will be comparable to Metropolis' difficulty and weapon loadout, considering that these levels take place after that one.



- There will be at least one new enemy type and a new weapon.



- Other potential additions that are not yet set in stone.





2. Serious Sam HD Remaster





- Graphics and Aesthetic Remaster: So there's this guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who said he might just redraw all those SD textures around the games that look kinda bad today. So that might be coming. Also updating some still SD models, enhancing the looks of some other levels. Also, Grand Cathedral should be epic again.



- Plot and Lore Remaster: Since SS1, the plot of the series have progressed quite a lot thanks to SS3, TLH and even SS4 and SS2R. Due to this, the plot of SSHD is full of inconsistencies. No other game is more guilty of this than TSE, where the plot pretty much ignores everything told in TFE and is full of holes. Rewrites to Netricsa entries will happen, and likely there will be also some extra added to the games, like collectible lore items.



- [Maybe] Cutscene Remaster: With TSE getting an updated story, with that will come a few new cutscenes (and an edited intro; don't worry, the original will be still kept as part of Demo Palenque). We are also looking into re-recording the most important TFE cutscenes so they can be played in Multiplayer as well. (Though this process will take some time, hence the "maybe").



- Misc. Remaster: Do you member those maps from the loading screens of SS1? We member.





3. Serious Sam 3: BFE Remaster





- Graphics and Aesthetic Remaster: Focusing on reverting the PS3 "optimizations", and even trying to take it further. It was always weird that a lot of models in OG SS3 were missing detail normal maps. Oh also, what about different times of day?



- Lore snippets: You might find newspapers and such to decode similar to graffiti to learn more about the actually quite established world of the Serious Sam Universe. (Well, established for us, at least.)



- Firecrackers and Bombers: Firecrackers and Bombers!



- More rebalance to the levels: More diverse enemy placement, more harpies, more blue biomechs. Firecrackers and Bombers!



- Other Misc. changes.



------



We will have more news about these Post-Release Remasters as we are closer to the Post-Release period. For now, we hope to deliver you more patches and fixes to the regular games!



If you have any sort of suggestions for both Post-Release and Pre-Post-Release, please post it below.



For now, Stay Serious everyone!