Hey Scavengers!

We've got an absolutely massive update for you today just in time for the Steam Winter Sale, for which Raw Metal is 30% off! In this update, we wanted to both bring the game closer to our ideal vision, and address much of the feedback we've received from our community so that we can make the game the best it can be.

I've put together a devlog for this occasion, which highlights and breaks down all of the major changes you'll see in this update.

To address tedium and frustration with paying grymite to skip levels and having to replay levels when low on funds, we've reworked the default progression of the game. In the new default progression mode (called Descent Mode), skipping previously cleared sublevels is free, but each time you descend without extracting, you'll get a stacking loot quality bonus that incentivizes longer runs, and retains some stakes in the game without worrying about too much grind or replaying of old levels.

Since a significant number of players have found the game too difficult to enjoy, we've added several customizable difficulty settings for stealth and combat, allowing you to tweak your experience to your liking. Expand dodge/parry windows, modify what occurs upon being scrapped, increase your max health, etc. All Steam achievements are still unlockable regardless of difficulty.

We still recommend trying the game on the default difficulty on your first go round, and only lowering it if you feel it to be excessively difficult or not otherwise worth your time. Raw Metal is meant to be a challenge, but not a hair-ripping one!

Your use of the forges in Katabase 6 has drawn some unwanted attention from Forgekeeper Lyla, who aims to stop your meddling with her precious workstations.

Lyla serves as a bridge between the standard guard enemies of Raw Metal and the differently-challenging boss fights, preparing the player for the jump in difficulty between the two and reducing the frustration of being thrown into a full-on boss fight before being introduced to things like enemy combos. Once the player defeats Lyla at a forge, they'll gain access to it and she'll move down to the next layer. At each layer, she'll learn one new move that foreshadows the abilities of the next boss, and prepares the player for what's to come.

We're excited to introduce this fun new character into the game, and are happy with the rivalry (and brilliant performance by Ellie Maeve) she brings to the game!

The options menu has been totally reworked with several highly requested features, such as an eye-friendly mode that reduces bright/flashing effects, a slider to reduce camera shake (or increase it, if you're a psycho), manual camera controls, slow-mo disabling, and more.

Controls are now fully customizable, including two preset layouts and three custom layouts, as well as options to modify how hard attacks are executed. You can bind them to separate keys/buttons, or bind a hard attack modifier button that turns your quick attack inputs into hard attacks while held.

Guards now interact with their environment while on patrol! Watch them type, take notes, crouch, and lean on tables and walls. Other features include various improvements to gear visuals, airborne guards knocking grounded guards back, taser parrying, and various quality-of-life features like skipping finisher screens and detailed gear effect descriptions.

• The options menu has been greatly expanded, organizing settings into tabs and adding many new options, including control rebinding, difficulty, and some accessibility features.
  
• Graphics Tab: Settings that affect the game’s rendering. This includes some previous options, as well as the following new ones:
  
  • Bloom quality
    
  • Film grain intensity
    
  • Eye-friendly mode: This tones down bright/flashing effects to reduce eye strain. This has been a requested feature since launch, so we’re glad to finally offer it!
• Display Tab: All-new settings to adjust the camera and HUD:
  
  • Camera shake intensity
    
  • Combat camera: Changes how the camera is controlled during combat. There are options for auto (the classic Raw Metal camera we all know and love), manual, and a combination of both, which is the new default – You can adjust the camera’s position with the mouse/RS, and if you leave it alone for a few seconds the auto mode will take over again.
    
  • Enable/disable slow-motion effects that occur during combat
    
  • Lock-on indicator: Display a lock-on reticle to indicate which enemy is currently targeted. This can be set to display all the time, not at all, or only when changing targets. The indicator will not appear when engaged in a battle with only one enemy.
    
  • Enemy attack indicator: You can disable the attack warning indicator completely or set it to only appear for off-screen enemies.
    
  • Enemy sight indicator: Allows you to disable the eye-shaped enemy sight indicator. The detection ring serves the same purpose, so not much is lost from disabling it. However, it will remain on by default as it provides additional clarity for new players.
    
  • Gadget control prompts: Affects if/when gadget control prompts are displayed. This affects the prompts on the taser/gadget icons in the bottom left/right corners of the HUD, as well as the controls that appear while aiming. You can fully enable/disable these prompts, or you can choose to only have the aiming prompts display. All prompts still appear during the tutorial, regardless of this setting.
    
  • Show enemy HP number: Display the enemy’s current HP value next to their health bar, like in Training mode. To avoid confusion, the “Damage Display” option in Training mode no longer affects this, and instead the HP values are always visible there.
    
  • Auto-skip finisher screen: Allows you to automatically skip the end-of-combat finisher screen. This does not apply to the “Scrapped” screen.
• Sound Tab: Contains the already-existing sound settings. The subtitle options have changed slightly:
  
  • Instead of selecting a subtitle language, the “Subtitles” option is now just a toggle.
    
  • You can now turn on an option to display the speaking character’s name as part of the subtitle text.
• Controls Tab: In-depth control scheme customization:
  
  • Unlock mouse cursor: This was a requested accessibility option, so we’ve added the ability to keep the mouse cursor unlocked during gameplay.
    
  • Camera sensitivity
    
  • Aim sensitivity multiplier: A multiplier for the camera’s default sensitivity that applies while aiming a taser or gadget.
    
  • Preset: Two official control schemes (Default and Tap Hard Attack) are built-in, and three custom slots are available for creating player-defined control schemes. Keyboard and gamepad bindings are edited separately. In accordance with the ability to rebind controls, button prompts now dynamically change to display the correct bindings.
    
  • Added optional bindings for hard punches, hard kicks, and a hard attack modifier. The first two allow binding hard attacks to tap inputs on separate buttons from quick attacks, while the hard attack modifier is a button that can be held down to turn any inputted quick attack into a hard attack.
    
  • Taser targeting: Set whether switching taser targeting modes is performed by holding or tapping Sprint (replaces the old “Hold Targeting” toggle).
    
  • Sneaking: Set whether sneaking is performed by holding or tapping Sneak.
    
  • Sprinting: Set whether sprinting is performed by holding or tapping Sprint.
    
  • Hold to hard attack: Toggles the ability to perform a hard attack by holding the punch or kick button. You can turn this off when using separate bindings for hard attacks or the hard attack modifier to avoid accidentally inputting a hard attack when a quick attack was intended.
• Difficulty Tab: Allows the game’s difficulty to be adjusted on a granular level. You can customize the game to your liking, making it easier, harder, or just changing things up for a new save file!
  
  • Progression: Set how the game’s progression works.
    
    • Descent (Default): We decided that certain aspects of the game’s progression felt too frustrating and grindy, so we’ve made some adjustments to the default progression:
      
      • There is no grymite cost to skip levels.
        
      • Upgrading/replenishing/repairing gear is more expensive.
        
      • There is a cumulative Descent Modifier that increases each time you descend to the next Sublevel and resets when you end a run. This value makes the gear you find less likely to be broken, more likely to have weight and armor mods, and more likely to be a higher than average level – you are encouraged to push your luck to get better items, but getting scrapped still means your gear will be sent to the contraband station and may get… roughed up in the process.
    • Classic: The previous default progression mode — Getting scrapped sends your items to the contraband station and returns you to the surface. Grymite must be spent to skip Sublevels.
      
    • Story Mode: A linear progression mode with minimal stakes. Getting scrapped lets you keep your items and resets you to the beginning of the Sublevel. You can return to the surface at any time with no risk of elevator ambushes, and you can skip to any unlocked Sublevel for free.
      
    • Custom: Allows you to adjust the progression settings individually:
      
      • Require keycard to ascend: Whether a keycard is required to return to the surface.
        
      • Enable/disable elevator ambushes
        
      • When scrapped: Set whether you are reset to the beginning of the Sublevel, the Layer, or to the surface, as well as whether you lose your items when you get scrapped.
        
      • Level skip cost multiplier
        
      • Gear upgrade/replenish/repair cost multiplier
        
      • Descent modifier: Adjust how much is added to the Descent Modifier when descending to the next Sublevel.
  • Stealth difficulty: Adjust the difficulty of stealth gameplay.
    
    • Easy, Normal, Hard: Presets that adjust the guards’ detection range and rate, as well as the damage and bonus points of sneak attacks.
      
    • Custom: Allows you to adjust the stealth difficulty settings individually:
      
      • Multipliers for detection rate and detection range.
        
      • Sneak attack damage
        
      • Sneak attack point multiplier
  • Combat difficulty: Adjust the difficulty of combat gameplay.
    
    • Easy, Normal, Hard, Brutal: Presets that adjust values relevant to combat such as health and dodge/parry windows. Hard is the default and is the same as the previous version of the game.
      
    • Custom: Allows you to adjust the combat difficulty settings individually:
      
      • Additional player HP
        
      • Guard & boss HP
        
      • Sliders for setting the default active duration of your dodge and parry
        
      • Auto dodge/auto parry: Set the game to automatically dodge or parry enemy attacks. You can set this to trigger always or only when the corresponding button is held.
        
      • Style points multiplier
        
      • Heat build multiplier: Affects how often enemies block/parry.
  • When selecting “New Game” or “New Game+” from the title screen, players will be prompted to select difficulty settings for progression, stealth, and combat.
    
  • Note: With the exception of progression, the default difficulty settings are the same as the previous version of the game.
• The Data tab contains the options for skipping the tutorial and resetting data, and a new option to switch a New Game+ save back to normal.

• We’ve found that bosses can be a significant roadblock for our players. They demand a change in playstyle due to their attack followups and unique mechanics, making the jump in difficulty from normal combat to the first boss fight quite large. To address this, we’ve added a miniboss to teach the player how to deal with some of the things the bosses will throw at them that they might not be prepared for.
  
• Forgekeeper Lyla (VA: Ellie Maeve) appears at the forge. Once defeated, she permanently moves down to the next Layer’s forge, gaining new abilities to help prepare the player for the next boss fight.
  
• Once defeated on Layer 3, Lyla will stay out of your way permanently, though you can still fight her in Training mode if you so desire.
  
• In New Game+, Lyla has a random chance of appearing at any forge, and always has her full moveset.
  
• Added new tips regarding the game mechanics Lyla showcases that are unlocked when fighting Lyla on each Layer.
  
• Added combat music variations that play when fighting Lyla.
  
• Updated final cutscene and credits to include Lyla.

• Added “work” animations to show guards carrying out tasks during their patrols.
  
• You can now skip the end-of-combat finisher screen by pressing Pause (you cannot skip the “Scrapped” screen).
  
• Enemy health bars now temporarily display their previous value in a darker color.
  
• Added gear effect descriptions to make it more clear what certain effects do. These can be viewed by pressing R on keyboard, or the right trigger on gamepad. This tooltip display also shows the effect’s max value, which can give you a better idea of what you’re working toward or help you decide which gear to invest into.
  
• Parrying enemy taser darts now deflects them in a random direction within an arc behind the Scavenger. If the taser dart is deflected toward an enemy or electronic device such as a light or camera, it will hit it. Any gear that changes the effects of your taser darts does not apply to deflected enemy taser darts.
  
• Menus can now be navigated using WASD, with Enter to select/submit. This feature was necessitated by some other UI changes this update, but there are some instances where attempting to navigate menus this way may not work if no controls are currently highlighted. We plan to fix this in a future update.
  
• Added a new button to the “Check Us Out” section on the title screen, linking to our Bluesky profile.
  
• Added a lens dirt effect when a concussion grenade explosion or wallsplat occurs near the camera.
  
• Added a new KO screen camera angle from the opposite side. The game randomly chooses between the two angles when displaying the KO screen.

• Added a new effect to Grymite Gauntlets and Grymite Boots that grants a grymite bonus upon completing combat with a Raw rating, offsetting the cost of using these items.
  
• Decreased the punch/kick costs of Grymite Gauntlets/Boots by 20%.
  
• Decreased the base value of Adrenaline Mask’s “Juggle Effect” multiplier from x1 to x0.95.
  
• Slightly adjusted the appearance of certain gear pieces.
  
• The invulnerable duration of both dodges and parries is now capped at .5 seconds.
  
• Decreased the slow-motion effect time of a successful parry to .5 seconds.
  
• Removed hitstop that occurred when an enemy hit another enemy to avoid causing timing inconsistencies in group fights.
  
• Added some slight hitstop to the player’s parry to give it extra impact.
  
• Changed the gear info panel in the inventory to a tab view that makes it more clear that you can switch between the comparison view and the more detailed description view.
  
• Adjusted some tips for clarity and to be up-to-date with other changes such as control rebinding.
  
• Added additional background darkening to tutorial popups for higher text contrast.
  
• Adjusted the positions of some voice message and access card interactables to reduce the likelihood of accidentally playing voice messages.
  
• On Sublevels with a forge, elevator access cards now always appear in the forge.
  
• Adjusted interrupt priorities for some boss voice lines.
  
• Minor improvements to enemy behavior during combat, including adjustments to when and where guards decide to strafe, stopping guards from playing their walking animation when pushed up against the player, and so on.
  
• When a launched enemy is Sent, they can now pass through other guards and will apply some knockback to any character they hit along the way.
  
• Changed the sound effect that plays when banging on a door.
  
• Changed the names of some gear effects to make them more concise or less confusing, or to add consistency between the way the same effect is described in multiple places. Some gear effect names have been made less descriptive in service of brevity, but this is compensated with the addition of detailed effect descriptions.
  
• Slightly adjusted certain camera animations.
  
• Adjusted the appearance of scrollbars in the UI to be more in line with the game’s design language.
  
• Slightly decreased the forward motion of enemies falling from an aerial wallsplat (in an effort to reduce the likelihood of landing in an unintended position and getting stuck).
  
• Decreased grounded knockback of Running Punch and increased its forward movement to emphasize its utility for passing through enemies.
  
• Optimization improvements.

• Holding the Run button while stationary no longer prevents you from attacking.
  
• The second boss’ max HP in their second phase now receives the 1.25x multiplier in New Game+.
  
• Fixed the way that the “Max HP” gear effect is applied so that the player’s “real” current health is maintained and not reduced by equipping these gear pieces. This also prevents the player from reducing their HP to 0 outside of combat in New Game+.
  
• The player can now take damage from Electromagnets (using Static Overcharger) during stealth in New Game+.
  
• Damage dealt by Electromagnets (using Static Overcharger) no longer depletes the Electromagnet’s timer.
  
• The achievement “Hazardous Materials” can now be acquired by knocking a guard into a pitfall with a Concussion Grenade.
  
• Prevented cutscenes from being played in slow-motion when Reflex Gear’s effect is active.
  
• Ensured that gear effects based around your current HP apply correctly when wearing gear that lowers your Max HP.
  
• Corrected the height of guards’ detection/radar rings so that they are fully visible even when the guard is standing in water.
  
• When parrying, the Scavenger now always faces toward the parried enemy.
  
• Parrying non-melee attacks now plays the parry sound & visual effects.
  
• You must now tase a Taser Guard while they are aiming at you to acquire the “Draw!” achievement — previously, you could earn it by tasing them at any time.
  
• The third boss’ intro cutscene voice lines now play correctly upon re-fighting the boss after previously beating them.
  
• Prevented the player from using gadgets in the tutorial level until all guards have been defeated, as it was previously possible to softlock using Tear Modules. Also adjusted the areas that you can teleport to in the tutorial level.
  
• Prevented the player from teleporting into an unintended area of Layer 3, Sublevel B.
  
• Fixed a bug where, if the third boss was defeated by reducing their max HP to 0 (rather than by reducing their HP to 0 and then finishing them with a Hard Attack), the end-of-battle cutscene would not play, softlocking the game.
  
• Parrying enemy taser darts now counts toward the “Platypus” achievement.
  
• Fixed instances of the mouse cursor appearing for a single frame when opening certain menus when using a controller.
  
• You can now always spawn Radar and Elite Guards in Training mode in New Game+, regardless of whether you have reached the Layers on which they appear.
  
• Adjusted some environment colliders to prevent guards becoming stuck in tight gaps.
  
• The emissive portions of light fixtures now get disabled when the light is shot out/disabled.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed a softlock in the tutorial level if the final combat encounter was initiated while too near the previous encounter’s position.
  
• Guards now have their baton swap to be in their hand with the proper timing in all sneak attack combat initiation cutscenes.
  
• Fixed a bug where taser guards would sometimes run to an incorrect position after shooting the player.
  
• Prevented taser guards from playing a voice line when entering the chase state after shooting the player.
  
• Prevented guards who got trapped in an Electromagnet while engaged in a chase from immediately running to your position after breaking free.
  
• Prevented guards from blocking Concussion Grenades.
  
• Guards’ batons now always reset to the hip position when returning to the patrol state, and taser guards no longer permanently have their batons in hand.
  
• Prevented guards from getting stuck in an idle animation while patrolling.
  
• Fixed a bug where if the currently highlighted interactable object was destroyed (i.e. unloaded) the interaction prompt would stay active and would not clean up certain callbacks in memory which would cause the player to be unable to interact with anything.
  
• Fixed the timing of the music in the end cutscene, which previously appeared delayed on some machines.
  
• Improved guard navigation/avoidance behaviors and fixed some navmesh problems.
  
• Adjusted joystick sensitivity/dead zone for certain controls to prevent accidentally changing values when navigating vertically.
  
• Adjusted button press sensitivity so that analog inputs (i.e. a half-press on an gamepad’s trigger) register as button presses consistently and don’t retrigger erroneously.
  
• Fixed an issue with how slo-mo was applied on the “Scrapped” screen when wearing certain gear.
  
• Fixed a visual bug on Layer 2 where a black void was visible through the gap between the elevator and first room.
  
• Prevented the player from taking damage after getting scrapped, which could cause the slo-mo effect to be canceled.
  
• Bosses are now set to a consistent position when a cutscene is skipped, preventing them from clipping into objects.
  
• You can no longer interact with interactables (including sneak attacking guards) while you are teleporting using a Tear Module. Also, guards can no longer be sneak attacked while they are being teleported.
  
• Knocking out a guard currently in pursuit now properly registers that guard as no longer in pursuit (for the purpose of transitioning the music back to stealth).
  
• Loading the title screen no longer creates an unnecessary extra loading screen object.
  
• Discarding/scrapping/exchanging gear now removes it from memory.
  
• Added a failsafe such that if an enemy becomes stuck in an invulnerable state (i.e. falling after an aerial wallsplat) for more than a few seconds, they will automatically be teleported to a valid location so the fight can resume.
  
• Adjusted a collider in Layer 3, Sublevel B that an enemy commonly got stuck on.
  
• Enlarged bulkhead colliders and wall colliders to overlap the ground and ceiling in an effort to prevent characters clipping through corners.
  
• Added an iteration limit to attempt to fix a rare game freeze during Boss 2’s fight.
  
• Parrying Boss 2’s grab now causes their attack to end, same as dodging.
  
• The first combat section of “Extraction” (the elevator music) now transitions to the next section at the correct time.
  
• Corrected the angle at which the taser is aimed to match the angle to the target.
  
• Enemies no longer get stuck standing on tables or other objects after landing, instead tumbling off as intended or, as a failsafe, walking off and returning to normal.
  
• Adjusted some combat start positions to prevent guards from starting combat with their colliders intersecting.
  
• All gear now displays the edge light, shadow, and highlight effects correctly.
  
• Initiating combat with a guard inside the elevator while outside the elevator no longer causes the game to stop rendering.
  
• Guards now only run the code that checks for bodies to investigate when they aren’t actively investigating something else or chasing the player, preventing unintended stuttering/sliding that could occur when making noise near a guard who was currently investigating a body.
  
• The way enemies’ colliders change size when launched has been adjusted to prevent unintended collisions when using Running Kick.
  
• Fixed an animation transition error that occurred at the end of both running attacks and adjusted the rotation applied when transitioning out of said attacks so that no jittering occurs.
  
• When ending a running attack, an additional check is performed to ensure that the player’s colliders do not intersect with the enemies’, and, if they do intersect, the player will be slightly moved to prevent the game’s collision resolution system from pushing the player away at high speed.
  
• Fixed a bug where inputting a quick attack within a brief window during the startup of a hard attack would cause the hard attack to be “feinted” into the quick attack with the same position in the series.

Thanks to all of you for your unbelievable feedback and support, we couldn't have come this far without you. This will likely be the last major content update for Raw Metal, but we will continue supporting and patching the game as long as is needed.

Take care, scavengers, and see you down there.
- Crucible