Greetings Brothers and Sisters!

As always, Elastic Games is here with another update for the Last Year community!

We are pleased to announce that Last Year Patch 1.0.15 is now available! If you do not see the prompt to update, you may need to restart your Steam client.

With Patch 1.0.15, we’ve made major improvements to your Last Year experience:

1) Ambushes for Sawmill Map: All Fiends now have ambushes in the new Sawmill map! The Strangler and Giant were given two ambushes, and The Slasher and Spider have… more. Additionally, The Slasher’s ambush is completely different than his School Map ambushes, so keep your eyes peeled!

2) Escape Vents for Sawmill Map: Classmates can now more easily evade the Fiend, especially when alone, in the Sawmill map thanks to the addition of escape vents! There are now 8 escape vents throughout the map, 2 in the sawmill area, 2 in the cave area, and 4 in the barn area.

3) Optimization: We’ve done another pass of optimization to help improve performance and reduce drops in FPS. We concentrated on The Sawmill Map, especially in the cave area. We’ll be continuing to see what other improvements can be made without sacrificing quality of experience.

4) “Mercy” mechanic: We’ve added a “mercy” mechanic to the Legendary Skins, which will ensure no one suffers from bad RNG luck. The new system raises the chances of getting a Legendary skin for every complete match played until it reaches 100%. This will make sure that everyone, regardless of luck, will get a steady stream of Legendaries as long as they continue to engage with the title and complete full matches.

5) Hitbox Optimizations: We’ve reworked the hitboxes for both Classmates and Fiends to improve hit registration, fix inconsistencies with crouching and sequences, make the Giant Grab more reliable, and improve the overall “gameplay feel” of combat. We will continue to see what other improvements can be made so everyone feels the game is “fair.”

6) Balancing Polish: We’ve been monitoring the community and made a few small changes to balance to make the Fiends slightly more Fearsome:

a. Strangler will now hold Classmates longer if he chains them from closer. At the closest distances, he will hold Classmates for 2.5 seconds. This decreases until the midpoint of the chain’s max range, where he will hold Classmates for 1 second. Any further will stay at 1 second. Many thanks to Haddix for the suggestion!
b. Spider spits 2x as much venom, lasting for 1.5 seconds of spit time, and its base damage has been increased to 15 without venom, and 20 with venom.
c. Strangler and Slasher can now down Classmates in one less hit.
d. Every cool down, with the exception of The Spider, is now 20 seconds for a successful attack, and 10 for an interrupted or missed attack.
e. The Fiend Shield now begins to recharge after 4 seconds, instead of 8, and will not recharge immediately after an execution.
f. Classmate respawn times now increase by 15 seconds with each kill, and Fiend respawn time starts at 45 seconds, and reduces by 4 seconds with each Classmate alive, making its range of respawn times 41 seconds max and 29 seconds minimum.
g. The taser now “holds” Fiends for a very short time, but puts the Fiend’s ability on a 10 second cool down. It still interrupts Fiends who are holding Classmates.
h. Medics now recharge slightly slower.

7) Bug Fixes: We’re continuing to address bugs, prioritizing those that have an effect on gameplay and balance. Here is a list of issues we’ve resolved:

- The Ice Queen Spider Skin can now be earned through Legendary drops
- Flamethrower “double damage” has been fixed
- Medics can no longer get stuck in 3rd person and lose functionality
- Collision fixes to Sawmill map to reduce players getting “stuck” in areas. We are continuing to monitor for these kinds of bugs
- Giant no longer loses functionality after spawning in from Predator Mode, pressing Grab, and spawning out again
- Giant no longer loses functionality when falling down a ledge during his attempted grab animation
- It is no longer possible to access the escape gate before completing the crank objective in the Sawmill map
- Classmates are no longer able to use the Flamethrower or the Chainsaw while crouched
- Tips on the Loading Screen will no longer fade in, then out, then back in again

KNOWN ISSUES:
- Classmates can “overlap” in lobbies if they back out and re-enter a lobby. This will not prevent the match from starting once 5 players join, even if it looks like 4 or fewer players.
- The Giant cannot take damage from the front while holding a Classmate. He can be hit from the sides or in the back.
- In the Library, Fiends will sometimes miss hitting Classmates inserting Disks.
- The “Escape Gate Closing” cinematic no longer triggers in most cases.

We’ll be monitoring the community to ensure these changes and fixes are working and being well received. We’re hoping this will encourage Fiend players that our intention is to have a fun, engaging experience for both sides!

On that note, we’ll be kicking off our new milestone Monday, where our primary focus will be improving the Onboarding Experience, and ensuring that the Fiend experience is rewarding and living up to its fantasy. We can’t wait to share with you what’s coming up!

Thank you all again for the continued support of this title, and your faith in this dev team. We’re all working very hard to bring you the best Last Year experience possible!

Unitas,
Brother Justin