These two days were about the world hitting back. Things that hang over the street can now fall on people, the toxic puddle no longer just lies there, and the six scars promised last time are in the game. The maps got new building tools too.

Hanging loads

A crate or a dumpster hangs on a hook above the street. In combat, shoot the hook and the load drops. Everyone under it dies: no damage falloff, no resist, and your own mercs too if they stand there. Hover or aim at the hook and the crush zone shows on the ground in red, so you know exactly who is in it. A grenade that reaches the hook works just as well. Whatever is lying under the load gets hit too, so a gas canister there goes off, and you get the credit.

The load does not just pass through the bodies. It slows down on top of them, presses them flat, and lands in a burst of blood and meat that stays on the floor for the rest of the mission. After that it is cover, and the bodies stay under it. Anything they dropped is pushed out to the side so you can still pick it up. The killcam replays it from the side: the shot that cuts the hook, the fall, the crunch in slow motion.

The crate is now built from 48 planks, and you can shoot it at any time, hanging or landed. Each hit knocks off the plank nearest to it and spills junk from inside: cans, bottles, newspapers, cereal boxes. Bullets go through the holes, so a crate full of gaps is worse cover. Shoot it to pieces while it still hangs and nobody gets crushed, but the falling junk deals 20 damage to anyone in the zone.

Six new scars

The scars from the last “What’s next” are done:

• Lucky — once per mission, a bullet or melee hit that would kill him does no damage. Explosions and fire still kill.
• Mag Dump — every round of a burst has a 50 % chance to use no ammo.
• Wasteful — ranged attacks cost 1 AP less (never below 1), but every bullet uses an extra round. An MP5 burst eats six.
• Weirdo — with a corpse within 3 m, his attacks cost 1 AP less. Any corpse counts, his friends’ included, as long as there is still a body.
• Proactive Soyboy — +3 MP on his team’s first turn of every combat, even above his maximum. −1 melee damage.
• Firestarter — every bullet that wounds an enemy has a 15 % chance to set it on fire. A burst rolls for every round that hits.

Toxic fumes

The toxic puddle from a shot barrel now lives on. Over four rounds it shrinks from the edges and turns into a green cloud that grows above it. Whoever stands in the cloud is poisoned. Enemies cannot see through more than a metre and a half of it, so a merc deep inside is hidden from them and from their overwatch, and shots through it scatter more. The hit chance shows it. Fire, a burning body walking in or a blast that reaches the cloud ignites the whole thing at once, burning everyone inside and setting fire to the puddle under it.

Kick them in

Kicking an enemy into a puddle always worked, but it was guesswork. Now, when you arm the kick and point at an enemy, an arrow shows where they will land. Next to its tip, badges show what waits there: poison for a puddle or fumes, fire, the HP it costs, or a fall if the lane runs off an edge. Guns that knock the target back (pistols, SMGs, the G3, the revolver) show the same arrow, but only when it ends in trouble, and dimmed, because the shot can still miss. Whoever kicks or shoots the enemy into the hazard gets the credit for what it does to them.

Modular stairs and fences

Two new tools for building the maps in the editor. A modular staircase is built from a step count: the bottom step, as many middle steps as needed and the top step, each with its own railing, and either railing can be switched off for stairs along a wall. + and − buttons above the top step add or remove a step right in the scene.

A modular fence runs along points placed in the scene. It fills each stretch with 2 m chain-link panels, trims the last one to fit without stretching the mesh, puts a pole at every corner and between panels, and can add barbed wire on top. Points can sit at different heights, so a fence follows a slope. Buttons at the fence’s ends extend it by one panel straight on or to the side, a button in the middle of each stretch adds a corner there, and another one opens a gap in it. In the game nobody walks through a fence, but you can see and shoot through it, so it gives no cover.

Smaller things

• Gates. The gate in Mission 4 opens with a click outside of combat. The cursor changes over it, a merc walks up and the two halves slide apart. A closed gate blocks bullets and sight like a wall.
• Blood runs down the walls. Some splats on a wall send a drop down, leaving a thin streak that slows and stops on a ledge or at the floor. Splats near the edge of a crate or a ledge no longer hang off it into the air.

What’s next

Mission 5 is being built: a steel platform over the ground, fog and a toxic river. The platform will get its own sector, separate from the ground under it. The edges of the battlefield will tell a cut map edge from a hole you can fall into: the edge gets a wall, the hole a yellow and black hazard tape along its lip.