This is the first progress report on Days of Defiance. We plan to make this a bi-weekly thing where we'll keep you updated on the game's development progress. We will probably miss the deadline for a few of these every now and then, depending on how busy we are and how much there is to tell. You know, making the game takes precedence over reporting about making the game. With that out of the way, here's what happened in the last two weeks.

Smoke Bombs

The biggest new addition to your tactical choices comes in the form of smoke bombs. They can be thrown as grenades or placed on the ground as traps. When triggered, they release a thick cloud of smoke that expands with time. Anyone within the smoke cloud has severely limited vision range and takes ongoing stamina damage until they eventually pass out. They're also harder to see from outside of the cloud. This makes smoke bombs a versatile tactical choice: you can use them to hide your movement from enemies or trap enemies inside to damage their constitution and limit their vision.
The only way to protect against the health effects of smoke bombs is by wearing gas masks or respirators, which have also been added to the game as a new wearable item type.

Sniper Rifles

Speaking of vision range, the game now features sniper rifles as a new weapon type. These are suited for long-range engagements and pair very well with elevated positions that let you overlook large parts of the map. The rifles we've added so far have different strengths and weaknesses across stats like weight, range, magazine size, and customizability. All of them can be equipped with scopes, which brings us neatly to the next part:

Scopes & Sights

Scopes and sights can now be attached to the vast majority of firearms in the game. They all improve a character's precision when shooting the gun. In addition to that, scopes also increase vision range, but only while aiming. A good shooter in an elevated position can overlook almost the entire map and provide valuable tactical support to team members that are closer to the action. And that's it for this time. All these features will make it into the demo that's due in late summer. See you next time!