25 September 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 5.5
When a building, a roof, a sign or a tree hides Static, a soft see-through circle now opens through it so you can see him, the dead around him and the street he is fighting on.
- Walk behind a tall building, a rooftop sign, a tree or a stack of containers and a soft round window about six metres across fades in through it, showing Static and the ground around him; it follows him and fades away when he walks clear.
- Only what stands between the camera and Static is cut: the building behind him, the street, the dead and anything low to the ground stay as they are, and buildings still cast their shadows into the circle.
- A sign's neon glow and a lamp's light fade out with the thing they belong to, so the view through the circle stays clean.
- You can switch it off in Options (See-through buildings), and the options menu now scrolls on a phone held sideways.
25 September 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 5.5
The dead now only hurt you when their blow actually lands, a flicker in building windows and walls is gone, and a new game starts with Static on the radio telling you what the day is for.
- Zombie and boss attacks now wind up first and only hit you if you are still in reach when the blow lands, so stepping back or to the side at the last moment makes them miss.
- Fixed a shimmer in lit building windows, and a flicker along wall corners and door frames inside buildings.
- A new game now opens with Static on his radio telling you what to do on your first day, with subtitles.
- A short goal line under the day clock always tells you what to do next, from scavenging to getting back to the Rig before dusk.
- The first time you reach a door, a survivor, supplies or the end of the day, a small tip shows the right button for your keyboard, controller or touch screen.
25 September 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 5.5
Port Halcyon has been relit: rooms now fill with real window light and sun, the torch lights up the room around it, and the night streets have air you can see the lamps and neon glow in.
- Inside buildings the daylight now comes from the windows: walls facing them glow, corners fall into shadow, and sunny windows throw shafts and patches of sun on the floor in the shape of their glazing bars, broken panes or the boards nailed over them. Go in late in the day and the sun comes in long and gold.
- Your torch now lights the room around what it hits instead of just a bright spot, dims when you hold it right up to a wall so it no longer blinds you, and shows the dust hanging in the air.
- Switch the torch off in a dark cellar and after a few seconds your eyes adjust: the room stays dark but you can make out shapes, so dark places read as dark instead of a black screen.
- At night a low haze lies in the streets and the street lights and neon signs glow in it, and wet streets and the canals reflect the lights around them.
- Each district now has its own street lights: orange sodium on the canals, deep amber at the docks and cold blue-white on the hospital hill.
- The sound rings from the noise you make now roll visibly through the fog at night, and rain ripples only catch the light under the lamps.
25 September 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 5.5
You can go inside buildings now: ten hand-built interiors across Port Halcyon, two in every district, lit only by your torch and whatever daylight gets through the windows.
- Walk up to a marked door by day and step inside: Bayside Pharmacy, the Harbour Police Post, the Underground nightclub, Funland Arcade, the Canal Diner, the Roxy picture house, a dockers' tenement, the Rusty Anchor pub, Casualty and the Mortuary. The clock outside stops while you are in, and the doors stay shut at night.
- The power is out. Your torch is the light and its battery only drains indoors, so carry spares. Sweep dark rooms before you step in: the Sleeper, a new infected, lies curled in the dark, only shows in your torch beam or a muzzle flash, and lunges when the light finds it.
- Locked doors can be pried open quietly with the crowbar, or kicked or shot open fast and loud. The dead inside hunt by sound, and every noise you make is remembered: they will be waiting at the door when you come out.
- Keys and codes found in one building open the best rooms of its neighbour: a police armoury, a cinema's projection box, a pub's spirits cage, a hospital's drug store. Loot includes weapons, weapon parts, torch batteries and power cells that give the broadcast a head start.
- Eight more survivors are hiding inside. In the tenement, Dolores and Tomasz have barricaded themselves upstairs: clear the landing, call through the door, and walk them both out through the dark. Letters you find are read on air as radio dedications.
24 September 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 5.5
The dead of Port Halcyon no longer look like one zombie in different shirts: they have their own hair, builds, clothes, walks and ways of attacking, runners really sprint, and Static runs and turns like a person.
- Eight haircuts from mohawks and ponytails to bald and balding, hoods, and four builds from slight to heavy, so every crowd is full of different people, and each district dresses its dead its own way.
- Skirts, dresses and bare-legged hospital gowns that swing with the legs, and bum bags on the Boardwalk.
- Eight ways of walking: lurching, stiff with rigor, reaching, stumbling, twitching, bent and crooked, or dragging a dead leg.
- Runners at full speed now sprint with their arms pumping, and the dead attack in three ways: a swipe, a grab and bite with a snapping jaw, or both fists brought down together, each with its own sound.
- The dead have jaws that gape and bite and hang open when they fall, and the idle ones look around them.
- Static leans into his run with his arms pumping, and when he turns to aim his feet step round instead of sliding.
24 September 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 5.5
A new district and two new nights: Hill Hospital, the Victorian hospital on the hill above the Canal Quarter, with its own special infected, a night event and a new boss, THE MATRON.
- Hill Hospital is district 5: a foggy hilltop of ward blocks under a clock tower, St Jude's chapel and its churchyard, Casualty and its ambulance bay, a boiler house and a helipad. The Rig drives up from the Shipyard after night 8, and nights 9 and 10 are fought here.
- New special infected, the Paramedic: a dead ambulance crew member still doing its rounds. It kneels over the bodies you drop and shocks them back to their feet with its defibrillator. Kill it first, or take their heads or burn them, because those stay down.
- New night event, the Air Drop: an air ambulance comes in over the helipad and drops a crate of medkits, ammunition and flares. Its rotors pull the dead away from the Rig and straight to the supplies, so it is a race.
- New boss, THE MATRON: a towering ward sister who charges down a line with her steel trolley and rings her hand bell to call the ward. Lead her over the boiler house's steam main and open the valve to scald her.
- Two new survivors to rescue, Sister Maeve (a medkit heals you fully and you carry one more) and Eddie the porter (barricades and speakers cost less scrap), plus a new tape, Bedside Manner.
- The story now runs to Part Four. If you had finished Part Three, Continue picks up at night 9 on the hospital hill.
24 September 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 5.5
Port Halcyon gets a real coat of paint: painted streets, walls and roofs, rooftop billboards and fly-posters for the city's own brands, a painted Rig and new loading art.
- Streets, pavements, cobbles, the boardwalk, sand, grass, roofs and shipping containers now use detailed painted textures instead of flat procedural ones, with less visible repetition.
- Every building has a real wall material: weathered stucco, painted brick, concrete block or glazed arcade tiles, so the districts no longer look like plain plaster boxes.
- Rooftop billboards and fly-posted walls advertise Port Halcyon's own brands and events, different in each district, and the billboards are floodlit at night.
- The Canal Quarter water now carries algae and floating leaves, the canal walls are dressed granite, and every neon sign hangs on a weathered steel backboard.
- The Rig wears a hand-painted Static 87.9 livery on both sides, and the loading screen shows new painted key art.
- The enemy models were checked again from every angle: the Riot keeps its shield on its guarding arm with nothing poking through it.
24 September 2026ImprovementClaude Opus 5.5
Every character, monster and prop in Port Halcyon got a close inspection, and the ones that were broken are fixed: Riot shields no longer have arms sticking through them, and the Barker finally has a face.
- The Riot now holds its shield on one guarding arm and swings a baton with the other, instead of reaching straight through its own shield. Take off its shield arm and the shield drops to the street, leaving it open to your guns.
- The Barker has been rebuilt: a grinning carnival barker in a top hat and striped waistcoat, with his megaphone aimed at you when he shouts and a cane he swings. The Lockkeeper, the DJ and the Crane-Hulk were also fixed: feet on the ground, the hook in the fist, headphones where they belong.
- The dead move and fall properly: crawlers drag their legs instead of kicking them through the road, bloaters keep their arms outside their bellies, bodies that crumple sideways now lie flat on their side, and corpses no longer sway.
- The fire-axe and flare gun now hang on Static when you are not holding them, and Welders spark from the tip of their torch.
- Dozens of smaller fixes around the city: car windscreens, the carousel horses, the Paradiso stage lights, the alarm siren, the propane tank, the relay mast antennas, the traffic lights, the camp cooking tripod and chair.
- Pressing Esc to skip the intro no longer also pauses the game the moment you start playing.