We are working on an upcoming update to bring some changes and improvements to core gameplay features, and minor changes to several maps based on player feedback. These changes will improve enemy reactions and gameplay feedback to players, as well as drastically improve the quality of actions made by both enemy and friendly AI. Map updates will address progression and overall readability in Dubai, Tutorial, and very minor changes in several other maps.

For some background: As we were nearing release and playtesting with a larger pool of players outside of the development team, we discovered performance issues across a variety of hardware levels. While we were aware of performance issues on lower end systems, as well as unfortunately unavoidable problems on AMD based graphics cards, the performance issues we were seeing during these playtest sessions were both significant, and outside of those mentioned situations.

In order to prevent further delays in releasing the game, AI agents (both enemy and friendly) underwent an extensive, if last minute, review and refactor for optimization. Some core AI routines were easily optimized and we saw major performance increases. Other routines were more in-depth or the underlying performance issues would have required substantial reworking of code, and so a number of those routines were skipped or removed altogether.

An unfortunate side effect of this is that, under some circumstances, both enemy and friendly AI would appear to act very dumb. This was disappointing for our team as we placed a large focus on AI interactions and we had wanted players to enjoy a more tactical gameplay experience than found in other BUILD engine games.

After taking a break after Realms Deep and the holiday season, I have been reworking the core AI routines that broke down or caused a lot of these issues and the results are very promising. For players, the changes should not be so drastic that the game will feel like an entirely new experience, but rather minimize the instances where AI agents would go into some sort of failure state and break player immersion. Our hope is that players will be able to continue playing and enjoying the game as we intended.

Regarding performance issues related to AMD based cards, we had previously pushed an update that allowed players to disable some detail objects in maps in an effort to reduce performance issues. We are expanding this list of objects to hopefully improve this further for those players. Unfortunately we are not able to resolve the underlying issue, as the root cause of this is related to AMDs OpenGL drivers and the way the engine handles the scene rendering. Currently AWOL is on an older build of the EDuke32 engine, and in a future update we will be porting forward to a newer version, which we hope will help address these issues.

Lastly, we will be working on a future update to improve controller support as well as support for the Steam Deck. This will require some changes to how the in-game UI is handled to support controller button icons, but this is still on our radar.

Thanks again to all of our players who have enjoyed A.W.O.L. and we appreciate all of the feedback and response!

We've released a small patch that addresses a handful of small issues recently identified.

• Comic cutscenes have had dialogue boxes updated to display on screen for much longer.
  
• Fix a number of sector / map errors in several maps.
  
• Fix several sequence breaks or skippable triggers for combat scenarios in many of the maps.
  
• Fix an issue with the interactive / destructive panels in Facility, Sub Dock, and Base / Finale which would cause them not to trigger or, in rare cases, completely disappear.
  
• Add numerous interactivity points to Tutorial and Colombia.
  
• Replaced security monitor texture with a more obvious one.
  
• Made change to final / ending cutscene so that it can't be skipped, although it can still be fast-forwarded, preventing players from not returning to the menu after finishing the game.
  
• Drones have had their behaviors slightly modified to better detect when they crash into floors and walls, to prevent situations where they are physically stuck.
  
• Fixed an issue where a Drone's active LED would not despawn, or would pop up in random places throughout the map.
  

Today's patch addresses a number of issues that players have reported, regarding both performance and gameplay. We really appreciate the time players have taken to report bugs and other problems they've run into so that we can continue updating A.W.O.L. and make it as best as we can for you.

Here is a summary of the changes in today's patch:

Performance changes:

• Optimizations to map geometry have been made to Colombia to address general performance issues. More extensive changes to the map will be made in the future to further address this.
  
• 3D model rendering has had several optimizations added for non-gameplay related models (IE: not including vehicles used for cover, etc.).
  
• A performance option has been added to the game menu under Options > Game to convert non-gameplay 3D models to sprites. The number of models this affects is small at this time, but will increase in the future as additional replacement sprites are created. This option is recommended for AMD hardware users who experience significant performance issues, particularly in the maps Colombia and Escape.
  
• AI and pathfinding have received some small performance fixes, which should affect hard frame hitching while AIs try to perform complex navigation. This was most noticeable in Dubai but should affect AIs more broadly.
  

• Particles and VFX performance checks were improved or added for most all particle types.
  
• 3D models in Colombia and Escape have been reworked to improve performance and visual consistency.
  
• All enemies have had their HP slightly decreased based on player feedback.
  
• Dubai's dialogue regarding friendly / non-enemy Dubai Security Forces has been clarified and new dialogue triggers added. The player will now be warned multiple times if they attack Dubai Security. Additionally, if the player continues to attack them, eventually Dubai Security will turn hostile towards the player entirely.
  
• Quadcopter Drones in Dubai have had behaviors changed so they no longer try to fly into positions the player can't aim at. They've also had their visual size increased slightly, their hitbox increased slightly, their speed reduced slightly, and an "active" LED added to make them easier to spot and track.
  

• Colombia's objectives and general gameplay sequence have been updated to make map progression more clear.
  
• Escape has had the map/objective info screen updated so the kill counter no longer displays, adding clarity to the escape nature of the level.
  
• Train no longer resets music and UI after loading a save during the second half of the map sequence.
  
• Prison has had some sequence break issues fixed, and the prison break effect was more streamlined internally.
  
• Dubai has received a large overhaul of fixes and more clear objective markers and text relating to map progression based on player feedback.
  
• Facility received visual updates to improve performance, particularly in outdoor areas.
  
• Sub Dock received gameplay updates and changes to its overall play sequence. Several dialogue and objective triggers were removed for release and have been added back in.
  
• Hindsite has several visual glitches and sequence break issues fixed. The final boss had its hitbox increased slightly, to improve hit detection issues and rockets flying through the model.
  
• A large number of minor changes to most all maps, addressing a variety of issues related to clipping problems, visual glitches, or other non-gameplay altering fixes.
  

Less than 24 hours ago we released A.W.O.L. to the public and seeing the reaction from fans and players has been amazing. We want to thank you all for your support, your feedback, and for playing and enjoying our game.

We've pushed a minor update to A.W.O.L. fixing a handful of gameplay and visual issues:

• The file awol_customize.con has been moved to the root user directory, allowing you to make gameplay changes to things like enemy health and behaviors, weapon damages, and other gameplay settings. Have fun!
  
• Fixing objective text not displaying correctly under certain conditions
  
• Fixing glass and other breakable surfaces still remaining blockable / hitscanable after they break
  
• Fixing issue with player hitbox being too big in some instances, making it seem like enemies can shoot around corners
  
• Improving AI Bot return teleport conditions
  
• Attempting to improve performance in Jungle levels by adding distance/LOD effect to some visual models (more extensive fixes of this nature to come)
  
• Fixing TROR portal issue in several maps where areas will suddenly not be able to be shot through or causing other visual problems
  
• Fixing several minor visual effects or issues in several maps