A new patch has been released for Primal Carnage: Evolution!

Please make sure that you are on the latest version by restarting your console, or by using the Check For Update option in the game properties.

Patch 1.55 focuses on fixing issues reported by the community, resolving bugs with player inventory and progression along with adding various quality of life and stability improvements.

DOUBLE EVAC EXP

Before we get to the meat of the update, we’d like to announce that Evacuation Mode awards double EXP as of version 1.55!

Whether you’re trying to get to the chopper or stopping the humans from leaving, you’ll receive twice the amount of Extinction Points while playing Evac mode now, helping you to rank up quicker. This will only be for the next few weeks at most, so it’s a real good time to check out Evacuation if you haven’t yet!

AIMING IMPROVEMENTS

The joystick controls for looking around have been updated, they should now feel much smoother and less jerky. We’ve added a new acceleration curve when going between fine aiming in the centre and moving the stick faster on the outside. Previously this was a hard jolt and snapped from one speed to another, now it smoothly blends.

Please reset your controller settings to default, then customize them while playing. Your previous settings may be either too sensitive or not strong enough when used with the new aiming code.

We have set controller default deadzones to 40 this patch (the deadzone option controls how much you need to move the sticks before input is detected). Originally this was set at 80, since there are apparently some users out there with older gamepads that had their view / character moving on their own when they spawned in.

If you encounter this issue, often referred to as “stick drift” -please open the options menu and increase the deadzone setting to something higher.

STUTTER FIX

In the run up to release we encountered an odd issue where the game would freeze for a second occasionally, however it didn’t become painfully intrusive until we had a high volume of players after launch.

Due to how savedata was originally implemented, it could sometimes block the main game thread whenever data was saved. Whether it was progressing a challenge or unlocking a trophy, collecting intel or even just downloading other player’s loadouts on spawning, all of these could cause noticeable stutters.

Our engineers have entirely rewritten the code for handling savedata and syncing with Sony’s servers this patch, making things much more efficient and fixing the stutter issue.

INVENTORY SAFEGUARDS

Prior to patch 1.55, it was possible to close the game and lose your progress due to missing a server sync in the background. This unfortunately meant there was a possibility of losing items and currency you had obtained as well.

This patch adds a whole bunch of new safeguards to handle edge cases where data may not have been synced with the remote servers, caching user inventories and currency in local savedata in case a sync is missed. Server-side inventory is now also compared to your client-side inventory each sync, with the richer loadout always winning.

From patch 1.55 onwards you should never lose items or currency.

WHERE’S MY STUFF?

If you played before version 1.55 and lost any items / PXP they most likely will remain gone after updating (outside of trophy items). Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make the fixes fully retroactive.

If this happened to you, please contact us and let us know. We can grant you free PXP vouchers to redeem on the PlayStation Store. You can use these to get back what you unlocked originally.

EMAIL:‍ ‍support@circle5studios.com

(make sure to include what part of the world you are from when emailing)

We are also working to set up another Founders Code for players who failed to redeem it prior to patch 1.55, or who may have lost the reward items it granted. If you still can’t redeem the code on the latest patch, please contact support at the above address and we’ll send you a new code when it is ready.

AUDIO ENGINE FIX

We discovered that some monoaural sound effects such as weapons fire, footsteps or dinosaur roars were not being properly positioned in the world. This made it harder to know where sounds were coming from around you. Although it may seem like an obvious problem, it unfortunately slipped by us.

This issue never occurred when playing PCE on PC, nor when testing the game in-editor either. Stereo sounds DID play back properly on console hardware (ambience, music, user interface) which made it difficult to discern what was going wrong after receiving some confusing reports near the end of beta.

We investigated further and found our branch of Unreal Engine was missing some crucial code. Bigger studios who used this engine branch were able to afford costly audio middleware such as Wwise or Fmod to work around that. Given our limited size, that wasn’t an option. Our programmers had to go and patch this functionality in themselves.

The result is a MAJOR improvement to the overall sound mix. We're sorry for any headphone users who had a bad time around launch. That said, the soundscape should feel way better even to those just using TV speakers now!

And MORE!

Check out the full changelog below for other bug fixes and improvements found in version 1.55. There are some balance adjustments to troublesome Tyrants, we’ll be watching closely how they perform after this patch.

Full Changelog

Version 1.55

GENERAL

MAJOR audio engine fix - resolved an issue where many sound effects were not be positioned in 3D space, overall audio mix is now much more dynamic and clear
fixed freezing that occurred whenever the game saved data, such as earning a trophy, progressing a challenge, collecting intel, downloading other player’s loadouts, etc
enabled Double Experience when playing Evacuation Mode
main menu sidebar is now hidden when not fully connected, added a connection error warning in its place when this happens

CONTROLLER IMPROVEMENTS

NEW aiming response curve that is much smoother, especially for humans
camera assist adjustments for both human and dinosaurs
disabled camera lock-on when fighting Compy enemies
defaulted controller deadzone to 40 (how much the sticks need to move before input is detected)
[if you encounter stick drift, simply set deadzone option to a higher value]

TROPHIES AND PROGRESSION

added extra background checks for trophy skin unlocks
fixed Brain Damage trophy requiring kills instead of just hits
Life Finds a Way trophy is less strict about just how little health is required now
Intel trophy is now unlockable when collecting intel on Sandbox mode
fixed a Ptera trophy being obtainable while playing as Tupa
some trophies now require at least 4 players to unlock, since things like the assist trophy were obtainable without actually assisting anybody before. affected trophies include:
- Helping Hand
- Big Game Hunter
- Alpha Predator
restoring teammates with the tranq pistol now counts towards the healing challenge

BALANCE

shortened Spitter special attack cooldown from 1.6 to 1.3 secs
shortened Spitter drool visibility lifetime after charged spit to 45 secs for Cryo
Tyrants now get less health from eating humans and are netted for longer
Tyrant sprint and brace now cost more stamina and regen slower than before
increased dinosaur stamina regen speed while drinking from 2x to 3x faster
removed the "Unstuck Bump" feature to prevent exploiting, please Change Class if you get stuck
made sure aim assist is disabled when scoped in with a weapon
raised default human FOV setting from 70 to 90

MAPS

fixed places where you could view out of bounds on Contingency
fixed some Contingency doors dealing damage when the button sequence wasn't active
fixed a bunch of trees that weren't solid on Contingency
fixed a Tyrant stuck spot on Forgotten Outpost (hollow log)
fixed a CTE health crate being secretly usable on TDM Docks

COSMETICS RELATED CHANGES

added Thorny Devil Carno to default inventory
optimized syncing of inventory data to Sony backend
possible fix for "duplicate" items appearing in user inventory
customization option is now disabled when waiting on the death screen to prevent glitches
newest cosmetic items are now shown first instead of oldest
fixed some item texts that were missing a few names / descriptions when not playing in English
additional safety check for inventory - when comparing between local and server-side inventory, the "richer" one wins, ensuring no items or currency is lost in future
after buying items in-store, the preview window will now close to prevent accidentally buying the same thing more than once

If you're still encountering issues after updating to patch 1.55, please post in the Evolution bug reports section of our official Discord if you can. We still have some major memory optimizations coming up next month that will further improve both streamed texture quality and overall performance.

SEE YOU SOON!

Now that things are more stable we’ll also be starting to add some brand new content as of next patch. Future updates will include fresh maps to play on, new weaponry for the mercs and more bonus playables for Sandbox...

We’re just getting started!

-The Primal Carnage Team

Patch v1.55