Dear Operators,
As we’re heading toward one of the key milestones in Bodycam’s journey, we wanted to take a moment to keep you in the loop.
The Halloween Update has grown far beyond its initial scope, and will now become a Major Update.
What started as a themed patch turned into something much larger: a foundation for the future of Bodycam. It’s not just about adding a new map or fixing a few long-awaited issues. It’s about building the base that will allow the game to reach its full potential.
Until recently, the team was very small, and there’s as much workload that you can take as human beings. Over the past weeks, we’ve welcomed new programmers, artists, and an audio designer, taking the time to align everyone around shared workflows. The result: a stronger, faster, and more cohesive team that’s been pushing hard to deliver an update worthy of your expectations.
We’ve also migrated Bodycam from Unreal Engine 5.2 to 5.5, a move that brought major long-term benefits, but also plenty of technical challenges. Compatibility issues, engine bugs, and system rewrites took time, but they’re now paying off with better performance and overall stability.
At the same time, we’ve been reinforcing the game’s core systems: loadouts, networking, backend tools, while planning the long-term roadmap for 1.0 and beyond. These aren’t things you’ll immediately see on screen, but they’re essential for what comes next.
During internal playtests in September, we also realized that Zombie Village, our biggest map so far, needed deeper optimization. Its scale, new zombie models, and updated physics pushed the engine to its limits. Since then, we’ve spent weeks improving performance and smoothing out the experience: we’re very close, but a bit more time is needed to make sure it runs the way it should.
We know many of you have been eagerly waiting for this update, and that’s exactly why we’re taking this extra time. We don’t want to release something rushed or incomplete. We understand your frustration, it means how much you care about the game. After this update, a lot of things will change.
Your expectations push us forward. Your feedback, your passion, and your patience have helped shape this game from the start. The team is fully committed to bring Bodycam to the next level and hired the resources to do so.
Now, let’s take a look at what’s coming in this Major Update.
One of the biggest points for you is the game optimization and we’ve heard you. This major update has been designed to bring more stability to Bodycam and better performances.
With this update, the game will be running on Unreal Engine 5.5, bringing Lumen and Virtual Shadow Maps compatibility. All current maps were reviewed to optimize GPU and CPU usage. A lot of work has been done on the light, shaders, and shadow complexities, and the team has been hard at work to clean redundant sublevels and merged meshes. The patch notes will give you the full list of the changes. But in short, the game will be faster, more stable and even more realistic, while being lighter on your computers. This is just the beginning: optimization is a core priority and every update will bring new enhancements.
One of the most common crashes, the lobby crash when hosting or loading a game after a friend invite, will be resolved. A fair amount of the bugs reported until recently has been fixed, including the spawn bugs, incorrect scores displayed, the “Defeat” UI after winning a GunGame match, missing server list and friends visibility in the lobby, and plane jump crash. Clients will also always return to the lobby safely even after being disconnected. The aim here is to get a more stable game that will provide a clean base for both our casual but also competitive players. To keep everything on track, identify the main issues or recurring bugs and keep our minds clear to improve Bodycam, we have designed a new internal QA process, with a dedicated team, to make sure each update brings new features and does not regress on other aspects.
A brand new weapon is coming your way: we’re adding the Crossbow, a powerful, silent, but deadly addition that will be first introduced in the new Zombie map. The Zombie mode will also change, with a more immersive behavior and gameplay, with wave pacing and new enemies. In general, we are consolidating the immersion and realism offered by Bodycam in this update - and it’s only the beginning.
So we hope you will notice the new flashlight and the other quality of life improvements, we would be more than happy to hear your thoughts and feedback about these improvements.
It’s not just one map that you’ll enjoy: two brand new maps will be introduced in this update: a new village for the Zombie mode and the new CQB map, our largest map to date. In addition, Wornhouse interior has been entirely reworked. We cannot wait for you to try them and give us your feedback.
We optimized the user interface so it gets more accessible and intuitive, introducing the full aspect ratio scaling. It’s fresher and more efficient. The input rebinding interface has been redesigned for Unreal 5.5.
More changes are coming in the update after this one, so stay tuned for more.
Realism and immersion rely a lot on the graphical experience of a game, but we shall not forget about the atmosphere and what will make the difference in a competitive environment: the ability to hear, treat the information, and anticipate. The next update will integrate new footsteps, impact and melee sound effects. We got rid of some bird and ambient noise clutter. Visual Effects have been updated for the muzzle flashes, impact and debris effects, while the blood decals have been reworked, and some parts of the old blood system have made a return. Lighting reflections have been improved as well. As for the other part of this preview, other improvements are planned to enhance the realistic and tactical aspect of the game through audio, including spatialization, and VFX.
And finally, some news from the multiplayer and networking front. In addition to the clients being able to safely return to the lobby and the incorrect game mode transitions fixed, we managed to fix annoying performance issues, which helps to reduce lag spikes during player updates, including the "full lobby" lag. Matchmaking flow has been improved, with proper state sync. We also added the map voting system at the end of each game. Overall, we’re making the multiplayer experience faster and more simple.
Other additions will be introduced in the full release patch, and are the bases for more, so stay tuned!
Your engagement shows how much the game matters to you, and we’re excited to strengthen our communication from here on out.
You might have seen Kane on the Discord already, her role is to make sure we have a steady and solid communication across social media and platforms like Steam, so that you will receive news and other updates directly on your favorite platform, and to coordinate the global communication between the studio and you, so that you’re heard and seen. She’s a seasoned social media manager and is no stranger to the competitive FPS world. We count on you to give her a warm welcome.
Other major changes are coming. While we can’t show you much before locking in more details, we are very excited and eager to be able to do so. Soon.
The Major Update will be released at the end of November.
Thank you for reading. Gear up. And see you soon.