First of all: thank you.
The launch weekend of Beyond Enemy Lines - Vietnam exceeded our expectations. Seeing so many players jump into the game, share feedback, report bugs, post reviews and discuss mechanics has been extremely valuable for us as a small team.
The release clearly showed us two things:
There are areas where we managed to genuinely impress players.
And there are areas where we still have significant work ahead of us.
Our analysis is based on Steam Reviews, community comments, emails and especially the ingame survey system, which many of you actively used over the weekend. That amount of direct feedback helps us tremendously when prioritizing future updates.
What Players Really Enjoy
The most positively received aspects are:
Graphics
Sound design
Atmosphere
Freedom in mission and level design
Many players highlighted the freedom of approach inside missions. Sneaking through the jungle, setting up ambushes, going loud, flanking enemy positions or improvising with explosives and vehicles - this sandbox structure is exactly what we wanted to achieve.
The atmosphere and visual presentation also received extremely positive feedback. Dense jungle combat, weather, lighting and environmental sound design were areas where we clearly exceeded many expectations.
What Is Received Well
Performance overall is being rated positively by many players, especially considering the scale of the levels and AI systems running in the background.
That said, we identified reports of:
Streaming stutters
Asset loading hiccups
Occasional CPU spikes
These are already being investigated.
Gunplay feedback has also been largely positive. Players enjoy the weapon handling and combat pacing overall, but we also received requests for:
Timing adjustments
Weapon balancing tweaks
Additional combat features
Improvements to close-quarters encounters
The Main Problem Areas
Difficulty Balancing
We already started adjusting difficulty values with Hotfix #2.
Further changes are planned, including:
Additional health stations
More ammo supplies
Better mission flow balancing
Reduced frustration spikes during longer combat sections
But the biggest topic is clearly the AI.
Let’s Talk About The AI
We heard your feedback.
Especially in indoor combat and urban areas, the AI can currently become overwhelming.
So how did this happen?
In previous titles, one of the most common complaints was that enemies reacted too slowly or ignored threats and sounds too often.
For Beyond Enemy Lines - Vietnam, we heavily expanded enemy awareness systems.
Enemies can now react to:
Footsteps
Gunshots
Nearby impacts
Other AI taking damage
Suppression
AI teammates calling for support or attacks
When these events happen, nearby enemies investigate the source and/or support allied AI units.
The problem is:
We likely pushed this system too far.
The AI currently shares information too aggressively, especially in tighter combat spaces. This can create situations where enemies continuously pressure and overwhelm the player.
Our New AI Direction: A Shared Heat Map System
To solve this, we are now restructuring parts of the AI into a more collective awareness system.
Internally, we describe it almost like a shared battlefield memory.
Future AI search behavior will no longer simply stack endless investigations onto the same exact position. Instead, heard sounds and search requests will be converted into a simplified Heat Map system.
In simple terms:
Sound locations are transformed into a simplified combat grid
Multiple AI search requests increase “heat” inside an area
AI groups then distribute their searches differently depending on distance and heat intensity
This should reduce situations where every enemy aggressively rushes the exact same position at once.
The system intentionally uses a simplified grid instead of exact world precision in order to remain performant in large-scale missions. This means the AI thinks in combat zones rather than exact centimeter precision.
The Reality Of Large Scale AI
There is another important technical limitation we want to openly talk about.
The AI already operates on simplified spatial grids for performance reasons.
For example:
When searching for cover, an AI unit currently checks positions on a simplified grid with roughly 50cm spacing within a limited radius.
Because players can attack from nearly every direction in large open environments, it is impossible to manually prepare every combat situation.
This means:
Sometimes obvious cover positions for human players may fall just outside the AI search grid.
That can lead to AI:
Choosing positions that seem strange
Not finding ideal cover
Occasionally failing to take cover entirely
The obvious solution would be:
Smaller search intervals
Larger search radii
More precise calculations
But that would massively impact performance.
The new Heat Map system will use a similar simplified approach for exactly this reason.
Will it always behave perfectly?
Probably not.
But a “perfect” AI system is not useful if the game runs at 10 FPS.
Balancing AI quality, scalability and performance in large dynamic sandbox missions is one of the biggest technical challenges of the project.
What Happens Next
Our current goal is to integrate a first version of the new Heat Map AI system this week and release it as part of the first larger gameplay update.
Will the first implementation be perfect?
Most likely not.
And that is completely okay.
We want to test this approach together with the community and continue iterating based on real gameplay feedback.
If the system ultimately does not improve gameplay, we will rethink or even completely remove it.
One Last Small Request
Currently, less than 1% of all players who purchased the game have left a Steam review so far.
We already see many players with 10+ hours of playtime who have not reviewed the game yet.
If you are enjoying Beyond Enemy Lines - Vietnam, leaving a Steam review would help us tremendously. Reviews have a massive impact on visibility for small indie projects like ours and directly influence how many new players discover the game.
We genuinely appreciate every single review, piece of feedback and recommendation.
Thank you for supporting the project.
Thank You
We are listening carefully to your feedback and we are trying to address issues as transparently and quickly as possible.
Beyond Enemy Lines – Vietnam is Early Access for a reason.
Your feedback directly influences the direction of development, balancing and gameplay systems.
Thank you for playing, testing, reporting issues and supporting the project during launch weekend.
– Polygon Art