At long last, we're excited to bring The Ghost Update to the default branch! For a quick summary check out the trailer below (and sure to watch all the way through for a surprise!). It features ghost racing, a replay viewer, official HTC Vive support, an increased online player limit, a new stats system, and tons of other improvements! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFv2rA-y4DA It's been quite an adventure reaching this build. The Ghost Update is easily our most ambitious update so far. Only took 17 experimental builds and 579 revisions to reach it! Thanks to those who braved the experimental branch and gave feedback over the past few months.
(race against your friends' ghosts, times near you, or the global best)
(the replay viewer allows for HUD-less viewing of any leaderboard time) I'm keeping this post short but sweet for today, but soon I'll be emailing out a much longer devlog discussing The Ghost Update, Adventure mode, and future plans. If you'd like make sure you're not missing out, sign up on our website near the top left:

Newsletter sign-up: http://survivethedistance.com/

THE GHOST UPDATE: BUILD 5070

New Replay/Ghost System

• Added ghost racing
  • Added option to race against Local, Friends, Global, or Near Me ghosts by default when playing a level in Arcade mode
  • When using the "Near Me" option, ghosts are now re-downloaded if a new leaderboard place is obtained
  • Ghosts now fade in after the race start to hide outline during intro
  • When racing against selected ghosts, your current playthrough won't be added on restart
• Added replay viewer
  • After completing a map in a solo mode, click View Replay to view your run
  • Switch to any camera view including a free camera (use +, -, 0 to adjust FOV)
  • Adjust replay speed from 1/16x to 16x
  • Toggle HUD to show / hide / hide and hide names
  • Pause, seek forward, or seek backward a few seconds
  • Click on speed slider to change speed of replays
  • Click or scrub along the time slider to jump to a point in the replay
  • Added blink effect when skipping time
  • SFX and music are affected by replay speed
  • Time and replay progress meter correspond to the replay in focus
• Added a system to be able to upload and download replays for Steam global leaderboards
• Added ability to view multiple replays or race against multiple ghosts from the leaderboard menu within level select
• Changed wording in the level select menu to indicate where Ghosts and Replays can be found, as well as indicate that only your top 20 results are now stored locally
• Added listing for ghosts in match results screen (so you can see how you directly compare)
• Names of close cars now fade out in spectate and replays, to prevent name overlapping, especially at the start of a replay with multiple cars
• Added "Replay" options menus which allows for choosing which ghosts are auto-downloaded, name visibility, whether or not playback speed impacts music, etc.

Gameplay Improvements

• Added Arcade level progression system
  • In Arcade, levels must now be unlocked by earning medals
  • If you improved your time/score after completing a map a special screen will appear showing how well you did
  • If you already earned the necessary medals before this update, levels will be auto-unlocked
• Added statistics system
  • We added a system behind the scenes to collect a wide number of stats about your play style
  • Added a Stats tab in the results screen so you can see the stats from that match
  • Global accumulated stats are visible in the main menu from the Garage button
• Wheels can now be sliced like the rest of the car
• Added "Grind" trick which calculates based on scraping without wheels contacting a surface
• Updated the way points are displayed on the car in stunt mode, now it is more minimalistic and just displays the number
• Updated the way points are displayed everywhere so that commas are displayed in the numbers (1,000 vs 1000) to unify the way they are displayed in the game
• When failing a Challenge level, restart is now highlighted by default
• Updated StartZone/EndZone Mesh to fix a few holes, and make the physics more closely match the visuals
• FOV is now smoothed when changing between camera views

Graphics Improvements

• Upgraded the stars in the skybox using real world data from 170,000+ stars
• Rewrote Anti-Aliasing. Now there are three options: Off, Fast, and Quality
• Anti-aliasing no longer affects stars or the car screen
• Enabled fancy noise effect on car death
• Removed distortion effect from lightning spawner, since it was causing graphical glitches

VR Improvements

• Added initial HTC Vive support
• Added a VR options menu, with ability to disable VR, and tweak many parameters for comfort versus immersion
• Tweaked third-person camera modes in VR to be more usable. World appears smaller when in 3rd person
• Added VR camera reset when the headset is put on
• Modified camera shake in VR to be less intense; it can also be disabled
• Greatly reduced camera movement on explode when in VR
• Greatly reduced brightness of windshield effects when in VR
• Camera resetting now persists between levels
• Added various VR improvements under the hood
• Disabled dirty lens effect when in VR
• Disabled realtime-reflections when in VR
• Removed Chaperone for SteamVR/Vive

Menu Improvements

• Added Garage button in the main menu
  • Move the setting of car colors from Profile options to here
  • Added the ability to view Global stats here
  • Added the ability to set a main menu level per profile
• Added Next Level button to the pause menu
• Added a Units value to General Options so players can choose between Imperial and Metric units
• Improved loading time of main menu
• Dramatically improved Level Select Menu load times by rewriting underlying systems
• Added ability to toggle Results Screen visibility
• Added scrolling to match results
• Now the standings text will update itself dynamically while it is displayed instead of it just updating when it first pops up
• Made it so when viewing leaderboards in the level select it doesn't place your entry at the top of the list unless you are #1
• Improved error text when a Steam Workshop file fails to download
• Improved scrolling through global entries in Level Select leaderboard
• Page up/down buttons are now disabled when not usable in the Level Select menu
• Added input action in Controls menu for toggling results and replay menu visibility
• Inverted black colors of Start and Select button prompt text
• Refactored level loading so that Distance can still animate when loading a level
• Updated the loading screen with a circular progress bar
• Moved options menu so the bottom option isn't so close to the bottom of the screen
• Added support for time to be displayed as days (e.g. the stats screen)

Level Editor Improvements

• Improved performance of the editor (may see better framerate when editing large levels)
• Improved the display names in drop down enum lists for the Level Editor
• Improved the algorithm for generating medal times in Level Settings of levels being created in the Level Editor
• Added the ability for WorldText to set the font that the text uses
• Object centerpoints and names are now displayed correctly in orthographic mode
• Updated centerpoints, names, and light icons to improve performance
• EmpireBuilding3 now has a correct reflection map

Online Multiplayer Improvements

• Max player count for online matches is now 12 players
• Cars now all spawn in the same location in online play
• Dramatically optimized cars so that many can be shown on screen without a performance drop
• Added fade in to network car outlines
• KillGrid now supports Net Cars for Online play

Misc. Improvements

• Improved medal times on Official Sprint and Challenge levels
• The last used spectator camera type is now saved
• Slightly optimized level loading times
• Added a new system for caching level information to improve initial startup time a bit
• Changed min FOV on spectate/replay free cam to 30°
• Spectate and track cams no longer have radial blur or chromatic aberation based on car speed
• Improved awkward camera when failing a challenge level
• Improved awkwardness when there is no player to spectate after finishing
• Car colors are now clamped for multiplayer and replays
• Added cap for global car sound effects to reduce clutter (i.e. only 6 of any car sound effect like boost, jump, jets, etc. can be heard at once)
• Reduced memory leak in Logitech code for input
• Reduced both CPU and GPU memory footprint
• Updated Steam backend API to Steamworks.NET
• Updated to Unity 5.4. This adds a possible optimization on the CPU side, so you might see better framerates

Bugs Fixes

• Fixed Gravity Toggle issues in Aftermath
• Fixed situation where car would sometimes get stuck halfway through the road
• Fixed bug where particles could disable anti-aliasing on pixels they touch
• Fixed bug where Linux wouldn't have working pulsing lights in level Negative Space
• Fixed bug where cubemap on some golden simples were incorrectly set
• Fixed bugs where splitscreen didn't work with Trackmogrify
• Fixed bug where Distance was broken in Steam offline mode
• Potentially fixed issues with Workshop level Update/Publish
• Fixed zFighting on various objects (e.g. EmpireBuildingBlock003)
• Fixed capitalization issue with Seed/Level text in Game Lobby
• Fixed being able to switch between cars in spectate
• Fixed bug where death messages were not being sent to all online players properly
• Fixed bugs with trick text fading when doing tricks
• Fixed bug where bloom was intense after leaving quarantine zone
• Fixed bug where enabling motion blur disabled anti-aliasing
• Fixed bug where Reverse Tag bubble collision wouldn't trigger when far away from the host player
• Fixed many resource leaks that potentially caused crashes
• Fixed bug with lens flares not being visible
• Improved the way in which Cubemaps were rendered, which was causing a substantial memory leak
• Fixed bug where particles preview didn't work in the level editor
• Fixed bug where selecting all/no replays in the leaderboard makes the selected entry unreadable
• Fixed bug where real-time reflections on the car looked too bright in many scenarios
• Fixed quality issues on NoiseStorm skybox
• Fixed bug when toggling the level editor with '~' in the pause menu
• Fixed bug where TurnLightOnNearCar component was being affected by scale
• Fixed bug where backing out of split-screen options could break the level select menu
• Fixed bug where the Community Highlight section of the main menu wouldn't update after subscribing to a level in game
• Fixed bug where extruding from a spline node attached to a group within the level editor would corrupt levels by not allowing that functionality
• Fixed bug where after scrolling through several levels in the level select menu the Friends leaderboard would seem to lag behind the current selection
• Fixed bug where global low pass was enabled after mode finish
• Fixed bug where you couldn't hold Esc when connecting to Steam Workshop
• Fixed bug where invisible network cars still had visible wheels
• Fixed bug where a near network car could glow really bright when going through a checkpoint
• Fixed issues with changing tabs in Garage (weird color changes were happening)
• Fixed bug where the Steam Workshop update would fail to fully update all levels after a single file had failed
• Fixed bug where deleting unsubscribed files after a Steam Workshop update would fail to properly clear all unsubscribed files
• Fixed bug where the car's overheat sound could continue playing after exiting a replay
• Fixed bug where reflections on car wheels were incorrect
• Fixed bug where car reflections broke if shadow settings were changed during gameplay
• Fixed bug where the game would cause SFX to low pass when the car screen is glitching out
• Fixed bug where various music tracks would have broken MIDI sequencing (lights flashing at wrong time or not at all)
• Fixed specific issues with MIDI lighting being incorrect on Mac and Linux for certain songs
• Fixed bug where pause menu wouldn't open sometimes after an online match
• Fixed bug where restarting a replay from the pause menu would soft lock the game
• Fixed bug where anti-aliasing didn't work when motion blur was enabled
• Fixed bug where EmpireEndZone wasn't being rendered properly in the Level Editor Library Tab