Ye olde 1990s knockabout shooter Rise of the Triad was remastered and rereleased as Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition last year. As our Shaun Prescott said at the time, it hasn’t aged well but you should still play it. It’s a goofball historical artifact with some fun power-ups and more hidden doors than Castle Dracula, and it’s just received an update.
Version 1.1 brings cross-platform multiplayer, meaning that players on Steam and GOG can gib each other at last, as well as our friends over on Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. It also adds an alternate Lightning Guard enemy—the last cut character from the beta version to be restored for the Ludicrous Edition—and shows your kills and secrets completion on the map screen for each level.
Other additions include a toggle to turn off automatically switching to new weapons when you pick them up, a jukebox for the level editor, and default sound settings that the patch notes call “less ear-splitting.” Here’s the complete list of changes.
Added
- Cross-platform multiplayer.
- Added the final alternate actor, the lightning guard.
- A new setting that allows players to prevent automatically switching weapons on pickup.
- Text chat button has been added to multiplayer menus.
- Level statistics: such as kill and secret counts, have been added to the map screen.
- (PC) Added support for connection to a LAN address from the interface.
- (PC) Level editor now has a music jukebox.
- (PC) Lobby invitations can now be sent to friends from the main lobby screen.
- (PC) Add confirmation for starting a COMM-BAT game while playing single-player.
- (PC) Added support for `-file` parameter for loading custom KPF files.
- Old `-file` parameter has been changed to `-file0`.
- (PC) A new network stats option has been added to the options menu.
Changed
- Fonts now have slashed 0’s to make them easier to read.
- Online timeout has been adjusted to 20 seconds.
- Better default sound settings that are less ear-splitting.
- (PC) Scanning for lobbies now tells you what is going on with the scan – if it’s still scanning or if it’s complete.
- (Switch, Sony) Significant performance improvements when looking at floor or ceiling textures.
Fixed
- Various rendering glitches that were noticed at higher resolutions have been fixed.
- Significant improvements to online lobbies have been made, making connections more reliable.
- Numerous shortcomings with the netcode have been addressed, especially in instances of low bandwidth.
- It is no longer possible to get stuck in the game upon connection to a server that shuts down during level load.
- Booting into the editor now no longer has messed-up camera controls.
- Platform icon is no longer stretched in the scoreboard.
- Killing Big John with a flamewall or god ball no longer softlocks the game.
- Many instances of menu stack corruption have been addressed, solving various softlocks.
- Title screen has many fewer missing pixels at the bottom of each column of pixels.
- Rumble no longer persists between levels.
- Default music tracks no longer cause excess CPU usage.
- Disabling freelook now snaps the view to the horizon.
- Using the “No target” cheat code during the oscuro battle no longer crashes the game.
- HUD Preview is now properly cleared when the menu is exited via unconventional means.
- (Consoles) Default binds are now no longer merged with user-provided binds.
- (Sony) Music no longer stops playing in instances where it incorrectly stopped.
- (Switch) Going from docked to handheld mode no longer prevents controllers from being used.
- (PC) Rumble now properly works in online games.
- (PC) Invitations to join a game can now be accepted in more places.
- (PC) Joining from an invite no longer potentially causes a hang.
- (PC) Old lobbies are now cleared when lobbies are re-scanned.
- (PC) Level editor verification has undergone several improvements.
- (PC) Invalid screen sizes no longer cause the game to refuse to launch.
- (PC) Custom gravity no longer carries over from multiplayer games.
- (PC) Disconnections have been made more reliable and are less likely to freeze up controls.
- (PC) Online lobbies are now a little more helpful in telling the user why the lobby died.
- (PC) Prevent the scoreboard from being stuck in an enabled state between matches.
- (PC) Various lightning levels should now work in COMM-BAT mode.
- (PC) Instances where player color and character could be switched in the menu without taking effect ingame have been addressed.
- (PC) Items that spawn in midair are now properly respawned at their correct Z height.
- (PC) Voice chat options no longer show up in a LAN lobby.
- (PC) Violence is now always forced to HIGH in a lobby, for consistency.
- (PC) Returning to the lobby in the middle of a game no longer has the potential to crash the server.
- (PC) Shooting another player point-blank will now always hit them.