I just wanted to make a small announcement about the upcoming v1.01 patch for Chapter 9.
Some of the feedback we've received has indicated that named saves were causing compatibility issues on Steam Deck and that the animated main menu was stressing some lower-end hardware.
As such, I've created new options in the preferences menu that can disable both features with a click.
Now onto the big reason for this patch:
For those of you who felt burned by the outcome of the casual path for the two main LI's, we know we dropped the ball.
While we feel the girls' dissatisfaction with the casual arrangement was adequately telegraphed, we also never provided an offramp for the player to right the ship. That both violates the spirit of our "no gotcha" statement at the beginning of the game, and it's objectively obvious that the result was unduly punitive.
I (Stoya) take ownership for that as the writer, and legitimately felt gut-punched the moment I realized that no escape hatch had been provided. I can only offer my word that it wasn't intentional or malicious, and began planning a fix for this the moment I realized the enormity of the miss.
As such, we are adding a scene to Chapter 9 near the beginning after the Lexi concert. This scene will provide two choices where the player can exercise agency before the girls start making decisions on his behalf.
To be clear, it will NOT add endings that were never planned for, nor does it violate the integrity of the story as planned. I also want to point out that this scene does not exist in a bubble just to change a variable. The fact that this scene occurred will be reflected in other conversations throughout the chapter.
If the player was on a committed path, the scene will offer no stat changes and they have no need to replay. There will just be be some banter and a little more visible bonding between primary characters.
TL;DR This only impacts saves that were on the casual path with Mallory and Jaye.
This is not (repeat) this is not the end!
I also want to emphasize that each ending will be fully fleshed out in the last content update, and (hopefully) any loose ends will be tied up with it. A surprisingly large number of fans have assumed that we'd ended romantic paths in Walter's bar, and so I wanted to state emphatically that this is not the case. We've had each ending visualized for a few years now, and can't wait to share them with you.
I will make an announcement when the new archives are uploaded. Unfortunately, I cannot patch only the script as the binary includes approximately 70 new images and so the art archive must be downloaded as well. As of this moment, the updated script is complete approximately half the art is rendered and expected to complete overnight.
Thank you for your bearing with us.
Best,
Stone Fox Studios
