Calling all shadowy mercenary groups and cyber tacticians -- welcome to our Steam Strategy Fest demo! Cyber Knights: Flashpoint is waiting to see just how well your strategy skills hold up in our squad tactics heist RPG. Weve got many new additions for you if youve played this demo before since its release in June (see below)! If this is your first time, we're excited to share this demo that takes you to the very start of your Cyber Knight's career: the night of your surgery that implants the spinal quantum computer, giving you extraordinary powers of calculation and coordination to help you lead your squad. In the underworld of New Boston, nothing goes down easy and everyone has an agenda. Can you keep your head up in these dangerous waters? Every job you choose to do for an underworld power-player allows you to tackle it with your own style and focus. To pull it off you've got to manage your team, bankroll, injuries and more from your safehouse so that you arrive ready to dominate the tactical battlefield of a heist with stealth (eluding enemy security and agents without a sound), combat (slashing, sniping, going loud at the right moments with full auto) and hacking (plugging the nano-wire from the back of your skull into a matrix host to descend into those glittering data streams -- not available in this demo but soon to come!). Some of the highlights from this update:

New Mission Unlocked

The Cube Run is now available in the demo, giving you a whole extra heist to try. As one of your first hits in New Boston, this job targets a new Warner-Braun NanoFab that is being setup as the German megacorp prepares its arrival to the New Boston economic zone. There is good money to be made if you can make the right moves and scoop the loot. But it is New Boston and 2231; secrets are hiding under every new NanoFab and megacorporate welcome mat.

Heat Balancing

As your actions in New Boston draw the wrong kind of attention, your crew builds up Heat. Heat can affect your Contact's services (some may clam up and stop talking or selling to you altogether if you're "too hot") and can also predispose some jobs to be more difficult, as the security teams are on higher alert due to your run of espionage and destruction. Heat will cool down as time passes. We've added some new important sources of heat, including Cameras and Radar Arrays that have been upgraded to HI-POWERED status by the security system, capable of generating +1 Heat per spotting of a merc (max +1 / Turn). In addition -- based on difficulty -- you'll gain some Heat for every job (default +2) and some Heat per Security Level you trigger during a mission (+2 / Level, max +12). If you feel the heat just around the corner, it's probably time to let the game timeline run for a bit while you lay low in the Safehouse and work on upgrades, cyber surgeries, and weapon mods.

Extending the Lore Journal

We added 3 new entries to the Places category of the lore Journal and beefed up the section that was there for New Boston. This journal will be a key repository of world knowledge for you and has the capability to expand and change as game events happen, so much of it will not simply be set in stone text. We're very excited to see it starting to bulk up as we move content over from our internal lore docs into the game's format.

From previous updates: heist advantages, options expansion, security AI display, visual improvements, unit AI upgrades, and much more!

Since the demos release in June, weve steadily added in more of the player-ready features from the games main development branch, and acted on a ton of the great feedback submitted from players initial runs. Most recently, we added a big pile of options for quality like V-Sync and texture quality as well as tweaking controls like edge scrolling and camera rotation direction. We also revamped the AI's tactical decision tree to help enemy combatants more intelligent once they get in a firefight with you. You can scroll back through the previous updates on our Steam page to see details for these or other additions like heist advantages. All of the feedback that we've received from players checking out the demo has been helping us prioritize improvements across the entire game. We read every bit of feedback submitted through the game's F10 system -- keep it coming; you can probably spot a change made based on something you shared with us in the full changelog below.

We are closing in on a release window!

Exciting news for long-time followers of the game. We have assembled the final burn-down list of tasks to complete for our EA launch! The timeline is just a few weeks longer than our estimates from earlier this year; putting us near the start of Q4 instead of the end of Q3. While estimates are always subject to change, this shift is a minor one and confirms we're on track for a strong EA launch. Launches are always a big moment in our player community, so join our Discord to be part of the fun from the very beginning and stay in the loop on special opportunities as the game's release approaches.

0.6.135 - 8/28/2023

- Unlocked "Cube Run" job for demo - raid a Warner-Braun NanoFab to make your own payday - Gain Heat for every job at a rate of 2 + (2 x Sec Level) with a maximum of 12 per job - HI-POWERED Cameras and Radar Arrays add +1 Heat when spotting mercs (max +1 / Turn per device) - Switch Play/Fast Forward position in timeline for more natural setup, pressing FF will pause if already running fast - Added 3 new lore entries to the journal Places group - Fixed final bugs that could cause character or enemy lock up while moving - Fixed reported typos, some faction names missing in recruit dialogs - Improved labeling and titles in all mission planning screens ("Leverage") - Improved font weights in tags and action bars

Other Changes Since Stealth Fest

0.6.135 - Demo Update #10: Down the Pipes - Update size will be large which is required to make the next one smaller - Reduced overall game filesystem size by 1 GB (~10%) - Improved AI tactical thinking when already engaged with an enemy - Improved AI movement patterns to avoid getting too close to characters nonsensically - Improved AI movement patterns to avoid over-grouping with each other - Improved rules for Glancing Hits under certain distance thresholds for BF, FA and SA weapons - Fixed bug failing to auto-restoring items (grenades, medkits) correctly from inventory stock between missions - Fixed F10 feedback form to block keyboard input to game in Safehouse correctly - Fixed edge cases where a moving character might end up suddenly under the stairs - Fixed bug causing start of enemy Overwatch to lock game - Fixed pop-up of "Stationary VIP" appearing over Wireghost's head during Smokeout job - Fixed bugs that could lock up video player during video tutorials v0.6.133 - Demo Update #9: Options Parade - New option for Enabling V-Sync separate from Quality Setting - New option for controlling texture quality (best/good/lowest) separate from Quality Setting - New option for locking cursor to the window - New option to disable Action Camera during combat - New option for edges scrolling and edge scrolling area thickness - New option for controlling camera panning speed - New option for controlling camera rotation speed - New option for reversing direction of camera rotation when holding key / RMB https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/