Gray Zone Warfare developer MADFINGER Games has opened public testing for Patch 0.3.5.0, now live on the public-test branch for a short playtest window. The update concentrates on performance fixes, improved AI aiming, weapon sway tweaks, and issues arising after the Unreal Engine 5.5 upgrade.
Performance is the focus. The public test highlights client crash fixes and RAM/VRAM optimizations after the UE 5.5 move, along with improved suggested default settings based on hardware. Developers posted the official public test announcement on Steam and invited players to test the update and report issues via their feedback form.
The playtest will run for a few days across EU West, US East, and US West servers, with adjusted progression that will not affect live account progress. Modes available in the test include Warfare (PvEvP) and Joint Ops (PvE). Players should see changes to first-person movement animations, a revamped death sequence, and a rebalanced AI aiming system that factors in difficulty, weather, suppression, injuries, distance, and weapon type.
Patch Notes – 0.3.5.0
Public Testing Changelog [Not Final]
Key Enhancements and Changes
- Focus on optimizing the movement animations in the 1st person perspective in various ways:
- Reduced several animations affecting the 1st person perspective, reducing excessive character movement and animation blending. For example, the top half of the character’s body was decoupled from the 1st perspective animations, and the breath animation was disabled in the 1st person perspective.
- The weapon sway was adjusted, making it more responsive when the player moves
- Pistol recoil has been tweaked to make it more realistic
- New and improved death sequence from the 1st person perspective. The player’s vision turns to the approximate direction from which the player was shot.
- AI aiming rebalancing: The new system simulates human-like aiming behavior that varies based on AI difficulty level, combat situation, injuries, suppression, weather conditions, distance to the target, and weapon type.
- Updated Unreal Engine to version 5.5
Most important changes and fixes reported by and requested by the community
- Fixed an issue where lasers were not working correctly in specific locations, such as YBL-1 and parts of Midnight Sapphire
- Fixed a bug that caused the key drop frequency in Fort Narith to be incorrectly low
- Fixed the gunshot sounds where the sonic crack can be heard before the gunshot
- Fixed missing Twitch drops rewards for players who were unable to claim them until now
- Fixed an issue causing very dark nights with the global illumination set to medium or higher
- Fixed an issue where players would get stuck under the ground or would fall through the map after getting revived
- Fixed the disabled FSR frame generation on RX580 graphics cards
Gameplay
- Fixed an issue where players always died if they got into a coma while in a helicopter
- Fixed an issue where using the splint didn’t prioritize the most damaged bone
- Adjusted the extraction range for the squad strike Fragile Goods from 2,5m to 25m to allow for easier completion of the task
- Fixed a rare issue where blood stops regenerating after healing all wounds
- Fixed an issue where the player’s weapon can become invisible after examining another player with a grenade in hand
- Fixed the RIS II 12 Handguard compatibility with shorter barrels
- Added the missing FDE AK Handguard to the military firearms box loot table
- Added the missing HP Bunker key to the Hunter’s Paradise Boss loot table
World
- Adjusted the ground assets in the Spielberk COP to prevent climbing on top of the roof
- Fixed the area on top of the Crusader COP, which was previously not recognized as a part of the COP area
- Fixed a missing collision on a wall near the Tiger Bay Central South East entrance
- Fixed an issue where the clouds were sometimes moving too fast
- Fixed the incorrect collision around fountains in the Midnight Sapphire that caused grenades to bounce off
- Fixed several locations where players could get stuck:
- Tiger Bay Wrecking Yard at 195, 130
- Fanny Paradise – between a house and some pallets at 189, 121
- In rocks near Sabai Lake Restaurant at 204, 152
- In rocks near Inthavong Farm at 159, 133
- Near Sawmill, between logs and a container at 138, 143
- Outside of the Nomad COP at 189, 157
- Disabled lights that were unintentionally on during the daytime
- Fixed an obsolete interaction option on a light switch in YBL-1
UI
- Fixed an incorrect “joined squad” notification when a player was promoted to the squad leader
- Fixed an issue where a messenger channel would get stuck in the pinned section after unpinning
- Fixed an issue where the messenger window would fail to display when sending a message through the player interaction panel
- Removed the option to invite to a squad from offline friends in the friend list
- Faction kill is now pre-selected as the reason in the reporting window when reporting a player for a faction kill
- Fixed the incorrect text wrapping in the feedback form text window
- Fixed the incorrect DLC message wrapping in Czech
- Fixed the conflict zone details in the Spanish localization
- Fixed the conflict zone detail text not updating when changing the game language
- Fixed the incorrect size of the maintenance notification widget in the main menu
- Unified the position of the maintenance window on various resolutions/screen sizes
- Fixed an issue where the character level was displayed as zero instead of 1 after a wipe
- Fixed an empty icon in the hair section of the character creation screen
- Fixed an issue causing the weather forecast in the main menu to be out of sync with the in-game one
Custom Servers
- Fixed an issue where the player count was not greyed out when a custom server was running
- Fixed wrong wording on the player list on custom servers
- Implemented support for gamepad control for the free cam on custom servers
- Fixed an issue where players who join a custom server for the first time have “Nickname” displayed instead of their username
- Fixed an issue where the player’s rank was not set correctly on custom servers despite using the Everything Unlocked preset
Technical and performance fixes
- Various performance, RAM, and VRAM optimizations
- Numerous crash fixes
- Improved the suggested default settings based on the player’s hardware
- Fixed an issue where closing the game by pressing ALT+F4 might lead to the game freezing
- Fixed an issue that caused the Load Friends Failed error if a player accumulated over 100 friends
- Fixed an issue where Steam friends data was not loaded after 60 minutes in the main menu
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to join the server as a squad leader under specific circumstances
Technical Updates
- Updated Oodle to 2.9.14 to workaround crashes related to specific Intel CPUs
- Updated DLSS to 8.1.0
Updated Epic Online Services SDK to version 1.17.1.3
Available servers: EU West, US East, US West. Modes: Warfare (PvEvP) and Joint Ops (PvE). In this public test, adjusted progression is active but live progression will not be affected.
Developers ask testers to report findings and complete their feedback form after playtesting; the public test chat and details are posted on Steam.
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