Welcome to our first Quality of Life (QoL) Huntsman patch! Up to now, we’ve been working hard on addressing the community feedback from launch. As we squashed the biggest issues, we’ve been able to sit down and think about how to improve the game beyond bug fixes, things to give back to the community who stuck by us, as well as our longer term goals for Huntsman.
Patch 1.1 adds lots of things throughout the game, including new visual modes, updated spider behaviours and more. We are hard at work on two more large patches, but no spoilers (we’ve left a small hint in-game for 1.2, but we’ll leave it at that). Patch notes below, and if you want to bag a deal, check out our bundle partners. Thank you to Secret Mode, Wired, Blumhouse Games, DOSMan Gaming and Steelkrill Studio for helping to celebrate all things horror!
We’ve also added new screenshots and a small developer diary from Jory, the creator of Huntsman and the one responsible for your nightmares. Best of luck, Atherton Labs employees!
Two new visual modes;
VHS, a 90s throwback to the days of having to rewind tapes before you brought them back to the rental
Horror, a black and white effect inspired by the beloved creature features of the 50s
Security cameras in the security room. Use these to check if the path is clear, once the power is back on
Updated tarantula threat animations
Spider reactions - spiders now react when a player throws things at them. Test it. Go on, we dare you
Kitchen items - more things to pick up with and throw at the Huntsman (except the kitchen sink)
Cafeteria items including chairs can now be moved by players and spiders. Watch your step!
Hiding spots - Huntsman no longer spawns in the kitchen area, which sometimes lead to the spider getting stuck in scenery or trapped when the shutters were down
Laboratory spiders - the inanimate spiders in the testing area of the facility are now replaced with live spiders
New Game popup - when starting a new playthrough, a screen will appear that allows players to choose filter effects (plus a tease for something coming in a future update)
Added orb weavers to the terrarium
Added more throwables in the loading bay area
Increased the tarantula’s sensitivity to player triggers (twigs snapping, bushes moving etc) in the terrarium. TL;DR it’s even angrier now
Sound f/x updates throughout
an issue where some areas such as the office would have scenery items move out of line (chairs, computer monitors etc)
reports of huntsman occasionally becoming inactive in the lab area, after respawning
an issue where player quest logs would not update after exiting the terrarium
a rare instance of Key Items forcing a player to slightly jump backwards when collected
broken door in the lab area, near the neurotoxin mixer
rare instances of the tarantula not respawning after player death in the terrarium
Addressed issues with the spider rotation on spawn
Black & White
VHS
This all started in October 2024. I wanted to make something for the spooky season. Halloween has always been my favorite time of year, and I knew I wanted to create a horror game that felt personal. The first question I asked myself was simple: “What do I find scary?”
The answer was just as simple. Spiders.
I’ve been terrified of them my whole life. The kind of fear that makes your skin crawl just thinking about it. That fear became the foundation for everything. Finding a way to express this fear, and project it to the game and making it work right for a horror game were the very first steps I took in this entire development process. When I started designing the AI, I thought of everything I know from their movements and behaviors from what I have personally seen. They don’t move in predictable ways. They freeze suddenly. They vanish for minutes at a time and then appear exactly when you least want them to. Their movement alone can create tension. So that’s what I tried to capture. Those moments of stillness, the sudden burst of speed, the randomness that keeps you on edge. Capturing all of these aspects of Spiders was crucial in the game standing out. For the Itch demo, I didn’t have much experience with Behavior Trees yet, so I built everything inside Blueprints. The AI used a mix of custom events, an AI Perception component, and a Speed variable that controlled which animation played at any given time.
That Speed variable was the heart of the system. It dictated whether the spider was creeping slowly, darting across a room, or staying perfectly still. The spider would teleport between patrol points or hiding spots depending on what I wanted it to do at that moment. It was a rough system, but it worked. It was enough to scare people, which was the goal.
For the new version on Steam, we rebuilt the spider’s AI from the ground up using Behavior Trees and Blackboards. The core behaviors stayed the same, but now we had more control and flexibility.
Instead of simply changing the Speed variable at random, we created a set of random events that could trigger different states including freezing in place, sprinting for a few seconds, or retreating to a hiding spot. That gave the spider more natural, unpredictable rhythms.
We also added one big new feature: hearing. Now the spider can detect sounds, which means the player can use throwable objects to distract it or lure it away. This single change made encounters feel more dynamic and gave players a tool to fight back. Creating this AI started as a way for me to confront my own fear, but it’s become something much bigger. It has been an amazing experience watching other fellow arachnophobes experience the terror of the spider's realistic movements and behaviors. The exact goal of the AI for this enemy was to replicate those same emotions and fears when encountering a spider in real life.
- Jory
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