HOLLOW SIGNAL — v2.0.0

HOLLOW SIGNAL — v2.0.0“THE SINGULARITY”The signal has reached its final state.v2.0.0 “The Singularity” is a major update to HOLLOW SIGNAL, bringing together extensive performance and stability work, combat HUD improvements, restored Overdrive feedback, controller and keyboard refinements, expanded localization polish, improved CJK readability, audio fixes, visual-comfort improvements, and a substantial amount of underlying system hardening.This is the largest refinement pass HOLLOW SIGNAL has received to date.---THE SINGULARITY* Finalized **The Singularity** sequence and collapse event.
* Refined the cinematic shutdown and final transmission presentation.
* Improved cinematic audio behavior and cleanup during transitions.
* Refined the final power-off effect for a sharper end to the transmission.
* Shortened lingering cinematic bloom effects so they resolve more quickly.
* Updated game-wide version presentation and runtime synchronization for v2.0.0.
* Improved transitions between gameplay, cinematic, victory, and terminal states.---PERFORMANCE & STABILITYv2.0.0 includes a significant underlying performance and runtime hardening pass designed to keep increasingly chaotic late-game encounters stable.* Further refined the game's performance governor during heavy combat.
* Improved large-scale enemy and effect handling.
* Improved automatic performance protection when framerate begins to drop during intense waves.
* Improved broad-phase spatial handling during dense encounters.
* Improved frame-time handling after tab switching, interruptions, paused execution, or unusually long frame delays.
* Added additional protection against malformed simulation timing.
* Added safeguards against invalid combat values corrupting player or enemy health.
* Improved protection against rare states that could leave enemies permanently unkillable.
* Hardened player death detection against malformed damage events.
* Improved state safety during input and UI transitions.
* Removed obsolete and unreachable runtime code.
* Additional startup, synchronization, and simulation cleanup.**Final v2.0.0 validation: clean boot, zero warnings, zero errors, with project validation passing.**---OVERDRIVE & COMBAT HUDThe dedicated **Overdrive meter has returned**, restoring the clearer technical combat readout of the original HUD while integrating it with the current v2.0.0 interface.* Restored the dedicated magenta **Overdrive charge meter** beneath the Integrity bar.
* Integrity now remains visible while Overdrive is active.
* Health and Overdrive status can now be read simultaneously at a glance.
* Overdrive visibly fills as combo kills build charge.
* Added leading-edge energy feedback while charging.
* Added a stronger **READY** state when Overdrive reaches full charge.
* Once activated, the charge meter transitions into a live Overdrive duration display.
* Added increasingly urgent feedback when active Overdrive falls below its final 25%.
* Restored technical quarter-segment markers.
* Restored the small charge sigil for the classic technical readout.
* Repositioned Arcane Trait indicators beneath the expanded HUD stack.
* Improved overall combat HUD hierarchy and readability.Detonate Prompt* Removed the heavy black backing panel behind the **Detonate** prompt.
* Replaced it with a tighter glyph-level shadow.
* Detonate instructions remain readable against lock-on tethers and combat effects without covering the player with an additional UI plate.---AUDIO & WEAPON SFXA major audio reliability issue affecting weapon feedback has been corrected.* Fixed intermittent **weapon sounds dropping out during combat**.
* Long-range weapon SFX are no longer incorrectly silenced based on projectile or impact distance from the player.
* Evolved weapons and attacks resolving near the edge of the play area now retain audible feedback.
* Weapon audio now uses controlled distance falloff instead of being completely culled at longer ranges.
* Player hit and death audio are protected from unintended distance culling.
* Fixed an audio-state issue that could cause subsequent effects to become unexpectedly quiet during a run.
* Added protection against invalid projectile positions affecting spatial audio volume.
* Audited procedural sound generation and cleanup.
* Improved overall weapon-audio consistency during dense and long-range encounters.---VISUAL COMFORT & PHOTOSENSITIVITYv2.0.0 includes an extensive visual-comfort pass, with particular attention given to sudden luminance changes during active combat.Full-Screen Flash RemovalLive combat no longer produces full-screen white flashes.*** Removed the random ambient fog whiteout that could unexpectedly wash out the screen during a run.
* Replaced the ambient whiteout with a **signal surge** using scanlines and density distortion without the sudden luminance spike.
* Removed the full-screen whiteout triggered when locating the **Extraction Beacon**.
* Removed whiteouts from milestone and boss arrivals.
* Boss arrivals retain their surge, banner, shake, ember, and other presentation effects without obscuring combat.
* Critical-hit fullscreen flashes remain decommissioned.
* Level-up fullscreen flashes remain decommissioned.
* Boss-death combat flashes remain decommissioned.
* Removed obsolete fullscreen Overdrive flash rendering.Full-screen bloom is now reserved for a small number of terminal cinematic moments where active gameplay has stopped. These effects have also been shortened considerably.Screen Shake* Reduced the intensity and duration of the **Channel Resonance / Arcane Trait unlock** shake.
* Shortened the sustained death shake while preserving its initial impact.
* Reduced excessive Signal Reel damage shake.
* Improved shake timing so major effects retain impact without unnecessarily disrupting combat readability.---CONTROLLER & INPUTA broad input pass has been completed across controllers and keyboard.Signal Reel* Fixed incorrect **Signal Reel** controller behavior.
* **A / Cross** now performs the normal slower reel stop.
* Reels now decelerate and settle individually as intended.
* **R3 / Right Stick Click** is now the dedicated **SLAM** input.
* Updated the Signal Reel prompt to display the correct R3 command across supported controller schemes.
* Fixed an incorrect shake envelope when taking damage while the Signal Reel was open.
* Reduced Signal Reel damage-shake intensity.
* Added protection against invalid Signal Reel shake timing.
* Fixed Continue and Unleash prompts incorrectly treating a connected controller as the currently active input device.
* Keyboard Signal Reel controls remain unchanged.Cinematic Skip* Fixed an input-bridge issue that could prevent **keyboard users from skipping intro cinematics**.
* **Space**, **Enter**, and **C** now correctly skip supported intro cinematic sequences.
* Controller cinematic skip remains available through **A / Cross**.
* Updated cinematic skip prompts so the displayed keyboard or controller glyph matches the player's active input device.
* Corrected the underlying action mapping so cinematic skip requests are now properly acknowledged by the cinematic state machine.
* Improved consistency between physical input, logical actions, and on-screen prompts.---TYPOGRAPHY & CJK READABILITYA major typography pass has been completed for **Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean**.Because HOLLOW SIGNAL renders through a fixed logical canvas, text readability must be solved at the source rather than relying on higher display resolutions. v2.0.0 introduces a centralized typography system to provide more consistent legibility across supported displays.* Introduced centralized CJK typography handling.
* Established minimum legibility sizes for labels, body copy, and titles.
* Improved font sizing and line spacing for CJK scripts.
* Improved readability of **Archive lore**.
* Improved upgrade-card body text.
* Improved character ability descriptions.
* Improved trait lore and tier specifications.
* Improved boss subtitles.
* Improved unlock rows.
* Improved Signal Reel text.
* Increased CJK line spacing to better accommodate character forms.
* Upgrade panels can now grow when localized content requires additional vertical space.
* Trait specification panels now dynamically reflow around their content.
* Fixed localized text bleeding outside UI containers.
* Removed aggressive text-shrinking paths that could reduce localized text to unreadable sizes.
* Added minimum-size safeguards before truncation occurs.
* Space-constrained text now truncates cleanly instead of overflowing.
* Added proper **CJK line-breaking behavior** to prevent punctuation and closing brackets from incorrectly appearing at the beginning of a line.
* Latin-language layouts retain their existing typography and sizing.---LOCALIZATIONv2.0.0 includes another substantial localization audit across all eight supported languages.Channel Resonance* Fixed incomplete localization throughout the **Channel Resonance** screen.
* Added missing Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, German, and French interface strings.
* Localized the Channel Resonance title and subtitle.
* Localized keyboard instructions.
* Localized controller instructions while preserving dynamic controller glyphs.
* Localized specification headers and card actions.
* Localized **CHANNEL INTEGRATION // TIER 1**.
* Localized **DISCOVER** and **INITIATE LINK**.
* Removed hardcoded English from the Channel Resonance opening banner.
* Corrected localization fallback behavior that could display English interface elements inside otherwise localized screens.Results & Interface* Fixed untranslated **Results screen statistics** in Simplified Chinese.
* Added localized labels for **Sync Depth, Entities Purged, Buffer Level, and Signal Fragments**.
* Localized **Cached Diagnostic Packets** across all supported languages.
* Fixed **PRESS TO CONTINUE** and **UNLEASH** controller prompts incorrectly falling back to English.
* Corrected input-detection paths that could select an incorrect localized prompt.
* Verified R3-based **Overdrive, Detonate, and Secondary** hints across Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam Deck controller schemes.
* Improved Simplified Chinese wording for the Entities Purged statistic.
* Standardized Chinese **Overdrive** terminology throughout the interface.
* Corrected a French **Synchronisation** spelling error.
* Improved localization consistency throughout all eight supported languages.Keyboard key names such as **SPACE** remain represented using their physical Latin key labels while the surrounding action text is localized.---UI & PRESENTATION* Fixed a duplicated **Continue** prompt during weapon upgrade and evolution reveals.
* Upgrade and evolution panels now display a single correctly styled Continue prompt.
* Fragment, heal, and desync outcomes retain their appropriate fallback prompt.
* Fixed a pre-existing Settings menu label-width issue that prevented the overflow guard from functioning correctly.
* Improved localized Settings label fitting.
* Improved overflow handling across localized UI.
* Improved modal layout behavior.
* Additional interface spacing and presentation cleanup.---COMBAT HARDENINGSeveral defensive systems have been added to protect long-running sessions from rare invalid combat states.* Added player-damage validation.
* Added weapon-damage validation.
* Added protection against invalid health values.
* Improved safeguards against enemies entering permanently unkillable states.
* Improved player death-state reliability.
* Added protection against invalid numeric values propagating through combat.
* Improved handling of malformed projectile state during despawn and transition conditions.The existing combat balance has been intentionally preserved. Damage scaling, the early-game grace curve, and invulnerability timing remain unchanged.---SYSTEMS & CLEANUP* Unified version reporting between the game, Electron build, and runtime systems.
* Reinforced the unified save protocol.
* Improved Steamworks startup synchronization.
* Improved input-bridge consistency.
* Removed obsolete rendering code.
* Removed unreachable legacy effects.
* Added additional defensive checks around simulation timing.
* Improved UI-state protection.
* Improved audio-state cleanup.
* Completed additional combat, controller, keyboard, localization, typography, audio, and UI hardening.
* General bug fixes and polish throughout the build.---v2.0.0 — THE SINGULARITYThis update represents a major stabilization and refinement milestone for HOLLOW SIGNAL — preserving the game's Noir-Fi identity while improving the systems underneath it, the information presented to the player, and the consistency of the experience across languages and input methods.**The signal is decoded.
The transmission is locked.
Welcome to The Singularity.**