Thanks again to everyone who’s continued playing Aether & Iron since launch and sharing feedback, bug reports, and suggestions with us.
Today’s update is our first major post-launch update for the game - v1.1.337 - and includes a collection of player-requested quality-of-life improvements, accessibility options, controller updates, and the performance/memory optimisations we recently tested in the [public-beta] branch.
A huge thank you to everyone who opted into that beta and helped us test the new asset management systems. Those improvements are now rolling out to everyone and should result in:
Reduced memory usage
Faster load times
Better performance on lower-spec PCs
This update also adds several highly-requested gameplay improvements, including the ability to sell vehicles, reconfigure your loadout after failed combats, and balance changes to several key combat encounters.
We’re continuing to work through community feedback and have more updates planned ahead. Thanks again for all the support since launch - it’s been so so valuable in helping us prioritise what to improve next.
Patch Notes
New
You can now sell vehicles at garages! There’s a new “Buy” tab in the garage vehicle stores.
You can now customize your vehicles after failing a combat encounter, allowing you to try a different build without needing to go back and visit a garage.
Added bonus damage when you collide with the edge of the combat grid. Ram your opponents at the edge to deal extra damage.
Added a new “spoken voice only” toggle to the settings that disables narrator voiceover when enabled.
Improved
Combat
Made it clearer when you can’t move due to being Blinded.
You can now select your combat abilities using the controller cursor.
Optimised certain combat animations for better performance.
Updated the General Eli combat encounter to make Eli more likely to use his aether beam, reducing the difficulty.
Updated the combat encounter with Pearl to change her decision-making in the second phase of the fight.
Narrative & Scenes
Added new sound effects to conversations throughout the game.
Added new sound effect to ‘game over’ newspapers.
Gia is automatically returned to her previous vehicle after the Hippodrome race.
Improved camera placement when speaking to characters in the Rebel HQ.
UI/UX
Made it easier to tell distinguish combat skills that come from your vehicle from hero skills.
Updated how status effects appear in ability tooltips to make it clearer what they do and affect.
Made it clearer when a surprise encounter is due to your heat.
Made it more obvious that you can change difficulty mid-game.
Improved the logo on the main menu.
Made it clearer how to view combatant info when using a controller.
Misc
Updated Sophie’s voiceover clips to normalize volume levels.
Several performance improvements to reduce memory usage and improve load times.
Fixed
Combat
Fixed issue with healing beam VFX pointing in the wrong direction, sometimes.
Narrative & Scenes
Fixed/improved a couple of instances where POIs were too close to the edge of the screen.
UI/UX
Fixed issue with ‘Concealed' tooltip not appearing while in the store.
Fixed issue where Graveyard Shift could trigger update notifications multiple times.
Fixed issue where “Already Equipped” items weren’t listed correctly when customizing vehicles.
Fixed tutorial hotkeys appearing incorrectly when using a controller.
Fixed issue where you could “Use” items at the incorrect times.
Fixed issue with exiting from the newspaper screen when using a controller.
Fixed issue where the Pier Six store got too full and couldn’t fit more items.
Misc
Fixed issue where combat music layers could get out of sync, sometimes.
Fixed issue where the game generates more autosaves than the maximum if reloading a combat encounter multiple times.
Fixed issue with sound effects playing despite SFX bus volume being 0 in the White Street Dufresne combat encounter.
Fixed issue where the music track didn’t change in Grayson’s Garage.
Fixed SFX not triggering when using prev/next buttons on lists in settings.
Fixed issue with selecting locations that you can’t travel to on the traversal map.
In case you missed them, here are the other patches we’ve released since launch:
Patch Release: 1.0.607 - Combat Fixes and Localization Improvements
Patch Release: 1.0.499 - Single Save Mode Added and Accessibility Improvements
Patch Release: 1.0.424 - Demo Migration Fixes and UI Clarity Improvements
Patch Release: 1.0.245 - Combat Balance Tuning, UI & Bug Fixes
Patch Release: v1.0.159 - Addressed Save Stability Issues