🚨 Chain Reaction v0.37.0 is LIVE 🚨 Another big update focused on voice chat, graphics, audio, maps, combat + polish. ✨ Added 🎙️ Push to talk: Voice chat can now be set to push-to-talk from the Audio tab in Settings, and it sticks between sessions. 🎚️ Microphone volume + sensitivity: The Audio tab now has a mic volume slider + sensitivity control with a live level meter, so you can see yourself hitting the threshold before you talk. 🎵 Music on the login screen: The login screen now plays background music instead of sitting silent. 🔢 Numbers on settings sliders: Every slider in Settings now shows its current value, so you can tell what you actually set. 🖥️ Auto-Detect for video settings: A new row under Rendering picks graphics settings to match your machine in one click. 🔧 Changed 🎮 Video options grey out when your hardware can't run them: Frame generation + DLSS Neural Rendering rows are no longer offered on cards that cannot use them instead of failing silently. 💣 Throwables stick to moving objects: A sticky grenade attached to a moving platform or door now rides along with it instead of hanging in the air where it landed. 🏜️ Dune + Slums look and run better: New detailed models for the vans, rocks, pipes + bridges on Dune, plus a lighting rebake on Dune + Slums. 🔊 UI, announcer + kill-streak sound sits above the match mix: Menu + HUD audio now has its own priority, so it doesn't get drowned out or ducked by the fight around you. 🛠 Fixed 🔫 Weapons are no longer flat + washed out: Guns were rendering without their normal, metal + emission maps in built versions of the game, making them look like untextured plastic. 📊 Frame rate no longer halves at the Match Results screen: The end-of-match transition used to hitch hard as the results screen loaded. ⏱️ The warm-up countdown matches for everybody: It now counts down from five, once, on every player's screen instead of each client showing a different number. 🪜 Reloading survives climbing a ladder: Starting a reload + then mounting a ladder used to silently throw the reload away, so you reached the top with an empty gun. 🔊 Announcer, pickup + self-feedback sounds no longer echo: Kill streak calls + your own pickup sounds picked up the map's reverb when you were in a corridor. 🔫 You can hear other players draw their weapons: The weapon draw sound was only audible to the player drawing it, and now carries a sensible distance rather than across the whole map. 👣 Footsteps + bullet impacts use the right surface: Footsteps were inaudible on Slums' stairs + metal walkways, surfaces were unauthored across every shipping map, and bullets played concrete impacts on geometry that should have sounded like something else. 🤖 Bots no longer mime throwing grenades: A bot would play the full throw animation with nothing leaving its hand, most obviously when spectating one in first person. ✨ Dropped items sparkle again: A dropped weapon or utility stopped blinking to mark itself, so it was easy to walk past. 💀 The reload prompt disappears when you die: It used to stay on screen while you watched your own corpse. 🏃 Right-clicking during a weapon's cooldown no longer breaks the run animation: Right-click while running + while the weapon was cooling down used to snap you into the wrong animation, on any weapon. 🗡️ Holding right-click through a Rift Blade lunge no longer locks you to a walk: You stayed walking until you let go of right-click, and the sprint desynced with the server. 🏜️ You no longer get stuck at a Dune spawn point: Missing collision at one spawn could trap you on respawn. 🪜 First-person climbing hands show when you spectate someone mid-climb: The arms were missing if you switched to a player already on a ladder. ⚛️ Charged shots on the Photon Rifle are judged fairly: A release right at the minimum charge could disagree between you + the server, and a shot the server discarded still advanced its recoil + spread, so your later shots drifted for a shot you never fired. 🎯 The damage direction indicator is more accurate: It no longer invents a direction when you hurt yourself, and points more usefully at where the damage came from. Every week the game gets better. Still early. Still shipping weekly. 🎮 Jump into v0.37.0

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🚨 Chain Reaction v0.36.0 is LIVE 🚨 Big graphics, performance, latency, networking + combat update. ✨ Added 🌑 Ambient occlusion: Surfaces now darken naturally where objects meet the ground and geometry gets tight, so props sit in the world instead of floating on it. New on/off switch in Video settings. 🎛️ Quality presets: One dropdown now sets everything: Ultra Low, Low, Medium, High + Ultra High. It sets texture quality, anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, shadow quality + ambient occlusion together, and you can still tweak each afterwards. 🖥️ New graphics settings: Anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering + shadow quality now have dedicated Video settings. Shadow quality replaces the separate shadow distance + cascade sliders, since those only made sense together. ⚡ NVIDIA Reflex low latency: New NVIDIA setting cuts the delay between your mouse moving + the screen responding. Works independently and does NOT require frame generation. 🔊 Pickup sounds: Picking up a gun or ammo now plays a sound. 🔧 Changed 🔍 Weapon + character previews are much sharper: Armory, loadout, main menu + end-of-match previews were being enlarged from a smaller image without smoothing. They now render above their displayed size + are anti-aliased for clean edges. 🎯 Scoped weapons no longer cost FPS while hip-firing: Scope views were rendering every frame even when you weren't looking through them. They now render only while actually scoped. 💡 Lighting rebaked across the maps: Sun shadows are now baked instead of drawn fully in realtime. Moon Base's shadow settings were also retuned + relit. Lighting looks the same or better while costing less. 🏜️ Dune runs better: Larger props now have proper detail levels, dropping to cheaper versions at distance instead of rendering at full detail across the entire map. 🪙 Fewer hitches when tokens drop: More token canisters are prepared up front, so big multi-kills don't have to create them mid-fight. 🛠 Fixed ⏳ No more getting stuck on the loading screen forever: If the server gave up waiting for you to load, you were left staring at the loading screen with no message. You now get a popup + return to the menu. 💣 Grenade + utility icons stay on the HUD: Icons could disappear after respawning or picking an item up even though it was still there + usable. 🪟 Joining a match in progress now shows the right glass: Panes already shot out looked intact to late joiners + stayed that way for the rest of the match. 💥 Glass behind the player you shoot now shatters for you too: Everyone else saw it break. The shooter didn't. 💀 Shooting a body no longer counts as damage: Hits on players who were already dead were still being applied. 💰 Players who disconnect mid-match are paid out: Leaving the match previously removed you from the payout entirely. Players who leave before the match starts are still paid nothing. 🪙 Token payouts no longer fail silently: A payout could fail without reporting anything, or stop part way down the list + leave the rest of the lobby unpaid. 🧹 Dropped coins are cleared between rounds: Coins left on the ground previously survived the round reset + piled up. ✨ Recycled token coins no longer look like they're about to vanish: A coin could spawn already blinking as if its despawn timer were nearly up. ⚛️ Photon Rifle can no longer be charged indefinitely: Firing a burst + immediately entering secondary fire previously let you hold a charge forever without overheating. 🌐 A charged shot survives a burst of packet loss: A bad moment on your connection could quietly drain the charge you were holding. 🪜 Climbing a ladder no longer cancels a charge: Grabbing a ladder mid-charge was a free way out of the overheat penalty. The game now refuses the climb instead. 🔄 Swapping weapons no longer eats your first shot: The firing-rate timer was tracked per player instead of per weapon slot. A newly drawn gun could refuse or delay its first round, while ammo could end up back on the weapon you swapped away from. Holding the trigger through a swap was the worst case. 🔫 Your first shot after respawning fires: Leftover shot state from your previous life could swallow it. ⚡ Automatic weapons no longer sneak an extra shot after a frame-rate hitch: A stutter could let autofire fire again inside the weapon's own cooldown. 🎯 Recoil + spread now match what the server does: After a shot rejected for firing too early, your recoil + bloom could drift out of sync with where your bullets were actually going. 🖼️ Frame generation works + stops thrashing: On NVIDIA cards it could fail to engage, retry dozens of times per second when the hardware refused it + flicker the window between fullscreen and windowed. 🤖 DLSS Neural Rendering is greyed out on unsupported cards: The option was previously shown as available on hardware where it would never work. Every week the game gets better. Still early. Still shipping weekly. 🎮 Jump into v0.36.0:

🚨 Chain Reaction v0.35.0 is LIVE 🚨 🔥 DLSS 5 is HERE 🔥 This is a BIG one. Graphics, performance, combat, networking, audio, maps, anti-cheat and more. 🔥 ✨ ADDED: 🚀 DLSS 4.5 upscaling + Frame Generation 🎮 Upscaling options: Automatic, DLSS 4, FSR 4, FSR 3.1, XeSS 3, SGSR 2, SGSR 1 & MetalFX 🎚️ Quality levels including Off + sharpening control ✖️ Frame Generation toggle + multiplier ✅ Upscaling defaults to Quality 🎯 Frame Generation defaults OFF to avoid added input latency 🧠 DLSS 5 Neural Rendering on supported GPUs 🎨 Style + intensity controls ⛔ Off by default 🩶 Settings remain visible but greyed out on unsupported hardware 🌑 Ambient Occlusion added 🧱 Better shading in corners, crevices & where objects meet surfaces ✅ On by default with an option to disable for more FPS 🔥 Fires on Slums, Moon Base & Dune now DAMAGE players ☠️ Fire deaths count as environmental deaths, not player kills 🏆 Matches now end immediately when you're the last real player remaining 📊 Current standings become final 🤖 Bot-only matches are unaffected 🔧 CHANGED: 🌑 Moon Base updated based on our Sept. 3 playtest 🗺️ Layout changes 🪜 Ladder adjustments 💡 Re-baked lighting 🔫 Weapon spawns repositioned ❤️ Health-kit spawns repositioned 🖥️ Video Settings reorganized into Upscaling, Frame Generation & DLSS 5 🩶 Unsupported features now appear greyed out instead of disappearing ❌ Exclusive Fullscreen removed 🪟 Fullscreen Window is now default 🔳 Maximized Window + Windowed remain available 🎯 Antialiasing defaults to None since upscaling handles it 🚀 DirectX 12 is now default 🧠 Required for DLSS 5 🛟 DirectX 11 remains available as fallback 🔊 Major audio rebalance 🎵 Music sits lower under gameplay 🎮 Gameplay sits under voice chat 🔫 Gunfire carries farther 👣 Footsteps are easier to hear 💥 Landing thuds are easier to hear 🖱️ UI audio no longer drowns out voice 🎵 New profiles start Music at max 🔊 New profiles start Effects at max 💾 Existing audio settings are preserved 💣 Over-cook a Frag or Honey Grenade and it EXPLODES in your hand ☠️ Counts as suicide 🚫 No more automatic throw when the fuse expires 💀 Die while cooking a grenade and it drops at your body ⏱️ Fuse keeps running 💥 It explodes when the fuse ends 🚫 No more launching it toward whoever killed you ⚡ Photon Rifle charged shots now require commitment 🔄 No weapon swapping while charging 🔫 No primary fire 📦 No dropping 🔃 No reloading 🔪 Melee was already blocked ⚡ Release the charge or hold through it 🚀 Rockets now launch from the launcher at your shoulder 👁️ No more eye-level center-screen origin 🌐 Everyone now sees the same trajectory 🛠 FIXED: 🎥 Killcam stutter fixed 💀 Death camera follows bodies smoothly 🧱 Camera obstruction pull-in no longer jitters or clips through walls 👁️ Fixed staying in first-person on your corpse after death 🎥 Death view now switches correctly 🧱 Walls no longer push the death camera onto your body 🌫️ Fixed Slums & Dune fog disappearing after opening Video Settings or reaching Match Results ✨ Dropped weapons now correctly flicker/pulse ⏱️ Pulse starts after the weapon comes to rest instead of while flying 🍯 Fixed Honey Grenades freezing in mid-air 🌬️ Fixed detached grenades drifting 🎨 Fixed splat visuals redrawing 🔊 Fixed explosion SFX playing away from the blast 🔪 Fixed Rift Blade lunges killing without impact feedback 🔊 Impact SFX restored 🩸 Blood VFX restored 💪 Fixed other players' arms freezing when switching to Rift Blade or empty hands 🦘 Fixed swallowed jump inputs 🪜 Fixed swallowed ladder-climb inputs 📡 Each input now reaches the server exactly once 🔄 No more jumping then immediately getting pulled back down 🏃 Fixed rubber-banding when firing during sprint 🔫 Client/server sprint state now stays synchronized ⏱️ Fixed lobby countdown failing to reset when someone leaves in the final 10 seconds ✅ Players can ready again 🚫 Match no longer starts anyway 🤝 Draws now show as DRAW instead of Defeat ⚔️ TDM draws show both teams' kill totals 👤 Results now identify players by identity instead of name 🏆 Duplicate player names no longer cause both players to see Victory ⏳ Fixed matches ending while players were still loading 💰 No false loss for a match you never paid to enter ⚫ Fixed pulsing black overlay behind Match Results 🔌 Fixed players getting kicked while joining when lobby data contains an unresolved entry 💀 Fixed death-cam bodies being reused when multiple players die simultaneously ⚡ Fixed Photon Rifle charge remaining armed after releasing without firing 💥 Normal follow-up shots no longer become explosive charged shots 🛡️ CHEAT HARDENING: 🔫 Modified clients can no longer fire during weapon draw animations ⚡ Modified clients can no longer hide Photon Rifle charge glow from opponents 💣 Modified clients can no longer clear grenade-cook state 🚫 No exploiting grenade cooking to shoot mid-throw 🚫 No exploiting it to reload mid-throw 🚫 No exploiting it to sprint mid-throw ✅ Graphics got better. ✅ Performance got better. ✅ Combat got deeper. ✅ Networking got tighter. ✅ Competitive integrity got stronger. Every week the game gets better. Still early. Still shipping weekly. 🎮 Jump into v0.35.0 and see how far Chain Reaction has come. 🔥