Update 3.5.0 — Chat, music, and a shop that tells the truth

Chat

• In-match chat is visible and usable. T talks to everyone, Y to your team, Enter sends, Escape cancels.
• Pressing T no longer freezes your movement and mouse in a chat box you cannot see.
• The chat keys are listed in Settings → Controls, along with the scoreboard key.

Audio

• Three original menu tracks, shuffled each session, that now crossfade into each other instead of cutting dead and slamming the next one in at full volume.
• Victory and defeat stings, and ambience for every map — no map had a single ambient source before.
• Music and ambience volume can be set from the in-match pause menu, not only from the lobby.
• PLAY TEST SOUND plays a sound.

Armoury and shop

• A weapon you own no longer opens a panel saying it is unreleased content with a release date to be announced.
• Locked weapons can be inspected before you buy them: the row opens, and the panel offers BUY, GET GOLD or the level you need instead of an EQUIP for something you do not own.
• BUY in the loadout now takes you to that weapon in the shop, rather than to the top of a 24-tile catalogue to find it yourself.

Match and progression

• Falling into the sea or off the edge of a map respawns you. It used to drop you through the world for the rest of the match.
• A grenade indicator shows when your next one is ready.
• Reloading no longer leaves you unable to fire.
• Bot kills no longer count toward the public leaderboard. They still pay coins and XP.
• Rewards — battle pass, daily and quests — are now decided and paid by the server, so clearing your save file cannot re-claim them.

Display

• A saved resolution is no longer restored onto a display that cannot show it. Unplug a monitor or move to a laptop and the game picks the closest mode that fits — and restores your real choice when the big screen comes back.
• Settings no longer offers voice chat, a microphone picker or a push-to-talk key for a feature the game does not have.

Elsewhere

• A win is captured to your Steam screenshot library, ready to share.
• The Barracks leaderboard links to the full ladder on vertalstrike.com — all-time and last 30 days — and the site is now translated into 10 languages.