Comments from the Studio
The focus for this release is to pull together our outstanding game features and start a concerted effort on improving the overall skate experience as intended for V1 and reducing as much noise as possible. Ensuring our core gameplay is true to the vision of Session!
The Update Notes
Right off the bat you will be presented with an all new front end flow. The first step is a revised “difficulty” setting list, giving you preset configurations for ALL of Session’s settings. From these NEW baselines you can tweak away to find your niche set up for your style!
For the most fun & challenge right off the bat we suggest you go Default…
From there you will be introduced to a reworked player onboarding in the Brooklyn Banks. Once you’re on your board you will feel how we’ve improved the skater and board interaction for flip tricks and grinds leading to a better flow, smoothness, and experience for your sessions!
We could get into details but there’s no fun in that - skating is not about stats, algorithms, and milliseconds, well maybe when making a game… but not when skating. It’s all about the feel and the flow when you’re rolling...
Having said that though, here are some key changes of note:
● Speed & Transitions - This has been a struggle in our early Access and a big focus of our last few milestones - but another grouping of breakthroughs have culminated in some fun skate dynamics. The idea was to help improve the gaining and retention of speed in a realistic manner. You can somewhat consider this a “pump mechanic” for banks and mini ramps… it’s all about foot placement and weight transfer
● We have introduced a “Leg Work” mechanic where we allow for a secondary trigger input on player rotation. This mechanic allows for increased rotation in the lower body, separate from the torso, and adds another dimension to rotations and style.
For those looking for some purpose around your sessions, or even just for a more guided experience, we have introduced missions. Following Donovan on missions around the Big Apple will lead you to all corners of the city in awesome company. In these missions the skaters you meet will introduce you to trick combos and spots that will help your progression and clip stacking!
Finally - whether you’re one of the Session day ones, or relatively new to the community…we hear you - adding more skaters and more content does not improve our core skate systems. Thankfully though we have been able to do both. We also know the more info and communications to you all, the better - we’ve been busy building our relationship with our new marketing and communications partners and are excited to have a solid communications plan rolling forward.
Additional features from Early Access V0.0.0.28 → V0.0.0.##
Grind Systems:
● Grind transitions - Overall smoothing of the various body transitions in the pop-grind-pop out flow when grinding/sliding obstacles
● Pop out orientation - The system for helping pop out near or far side of the obstacle has been overhauled
● No pop rotations - Transitioning out of grinds without popping has been improved - leading to some buttery 270 outs…
Board Settings Updates:
● Wheel Grip
○ This allows you to adjust your wheel hardness and contact patch in one place. This will affect the amount of grip the wheel will have.
○ Default = 50/100
EXPERIMENTAL Menu Updates:
● City Life
○ Our first iteration of pedestrians can be toggled on / off in the experimental city life menu
● Skater Physical Animation
○ Improves the animation and world physics interaction creating a more realistic and flowing character/session. However still in its early days and prone to wonky arm bugs….we play with it on at Crea-ture, but it's up to you, Default = ON
● *New Party Game: Spot Battle
○ Using Steam remote play you and a homie can now do spot battles
○ Selecting your own spot to battle on & setting single or multiple trick lines
○ Ability to define Win and turn conditions
Custom on-board Camera:
● Ability to customize how it follows you while on board
● Full control over horizontal, vertical and pitch ratio
● Automatic camera switch with stance switch
Replay editor:
● New keyframe multiplier for all keyframe types
● Lens Keys (B&W, Sepia, Blue, Green)
● add a filter Black and White, Sepia, Blue or Green
● Camera Shake keys
● Give a filmer a little more bounce to their clip for a hand held feel
● Time Of Day keys
● This allows you to change the time of day in the replay editor itself, including the ability to transition between times of the day
● New easier to use input sliders
● Jump in a Key's input numbers very quickly when changing key sizes, you can get from 0 to 1000 in a blink of an eye
Filmer mode:
● Go into the eyes and controls of your filmer and record your clips using “filmer mode” you can record your clip in real time
Audio:
● Pressing R3 + DPad up/down changes radio stations…if you didn’t know
● Streamer Mode added
Mission:
● Pressing the L3 Button (down on the Left Joystick) will access the “mission log” currently tracked objective
● See Bug workarounds for mission tracking bugs…
CONTENT
SKATERS:
● Antiferg
● Billy Marks
● Manny Santiago
● Mark Appleyard
● Ryan "Beagle" Ewing
● 4 “Create a skater” models
MAPS:
● NYC - D7 (Extension to Chatham tower map)
● NYC - Jerome Banks
● PHL - FDR (Under Development)
APARTMENT/HUB:
● PHL - Apartment
BRANDS:
● Fallen
● Zero
● GrindKing
● Thankyou
● HIJINX Net
● Antilanta
● Roger Skate CO
● No-Comply
● iDabble
● Madrid Skateboards
● Flypaper Griptape
● Autobahn Wheels
● Destructo Trucks
● Satori WHeels
● Schlaudie
● Sml.
● Sugar
● Suck
● New Beginnings Skateboarding
● Bebop Skate Co.
CUSTOMIZABLE CONTENT:
New to PU2 is the ability to show your colours and customize some of your Crea-ture content! Get out there and show your pride. We have kicks to hats that can be customized down from the panels to the eyelets - so whatcha waiting for….more to come for V1
Art/Lighting/World updates
Passive Environmental realisation:
● Airplanes
● Birds
● City debris
● Reactive puddles
Lighting system:
● The lighting system has been further developed to improve atmospheric scattering, general visibility and different moods throughout the day/night cycle
Cloud system:
● The cloud system has improved better volume modulation, light transmission and simulation stages
General Art Updates:
● Reworked cloth shading for all gear
● Reworked board collision which improves grinds and slides on curved and kinked surfaces
● Board wear and tear reworked
● Improved foliage shading
Side Notes
Worth noting in missions as the systems are still WIP:
If you lose “Mission Log” functionality (L3 button) while in game, you will need to return to the apartment.
Your total EXP is tracked in the pause menu on the top left of the screen, however our systems are still WIP.
● Skateshop sponsorship requires 800 EXP
○ The Donovan “Skateshop Meetup” mission will persist in the “mission log” as current quest even if the player has insufficient EXP
○ Player must manually track side missions to gain an additional 150 EXP
● Flow sponsorship requires 2000 EXP
○ Greg the skate shop owner & the “Philly Chill-Lee Jam” will persist as current quest even if the player has insufficient EXP
○ Player must manually track side missions to gain an additional 500 EXP
World / Side missions REQUIRE manual tracking:
If the player interacts with a world character and receives a “Talk to” - text interaction - and nothing else on screen, they must manually track the missions.
To do so, follow these steps:
Access the Pause Menu → Skater Logs → Missions
Cycle through the Mission Log until you find the mission with the first mission log box is already ticked. Press “X” to TRACK
Missions can be performed with ALL of your created skaters, simply head to No Comply NYC to kick it off…but your wallet & inventory IS shared between these skaters though!
BUG Workarounds:
Physical Animation - We have experienced varied animation glitches on consoles when running the game on its internal *“Performance Mode”. If encountered, disabling Physical ANimation in the Experimental settings will resolve the issue.
*(Pause → Video → Graphic Settings → Performance MODE only)
Create A Skater - Name input moves to mouse/keyboard WITHOUT prompt - Enter your name and press the ENTER key to return to controller functionality.
Changing “Video Quality Presets” requires a title reboot for the changes to apply.
Wacky Wavy arm flailing inflatable tube man - Press the “Y” button to Off/OnBoard
Weird physics - Press the “Y” button to Off/OnBoard