Beacon Patch 2.8 is ready for release adding the long awaited Level 6, the Prism Mainframe Act 2 Boss, and the first Ending! Descend through a hollow chasm down a series of randomized catwalks and load up with some final loot before facing off against the most challenging boss fight in the game, the Prism Mainframe. Thanks to all of our players for their patience as we finished development of this patch and for sticking around through the early access development as we figured out how to design the final chapter. 

Level 6 thrusts Freja into the heart of Prism's facility, the Omega Vault. Built around the subsurface remnants of the unknown Onyx faction, Prism seems to have an extreme interest in protecting whatever they've been researching. If you survive to the deepest section of the vault, the only thing stopping you from activating your Beacon is Prism's Mainframe. 

Along with all of the new Level 6 content many other random additions and tweaks have been made such as the new Death/Run End screen, new Level 4 and 6 music, and new Onyx themed landmark levels for Act 1. Many players will be happy to see that platforming mechanics have been improved as well in many areas. Prism vents are now much wider, vertical shipping containers move more slowly, and the Flauros floating island jumps have been removed entirely. A few other important quality of life changes were made in this patch as well such as being able to speed up the DNA Research process, controller input being automatically detected and switched, and optimizations to dozens of models in the game giving another performance increase. We also implemented a Unity upgrade that should fix the game hanging often on close which a few players have mentioned recently. 

With the release of Patch 2.8, the game is now able to be completed from start to finish. We aren't quite done with our Early Access phase though and are planning 2 more content patches. Patch 2.9 will release in November and will include polish and final additions to the Mutations, along with a few other additions. After that we'll be focusing on the final release of the game, Patch 3.0! Patch 3.0 will be the final currently planned content patch for the game and will include more final bosses, more game endings, and a new Boss Mutations system. 

We're unsure exactly how long it will take to develop the final patch, but we want to make sure it includes enough improvements to make it worth the wait. To make sure we have time to finish the game to our creative satisfaction we will be pushing the release out of Early Access to early 2021. While we are very eager to release after 6+ years of development, we want to make sure the game is fully ready to be called complete and make the best attempt at fulfilling our complete vision of the game that we began cultivating years ago. 

We'll have more news about the 3.0 version of the game after the release of patch 2.9. Until then read the full Patch 2.8 patch notes below and let us know if you have any feedback about Level 6 and the first Act 2 boss fight!

Silent Sanctum

Level 6

• Level 6 Added - Descend down 3 randomized series of catwalks, collecting a few final bits of loot before facing off against the first final Act 2 Boss
• Base Game Ending Added - Discover the first ending to Freja's death loop on Kovus-18, displayed in a series of animated illustrations. Multiple additional endings will be added in patch 3.0 giving new endings based on Freja's mutations. 

Bosses

• Prism Mainframe Act 2 Boss Fight Added - Face off against 5 tiers of the Prism Mainframe, increasing in difficulty each tier that's destroyed with additional MK-X and Spider Droids spawning to protect each tier. 
• Boss Health Bars - Divides are now placed on the Boss Health where it will transition to its second stage if it has one

Enemies

• Enemy: Prism MK-X Droid - The highest tier of Sonic Droid, the MK-X model fires Sonic Gatlings from its dual arms and repositions itself with a Sonic Jump that explodes on impact
• Enemy: Mega Icosatron - The next evolution of the Icosatron enemy, the Mega Icosatron fires giant energy balls instead of lasers and occasionally will smash down leaving an energy trail beneath it. On death it will burst into 3 normal Icosatrons. 

UI

• Run End screen added, giving an overview of your run stats, mutations, and items from your run after death or game complete.
• DNA Research - Pressing Escape while researching now more quickly adds each DNA to your bar
• Added Mutations tab to the Codex screen, allowing all mutations in the game to be viewed and read one by one

Levels

• Level 1 Onyx Landmark added - Navigate through a series of Onyx islands and light bridges to reach the exit of Level 1
• Level 2 Onyx Landmark tile added - Navigate the mega cluster of Onyx islands using the Onyx Pulsers
• Act 1 Onyx Cap, Trap, and Middle tiles added
• Act 2 Onyx Caps added
• Level 2 Sonic MK-X Trap Arena Added
• Level 2 Mega Icosatron Trap Arena Added
• Level 3 Start Randomizations - Added 15+ new climb variants to the Level 3 start tile, including new Secret randomizers

Traps and Boosters

• Holo Radar Projector Trap Added - Found in late game Prism zones, the Radar Projector disrupts the players ability to aim, reducing accuracy to 0 while inside the radius of the dish.
• Onyx Emanator Trap Added - Fallen from its position floating in the depths below the planet surface, the Onyx Orb repeatedly releases waves of Onyx energy that push the player back.2
• Onyx Pulser Boost Added - Repeatedly releases high powered Onyx energy waves that will boost you in the direction you position yourself in near the sphere
• Increased visibility of Broken Shipping Conveyor falling container trap notifier. Conveyors with bright red flickering triangles signify the falling containers.
• Jammed Shipping Conveyor - Reduced damage of Shipping Container smash so it doesn't instant kill anymore and added smash FX/Sounds
• Bonespikes - Reduced damage of Bonespike stab so it doesn't instant kill anymore. Also added a new push upwards if stabbed to prevent being stuck in the bones
• Enormous Tritoraptor Eggs - Added a random chance for the egg to break open when neared by the player, not only when damaged.

Balance

• Difficulty Settings - Adjusted difficulty settings. Base armor is reduced on all difficulties, enemy spawns increased, and weather event spawns increased.
• DNA Skill: Reload Speed - Reduced Reload Speed decrease per Paramount piece from 20% to 10%
• Mutation: Jolted Veins - Increased radius of tesla arcs that are released on melee and increased arc damage.
• Enemy: Icosatron - Shortened laser radius to a visible range around the Icosatron and fixed the Impact hurt trigger only enabling for the first laser attack. Laser attacks from the Icosatron should hit the player more often now and perform better since the lasers don't stretch across the entire level.
• Passive: Nanomed Overcharger - Decreased overheal amount from 50 to 25
• Auxiliary: Pyro Pod - Removed delay before Pyro Pod lands, making it begin to emit flamewaves much more quickly
• Auxiliary: Bonespike - Reduced delay after activation, making it easier to land on quick moving enemies
• Auxiliary: Regenerative Stalks - Decreased cooldown from 40 seconds to 20 seconds
• Auxiliary: Deployable Turret - Converted Assault turret to use an SMG attack with more bullets but less damage, with a reduced cooldown time between bursts. Increased damage of rocket attack slightly.
• Auxiliary: Rotvine Whip - Increased speed and length of whip, decreased health drain per second slightly, increased heal duration, and increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 40 seconds
• Rotneedle Projectiles - Decreased homing and speed on Rotneedle projectiles. Enemy rotneedles should be able to be outrun or dodged more easily now, and player rotneedles are slightly less powerful.
• Weapon: Remote Crossbow and Quiverer (Variant) - Greatly reduced automatic detonation time for bolts after impact
• Pickup: Focus Injector - Reduced accuracy bonus from 50 to 25. Reload speed remains at 25%. 

Audio

• Level 4 Combat Music added
• Level 6 Ambient Music added
• Ending Ambient Music added
• Set Tab Screen to lower in-game volume when opened
• Added new sounds to the Codex item list

Misc

• Input is now automatically switched based on the last use, no longer requiring it to be changed in options since the new Input System
• Added Solus and Native random spawns to the enemy spawners used in Level 5 and 6 allowing those enemies to spawn more often in the later levels.
• Updated Prism Vent jumps to be wider and adjusted placement in all levels. Vent jumps should be easier to complete with all dodge types now and be more forgiving if the jump is slightly off
• Removed Flauros island jumps from Act 1 Loot level tiles and from Blood Shrine cap tiles.
• Reduced speed of a few vertical Shipping Conveyors, giving more time to complete the jumps between chains of containers on the Level 5 secrets

Optimization

• Reduced amount of materials used on dozens of models that are repeated often, reducing CPU and GPU usage
• Reduced triangle count on dozens of models that are repeated often to improve static batching

Fixes

• Upgraded Unity to 2019.4.12
• Attempted fix for game freezing often on shutdown (Should be fixed after Unity update)
• Fixed Minimap displaying offset on non 16:9 aspect ratio resolutions
• Fixed Main Menu codex being accessible on first game open with no items discovered causing the menu to break
• Added trigger for Level 3 Beacon above the exit to prevent the exit fort being able to be explored with floating items and mutations
• Fixed Level 4, 5, and 6 elevators not re-placing the player onto the elevator if teleport off of with Telemite Hooves
• Fixed Level 5 exit elevator not correctly holding the player on the platform always
• Fixed position of many Flux power floor beams, optimized them, and fixed beam idle sound having incorrect settings
• Sped up light bridge flicker sequences to prevent the player falling off if running over a revealing bridge with high speed
• Fixed champions not counting towards Kills stat
• Fixed total kills for Tab and End Run statistics not being saved
• Fixed a few incorrect keybind hints in the Tutorial
• Fixed tutorial camera starting in the wrong position
• Fixed a few incorrect Item descriptions and names
• Fixed occasional sorting issues on Reconstitute Screen DNA lists
• Attempted fix for enemy droids walking on the side of Watchtower walls
• Fixed Prism vent jumps allowing drop drone to respawn the player on it
• Fixed Level 4 Exit elevator arrive announcement playing twice
• Fixed bad collision on the burst version of the Solus mound sometimes causing enemies to get stuck
• Fixed Flauros flags spinning around their anchor point when they first enter the camera view
• Removed notifiers from a few loot prefabs to prevent overlap with Item notifiers spawned
• Removed random Prism crates bursting open from explosives to prevent a few bugs caused by them
• Reduced strength of screen flashes from Tesla Storm weather events
• Fixed Karnak enemy being undamageable after it reaches its watering hole