AS:RD Update - April 20, 2026 "Going Up"

It's time once again for Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop's birthday. We're having a smaller one this year since a lot of our core contributors have been busy with other projects, but we've still got a lot of improvements to share and the usual week of double experience.

AMD GPU Driver Crash

The game now automatically disables high quality realtime shadows on AMD graphics cards that are affected by the driver bug. We've noticed that this was causing crashes when loading into a mission, but weirdly, the first launch after updating the driver was fine.

We encourage anyone who has a graphics card that is affected by the bug and wants to help (and can reproduce the crash) to send any information that might help (crash reports, instructions to reproduce, etc) to AMD.

To disable the workaround (as in, allow the settings to display and be selected), use the console command rd_debug_amd_shadow_workaround 0. To disable the workaround and re-enable the settings, use the console command rd_debug_amd_shadow_crash.

Gameplay

• Radiation volumes (gas grenades, radioactive barrels) now deal damage in a sphere rather than a cube.
• Scorch marks and blood are now more accurately placed on surfaces other than the floor.
• Hornet Barrage: No longer damages marines outside of Deathmatch.
• MTD6 Smart Bomb: No longer damages marines outside of Deathmatch.
• IAF Medical Amplifier Gun: Changed the healing ammo calculation from 20 + 5 per point in Healing to 15 + 10 per point in Healing. Faith's initial healing ammo increased from 45 to 65. Bastille's initial healing ammo changed from 40 to 55.
• Infection Deathmatch: Activating Last Stand now requires the player to crouch in addition to pressing the melee button.
• Fixed a bug in Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces that was counting high score bonuses twice if a map had capital letters in its filename on the game server.
• Strange Device tier-ups notifications now show the required number of actions for the tier rather than the current number (relevant for certain actions that happen in bursts like healing).
• Floating damage numbers now take into account changes to the damage dealt by the OnTakeDamage_Alive_Any VScript function.
• Increased the friction while walking on gravel to match other materials.

Missions

• Jacob's Rest: Landing Bay: Fixed minor visual issues such as missing walls at specific camera angles, a door frame visible within a wall, and missing floor decals.
• Jacob's Rest: SynTek Residential: Added some invisible walls and ramps to prevent players getting stuck in the vents area.
• Area 9800: Power Plant: The blast doors can no longer be welded.
• Area 9800: Power Plant: Prevented the director from spawning aliens past the end of the mission.
• Operation Cleansweep: Landing Bay 7: Added an invisible wall to prevent players from getting stuck.
• Operation Cleansweep: U.S.C. Medusa: The elevator doors no longer open while the elevator is moving and more reliably open when it reaches the top.
• Tears for Tarnor: Abandoned Maintenance Tunnels: Fixed bullets not being able to penetrate the east wall of the reactor room.
• Tilarus-5: SynTek Hospital: The door to the power room now runs on emergency power and can be opened and closed manually during the blackout.
• Paranoia: Crucial Point: Prevented the director from spawning aliens past the end of the mission.
• Nam Humanum: Logistics Area: Fixed anomalous materials being able to spawn in areas unreachable by players.
• Reduction: Fallen City: Moved some objects to avoid players getting stuck.
• Rapture: Fixed a rock that was cursing players. Improved accuracy of fog volumes. Improved NPC navigation information. Added hazard signs near the death pit.

Mapping / Modding

• Added a new input to asw_door: DelayBeforeClose (changes the auto-close delay of the door; 5 default, -1 to keep the door open forever)
• Added convars that challenges and maps can use to adjust how aliens (drones, etc) decide when to jump.
  asw_alien_jump_max_speed, default value 1024
  asw_alien_jump_max_rise, default value 512
  asw_alien_jump_max_drop, default value 512
  asw_alien_jump_max_distance, default value 1024
  asw_alien_jump_min_distance, default value 128
  asw_alien_jump_min_distance_between_attempts, default value 128
  asw_alien_jump_min_predicted_distance, default value 512See Pinsplash's video explaining fast zombies for hints on what these do.
• RDCharacter shader: Added support for $flashlightnolambert, ensuring proper non-Lambert flashlight behavior.
• RDCharacter shader: Reordered shader flow to ensure HSV modifies baseColor at the start, directly affecting the base texture rather than post-processed color adjustments.
• The RunScript input in Hammer now applies TF2-style `-to-" replacement.
• The GiveWeapon script function now returns the spawned weapon.
• Fixed a dedicated server crash when a player joins while the server is restarting.
• The Entities singleton no longer returns entities which are marked for deletion. (It is safe to call Destroy from within a loop.)

The IAF needs you!

Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop will always be free, but that doesn't mean it doesn't take a lot of work from a lot of talented volunteers to make. If you can, consider making content for the Steam Workshop, reporting bugs, proposing code improvements, translating the game into your language, or sending a dollar to one of the people who made Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop possible. The IAF thanks you for your continued service, Commander.

Major contributors to this update (alphabetical): AlexZ, allenshamal, Andreas Balzer, anf3is, Ben Lubar, Brancu Alexandru, connman116, Crazymanbos, Deerlord0, Dmitriy, Duke M, ElySimp, Grace Lovelace, Grimowy, hangumi, Ioannis-Marios Tsiakoulias, jhheight, Krevka, MakinDay, mfz, ModdedMarionette, Orange, Steffo, ustcywg, WerFEST