Greetings, Brother and Sisters!

It’s finally here! Elastic Games is proud to present Last Year version 1.0.17! If you do not see the prompt to update, you may need to restart your Steam client.
With Patch 1.0.17, we’ve made major improvements to your Last Year experience:

1) BRAND NEW TUTORIALS: Last Year 1.0.17’s major feature are new tutorials for both Classmates and Fiends. The tutorials are short segments that teach the players the basics of the game, so that when they enter a match for the first time, they’re not thrown in the deep end. Both tutorials have four segments each.

2) IMPROVED MATCHMAKING: 1.0.17 adds the Ping of players in the lobby, and now sorts lobbies by the following criteria, in this order: ping, player “rank,” then age of lobbies. The first is so that everyone playing gets the best possible gameplay experience by reducing high pings. The second is to ensure everyone is playing against players of relatively comparable skill, and the final one is to ensure that the people that have been waiting longest are served first. Because there are now more parameters than before, it’s likely that you may wait a little longer for lobbies. However, this is all in service of ensuring that everyone has the best gameplay experience.

3) BRAND NEW COSMETICS: 1.0.17 introduces the first “premium” emotes, “Freeze Frames” for Classmates, and “Photobombs” for Fiends, which can be unlocked with Mystic Ore. The update also contains 4 new sets of collectable skins: “Camping” Skins for all characters, “Heroes and Villains” Skins for all characters, “Frost” themed skins for Fiends Characters and Classmate weapons, and “Gold” themed skins for Classmate weapons.

4) BRAND NEW ARCANUMS: With 1.0.17, both Classmates and Fiends will have their own Arcanums! These include Spells, Challenges, Stash Card Rewards, Mystic Ore Rewards, and exclusive Skin Rewards. Once spells are unlocked and equipped, they will stay equipped until swapped out by the player. All Classmates can equip two spells, and Fiends can equip one spell per Fiend in their Fiend Decks. Since Tokens are no longer needed to unlock/buy spells, they have been removed from the game.

5) REWARD REWORK: Starting with 1.0.17, individual performances now determine the amount of Stash Cards awarded at the end of a match. For Classmates, advancing objectives, killing Fiends, rescuing Classmates, and escaping determine your cards. For Fiends, killing Classmates, springing traps, successful ambushes, and preventing escapes determines your cards. The Team or Fiend performance will now act as a multiplier on the base amount of Stash Cards you received from your performance: 0-2 escapes/kills awards +10% cards, 3-4 awards 25%, and 5 awards 50%. This allows players to continue their progress in a predictable way, no matter what kind of game session they get, with exceptionally great performances on either side getting a bit more of a boost at the end.

6) FIEND UTILITY ABILITIES: Each Fiend now has a distinct Utility Ability that will allow them to engage or disengage with the Classmates more easily, allowing them to set the pace of combat. None of these abilities will do damage to the Classmates but will instead give the Fiends more opportunities to be creative in how they can deal damage, or escape from being damaged, when in combat with Classmates.

7) DAILY TRIALS: These are small challenges that players will receive every 24 hours should they log into the game, and will reward the player with small amounts of currency to help them towards their cosmetics goals. Some challenges are easier, could be completed in 1 or 2 matches, and will reward players with Stash Cards. Others are tougher, probably need 3 or 4 matches to complete, and reward players with Mystic Ore. Each player receives two challenges a day: one for Classmates, and one for Fiends.

We’ve also made several balance changes and bug fixes. While they are very numerous and subtle, here are some of the bigger, more noticeable changes we’ve made:

- All levels now start with the Classmates “locked in” their opening room until The Fiend spawns into the game
- Classmates no longer have collision with one another
- Fiends no longer have collision with Cryptids
- All speed values have been adjusted to compensate for the above changes
- Maximum scrap has been increased to 40, and most scrap costs for items have been adjusted for balance purposes
- Flashlights have been added to levels as items that can be picked up
- The Slasher has been given two more ambushes in The Sawmill map
- Classmates are now invulnerable and lack collision when respawning from a rescue room to allow them to escape The Fiend. Attacking or performing actions will cancel the invulnerability state
- The Slasher’s Cleave ability now knocks Classmates back
- The Spider’s venom now destroys turrets
- The controller layout for Fiends has been improved: both trigger buttons now push or throw the Classmates when they are grabbed by the Strangler and Giant, and the quick execution button for Strangler is now mapped to X
- The helmet now has a health bar displayed for the Fiend similar to the Fiend’s Shield health bar
- Fiends’ basic attack damage has been increased slightly
- The Spider now has both a walk and sprint speed
- Adrenaline no longer provides a speed boost, but now heals for 30 HP. It still gives infinite stamina
- Pipe bombs and Proximity Mines now do slightly more damage to Classmates, killing them instantly if they are at “ground zero”
- Fixed bug in the Belltower escape sequence that blocked Fiends from spawning out
- Fixed performance drop whenever rescue rooms are opened
- Optimized AI to improve framerate and performance
- Fire and explosions no longer destroy objectives

We’ll be monitoring the community to ensure these changes and fixes are working and being well received. This is our most ambitious update to the game so far, and we’ve very excited to see the community’s reaction to it!

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!

See you in The Nightmare!

Unitas,
Brother Justin