Gang Beasts patch 1.21 is releasing today for all currently supported platforms! The 1.21 patch addresses  a number of miscellaneous issues which will allow us to focus on new content in subsequent updates. The 1.21 build does not include new stages or costumes and is focused on these fixes (see below for more information). 

A new stage and new costumes will be released soon, once we’re confident it is ready and subject to it passing quality assurance.

The key modifications and fixes made in the 1.21 build:  

• New languages! We now support Japanese, Korean, Chinese (simplified) and Chinese (traditional).
• New Menu font to improve legibility.
• Tweaked buoyancy physics across all stages that use buoyancy. 
• Improved Tentacles AI on the Aquarium stage. 
• Addressed the problem of players being randomly kicked from local games. 
• Corrected left and right grabs when interacting with objects. 
• Improved stage lighting across all stages. 
• Enhanced football physics to prevent clipping into the ground. 
• Adjusted ball deflation rates in football mode. 
• Updated joints in the stage to AutoJointV2 for improved stability. 

• Made various improvements to costume physics. 
• Fixed the Beanie to function properly. 
• Resolved the collider issue with the Life Vest. 
• Fixed collision problems with the Deep Sea Helmet. 

• Enhanced escalation mechanics in the Aquarium stage. 
• Stability updates to Vents. 
• Increased stability of bricks on Girder. 
• Stability updates to Roof.
• Improved Glass Fracture on Roof. 
• Made improvements to ice breaking on Buoy. 
• Improved Stability to Fence objects on Wheel. 
• Added water to Containers. 
• Stability updates on Subway. 
• Stabilized the antenna on Buoy to reduce excessive shaking of characters and camera. 

 
• Fixes to matchmaking in Gang Mode. 

We’re sorry we didn’t publish more frequent content, fixes, or development information since we released  the Trawler stage in December 2021. A long sequence of technical issues and difficulties have limited our  capacity to publish successive updates since Gang Beasts was fully released. 
However, since the end of 2021 we’ve worked (with partners at Coatsink, Robot Teddy, SuperGenius, Unity, Rocket Science, and Lockit QA) to address technical issues, standardise processes to minimise technical debt and build a platform for more frequent content releases. The rest of this post summarises some of what is being worked on currently.  

We’ve made a number of key staff hires to supplement resources at Boneloaf and have more in-house  staff working to support Gang Beasts. These hires include a Producer, a Senior Technical Animator, multiple Senior and general Engineering staff, Marketing, Player Support, Event and Operations specialists, and an internal QA team. You can find out more about everyone over here. 

Boneloaf’s agreement with key development partner Coatsink ended at the start of 2023. We want to  thank the staff and management at Coatsink for their support and friendship since 2013 and appreciate  the significant contributions Coatsink staff have made to the development and success of Gang Beasts  and Boneloaf.

Since February 2023, Boneloaf has worked closely with Rocket Science. This team brings a glut of resources and experience working with platforms, UX/UI, technical art, tools, and services to the development of Gang Beasts. Currently, staff at Rocket Science are working on a series of important modifications to online systems (to modernise the technology), standardise our build pipelines, implement a new UI system, provide support for game modes, and other systems.

We expected transitioning to a new development partner could be a protracted and disruptive process,  especially transitioning ownership of key development work from third parties, but Rocket Science have  made this process as low friction as they could have. We’re excited to now be in a position where we can give more information on the development and future plans for Gang Beasts.  

Information in this post is limited to Boneloaf, Boneloaf’s partners, and what modifications have been  made since the 1.18 build, with some information on technical issues and the next content release. To keep you more up to date, we’re working on a series of posts to give more specific information on current development and planned content which will give more context on what is being done to support Gang Beasts.  

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Stay safe, wear a hard hat and don’t carry birdseed!
Boneloaf 

It's been difficult to give much information on Gang Beasts in the last 8 months (since the Trawler stage[gangbeasts.game] came out) as we build Boneloaf's development and operations teams with support from Robot Teddy[robotteddy.org].

We’re working with Robot Teddy[robotteddy.org], Coatsink[coatsink.com], Multiplay[unity.com], and Lockit QA[www.lockitqa.com] to hire more development, testing, and operations staff to support more frequent content and bug fixes and to build more exhaustive production and support processes. This will mean more communication from us, and to release more stable builds of the game for you.

We're currently testing modifications, fixes, and stage and costume content for the next Gang Beasts release (more information to come pretty soon) and have made this post to summarise what else we're working on and to give information on some other fun Gang Beasts stuff.


Some of the population of Beef City have slipped from the meaty grip of the Beef City Police Department and escaped the Beef City limits, (potentially) Coming To Stores Near You Soon!.

Boneloaf is working with Toikido[toikido.co.uk] (makers of the splendid Among Us[innersloth.com] merchandise) on a series of silly gelatinous and non-gelatinous Gang Beasts toys and accessories.

The first batches of Gang Beasts figures, plushies, and apparel are scheduled to be in stores from this September.

Check out a selection from the first series below. Which Gang Beast will you be bringing home?


To support the release of Gang Beasts merchandise in stores, we have modified the current Gang Beasts logo (with help from the wonderful Terri Vellmann[terriv.games]) to be more legible and readable at different sizes and in different contexts. The modified logo will replace the current game logo in builds, online stores, and other contexts the current Gang Beasts logo is used in the coming months.

We feel that this new logo fits the slapstick ‘Saturday-morning-cartoon violence’ of Gang Beasts and their antics across Beef City. Hopefully you do too!


The municipal authorities of Beef City and the nefarious Meat Co. have swollen the gristly arteries of Beef City into a sprawling “Meatropolis” of buildings, infrastructure, industry, and attractions including strip malls, car parks, a sports arena, emulsified meat treatment and processing facilities, and the Meat World amusement park.

We have been working with a number of 3D and technical artists at SuperGenius to transform the old Beef City terrain and geometry (seen in the background of exterior stages in current builds of Gang Beasts) into a colourful and sprawling toy city. The next section of this work is to merge exterior stages from the game (and other stage prototypes) with the new geometry and textures to build Beef City into a bloated “Meatropolis” with enhanced visuals, and Easter eggs on what’s coming next.


In addition to work on bug fixes, more stable network schemes, and stage and costume content, we’re also working to support crossplay modes between more platforms, a series of modifications to the costume system (to support more variation and minimise the severity of costume glitches), and more language support: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, and Korean is coming to all supported platforms in a coming release.

We’re also in the process of engaging UI and accessibility specialists to audit and replace the current game menus and other UI contexts to remove or reduce inconsistencies and annoyances.


We’re aware servers and online modes have been less stable recently, we have escalated these issues with the networking teams at Coatsink and Multiplay. They’re working super hard to make sure that everyone can have a stabilised online experience. Thank you for your patience.


As we wrap up this post, we’d like to quickly thank all the players that have played and continue to play Gang Beasts. We receive many requests for information on what our next stage could be, and we can reveal this “corrupted” screenshot for you to investigate.

What do you think the next stage might be?

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That’s all for now, thanks for taking the time to read this post! If you’d like to reach out to us, feel free to do so over on Twitter or on our community-run Discord server[discordapp.com]. We’d love to chat.

Best of luck out there,

Everyone at Boneloaf xx

Welcome, everyone!

You may notice that there’s a brand new update to Gang Beasts, and we know it’s something you’ve all been waiting for, so we won’t keep you in suspense.
Trawler has arrived! A brand new stage, filled with a deteriorating fishing trawler in an isolated sea and a whole shiver of sharks. That’s right, the lifeless black eyed creatures themselves will hop aboard and try to take you for a swim.

By “deteriorating fishing trawler”, we mean the stage will become just that. Survive long enough from either the assaults of your friends or the deadly sea swimmers, and the stage will begin to sink (quite literally). Remember to not let go for as long as you can, we all know what's awaiting in the murky depths.

On top of the deterioration of the stage, you’ll also have two interactive crane systems with fully functioning mechanical levers to get yourselves familiar with. On top of this, there’s a large shark cage suspended from a hook which can be detached, perfect for some “accidents” involving your friends and the deep blue, right?

And now on to some patch notes for v1.18:

Added content:
- New stage: Trawler
- New costumes:
- Sideburns
- Lifejacket
- Beard
- Moustache
- Sailor hat and outfit
- Shark kigurumi
- Deep Sea Diver helmet and outfit
- Captain hat and outfit
- Fishing gilet and hat
- Sailor jumper and beanie
- Air Rescue helmet and outfit
Graphics update with the move to URP
Fixed costumes appearing darker

That’s all for now, but head over to our Discord or Twitter channels for more updates and information as they go live.

Thanks!

Boneloaf.

Released on 16 June and updated on 25 June, 2021

• Known Issue: the XInput toggle in Settings has been temporarily removed. This will return soon! The game will only support a maximum of 4 Xbox controllers locally until this is back, but any other controllers will still support up to 8 players!

• Switched to a new matchmaking system.
  
• General optimisation pass over various stages, including Wheel, Aquarium and Tower.
  
• Made a general pass over most stages with eliminated player issues.
  
• Fixed various infinite loading screen bugs when playing online.
  
• Loading screen changed to correctly show loading progress.
  
• Changed online loading system to reduce chances of missing objects when playing online.
  
• Reduced loading times.
  
• Fixed issue where objects or players would not load on various levels online.
  
• Fixed an issue on Train that could make matches incorrectly result in a draw.
  
• Camera on Wheel no longer goes through the water when a player is sinking.
  
• Water rendering issue on aquarium fixed.
  
• Online players are now correctly eliminated on Blimp now, no more infinitely falling.
  
• Fixed issue where certain Waves AI would not be eliminated correctly and keep the round going.
  
• Characters no longer jerk upwards when resuming after being paused and resuming.
  
• Fixed Gondola appearing invisible occasionally.
  
• Fixed Vents railings moving erratically over time.
  
• Fixed the fishbowl hat flashing for a frame when being switched too.
  
• Fixed Wheel lamp posts from being so erratic online.
  
• Fixed issue where restarting a round from countdown 0 would cause a softlock.
  
• Updated credits.

There is an active community run Discord server where you can find people to play with, leave feedback and report bugs.

Discord - Join the community server here:
https://discordapp.com/invite/gXh2HRH

If you would like to find people to test the new Matchmaker or to just talk about Gang Beasts, join the community run Discord server here: https://discordapp.com/invite/gXh2HRH

We are aware of the issue with the M1 Macs. They are supported in a later version of Unity and we are going to upgrade our Unity version later in Q2 /Q3. We will have support available for Gang Beasts then.

We are happy to announce we have fixed the notorious loading screen bug, that has been plaguing some people, and we wanted to explain a few things to help shed some light on why it took so long for us t o fix it.

The bug initially was just incredibly hard to reproduce internally, which is the first step towards finding out what was actually happening. To find it we had to create a new debugging tool for the server and client builds to help us track it down. With this new tool we managed to reproduce the issue consistently, and in a way that we could generate logs to help guide us to a solution. This highlighted to us that in fact, it was several bugs manifesting as one! All of which we have fixed and should never rear their ugly heads again.

You may be wondering why we released the previous update with such a glaring bug? Well, to put it simply, it hasn't turned up before. The trigger case is very hardware and connection dependent. Although we have found out that some of the bugs have been there all along, they were very rarely triggered, at least on tests we did with the hardware we have.

It also appears that the more recent optimisations and fixes, which made certain aspects of the game quicker, inflamed the issue, making it more prominent for these users. In addition, there was a significant engine upgrade (Unity 2017 to 2020), which made unnoticed changes to the networking library we use, adding many more avenues for the issue to manifest.

It is annoying that these things happen from time to time (especially for us!), but we are always working to improve Gang Beasts, which has been evolving for 6+ years now. So thank you for being patient with us, and hopefully, we will not have anything as problematic in the future.

Another bug people have been experiencing lately is the characters not getting eliminated when thrown out of stages. This issue was a weird one, that seems to have manifested itself since the engine upgrade. Gang Beasts being such a physics heavy game, any changes to the engine’s physics can have knock-on effects with the gameplay.

We have tried to fix this a few times and, although each attempt reduced its frequency, it was still being triggered. In this update, we have added two more solutions: one that should stop it from happening, and another that will guarantee that if it happens the players get eliminated anyway. The first measure is adding a few more checks to the characters when they enter an Elimination Volume, so it is more likely to be detected, and expanding these volumes further to increase the chance of detection. The second measure bypasses the physics system entirely, and will always eliminate players regardless of velocities or any other issues inherent to physics that can prevent the first method from working.

• Fixed the pesky infinite loading screen
  
• Adjusted the damage reduction timer from 10 seconds to 4
  
• Fixed server ping checks not properly connecting to Sydney
  
• Corrected PS4 online age rating check
  
• Corrected PS4 lobby nameplate UI not showing

• Increased the size of Elimination Zones to better catch escaping players
  
• Added an Out of Bounds check that should stop anyone who does manage to escape!

• Optimised the bubble particles
  
• Fixed bubbles crashing the game (!)
  
• Added blockers to prevent players from getting stuck in doors
  
• Moved pool knockout volume up
  
• Small physics optimisations

Some of you may already know this but the Aquarium Update (build 1.13) has now been released! This update has a new Aquarium stage, an updated Wheel stage that works online, a series of super hero/villain costume sets, and numerous fixes for stages, online, and gameplay issues.

• Updated the game engine to Unity 2020 (from Unity 2017). This was a significant upgrade and although we've fixed a massive amount, there may be a few bugs we haven't caught yet with the transition.
  
• Unity 2019 dropped support for 32-bit Linux operating systems, as such Gang Beasts can now only support 64-bit Linux operating systems.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing bloom from working.
  
• Updated the project to be able to build and test on consoles again.
  
• Updated graphics settings to fix a few issues with the transition from 2017 to 2020.
  
• Mac builds now use Metal as its primary graphics API, as such there should be some performance gains for Mac users.
  
• Fixed some issues involving camera tracking.
  
• Updated splash and loading screens. This is a temporary measure until we can overhaul the entire UI of the game.
  
• Completely rebuilt the way we fracture glass. This new system should both look and perform significantly better on all systems.
  
• Completely rebuilt the way we do buoyancy. This new system should perform significantly better on all systems and allows us to do multiple types of liquid (such as meat paste).

• Bear and Rhino kigurumi no longer make Elevators explode.
  
• The "Yogscast Charity Drive 2015 DLC" has been added to the game as a default option, this was done as we found far too many people trying to exploit our users on grey markets by trying to charge exorbitant amounts of money for legacy codes. Since the DLC has achieved its purpose of raising money for charity and it has been several years since its release we figured this was the best way to protect our players.
  
• Added 8 "Supers" costumes to the game for a total of 24 new parts.

• Rebaked the lighting on all stages to fix legacy lighting issues so shadows should no longer be dark and stages should be more visually appealing now.
  
• Adjusted any emissive materials across all stages now that bloom works again to look better.
  
• Updated the visuals of water on Buoy, Containers, and Wheel but there's still more improvements to be made.
  
• Fixed the objects that didn't interpolate online.

• Added a new stage called Aquarium, please don't feed the fish.

• Adjusted the physics properties of the billboard panels to be more realistic.
  
• Adjusted the catwalk of the billboard to be flatter and added assistive colliders to help players stay on for longer.

• Adjusted the physics properties of the balloon section of the blimp to have more grip and assist players' movement over the surface.
  
• Adjusted the ribbing on the balloon section of the blimp to no longer collide with the players' ball collider, which should help with navigating the blimp.
  
• Adjusted the blimp to be more affected by player movement.
  
• Added a wind effect to the blimp to help visualize the movement.

• Added more ice to the stage.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing the ice from breaking.
  
• Broken ice will now melt over time.
  
• The buoy is now significantly less stable.

• Adjusted the lights to remove light artifacts from falling sausages.
  
• Adjusted sausage distribution.
  
• Adjusted the chute doors to be able to hold more weight and slower to move, this should, hopefully, incentivise players to fight on them more due to the reduced danger.

• Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system.
  
• Elevators now escalate consistently.
  
• Applied a temporary fix for a significant stability issue on Elevators, this fix currently does cause some visual peculiarities when played online but we felt it shouldn't hold back the update.

• Fixed the grating using the wrong shader, it should look more crisp now.

• Adjusted the lights to improve baked quality.
  
• Added buoyancy to the meat paste at the front of the stage.

• Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system.
  
• Updated the fire particle system.
  
• Adjusted the lights to make the stage brighter and fix some lighting artifacts.
  
• Fixed an issue with boxes and barrels passing through the front wall.

• Replaced the glass to use the new fracture system.
  
• Updated the background water shader, which is a temporary solution until we upgrade the project to Unity, Universal Render Pipeline (URP).
  
• Updated the glass materials to prevent a weird lighting issue.
  
• Adjusted the joints on the Lighthouse to be stronger, so they should no longer break at the slightest touch.

• Adjusted lights and materials to brighten the stage slightly.
  
• Adjusted the rope height to make it slightly easier to eliminate players.

• Adjusted the joints on the Roof stage to be stronger, so they should no longer break at the slightest touch.
  
• Lowered the lip of the Roof slightly to make the stage slightly riskier when fighting on the edge.
  
• Added assistive geometry to help characters navigate.

• The stage has been completely rebuilt to play better and work online.
  
• The lights on Wheel now sync to the music.
  
• Wheel now has better escalations.
  
• Added a dwell timer to the insides of the wheels burger gondola that will make them fall if players stay there too long.

• Fixed an issue that made the front train push players away instead of pulling players towards it.
  
• Hopefully fixed the issue that was making some sounds on subway play too loud.

• Slight adjustments to the materials and textures;
  
• Added a slight tilt to the trucks when they move to make their movement more apparent;
  
• Fixed an issue where the trucks would occasionally mount the curb and collide with oncoming signs;
  
• Reduced an issue where signs could pass through players instead of colliding with them, this is not perfect though and we will continue to try and fix it.

• Added a pink smoke effect rising from the cooling towers.

• Fixed an issue with Vents
  
• Fixed a significant stability issue on Vents that appeared in the update from 2017 that caused the bridges to instantly collapse.
  
• Fixed a significant stability issue on Vents that appeared in the update from 2017 where as soon as the main fan activated the stage would explode and characters would find themselves embedded in the walls or ceiling.

• Updated some physics settings to take advantage of some of Unity 2020's improvements. This will be an ongoing process to fully take advantage of all the changes. These changes should provide some small performance and stability improvements.
  
• All physics objects in the game should now interpolate, this should reduce an appearance of lag locally and online.

• Fixed a bug that was causing arms to no longer reach when holding grab.
  
• Adjusted character drag to 1.6 (from 2).
  
• Increased punch velocity for close targets.
  
• Adjusted how grab and punch's resolve target vectors for the physics animation, this should significantly improve how often they reach the intended target.
  
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes make a character float when grabbing something above them with both hands after their stamina drained fully.
  
• Fixed a bug with kicking that would generate incorrect target vectors for the physics animation.
  
• Adjusted force and attraction distances when grabbing to help reaching close targets and reduce weird behaviours under certain situations when targets are just out of range
  
• Added slightly more force to the arms in the stage just before punch and grabs to help reach a better position. This should make punches and grab's more consistent.
  
• Adjusted targeting to be slightly more weighted to the players input direction.
  
• Increased the strength of throws slightly
  
• Slightly increased grip break threshold.
  
• Added a slight alignment force to the body when climbing, the character should be more likely to face input direction while climbing now.
  
• Slightly increased self lift strength on characters when climbing. This should make it easier to climb.
  
• Stamina now always drains when grabbing, even if feet are touching the floor. Most players will not notice any change with this. This is to try and prevent people from getting into exploitable positions where they can hang on forever. Additionally this should help reduce stalemates where someone can hang on to another player indefinitely.
  
• Fixed a long standing issue with the character that made it difficult to go up slopes greater than 30 degrees. Players should find it significantly easier to go up slopes and stairs now.
  
• Added the ability to swim for a short period to the character they will gradually sink over time after this.
  
• Added a temporary diminishing damage reduction when a player revives from a knockout (100% damage reduction on revival reducing to 0% over 10 seconds) to prevent knockout camping.
  
• Fixed an issue that would prevent players from controlling their movement when lifting themselves, additionally this should now perform better then it did prior to the bug.
  
• Adjusted arm direction when cheering to be relative to the character's up instead of world up.
  
• Increased reaction forces of all moves, they should feel more satisfying now.
  
• Adjusted damage of all moves to better balance them.
  
• Adjusted damage received when in certain situations or attempting certain attacks to help balance combat.
  
• Adjusted character collision to hopefully improve stability during combat.
  
• Added code to dynamically adjust characters collision mode based on context to help reduce likelihood of limbs getting embedded in objects, this helps reduce the frequency of a bug that appeared in the transition to Unity 2020 but more work is needed to fix it completely.
  
• Fixed a bug that was making the characters hips get stuck in certain geometry since the transition.

• Added a new way we manage audio to improve the consistency of sounds across the game.
  
• Changed all audio to use the new systems and did a pass on every sound in the game to be better balanced and more pleasing to the ear.
  
• Swapped a menu sound to be less intrusive.
  
• Added engine noises to Train
  
• Added engine noises to Trucks
  
• Added better audio cues to indicate oncoming road signs on Trucks
  
• Added an audio cue to indicate an oncoming train on Subway

• Fixed a bug that would mean some scripts would not reset correctly on the second round in an online match.
  
• Fixed a few bugs with PhysicAudioEmitter not emitting online
  
• Fixed a long standing bug with knockouts not working as intended online. Locally it would increment by 1 second each time your KO'd to a potential maximum of 20. Online this would always be set to 4. This should significantly improve the feel of combat online.
  
• Fixed an issue where some physics objects were moved using an incorrect method. This should help improve some stability issues when characters are pushed into strange positions or somehow move faster than usual (such as getting hit by a moving vehicle).
  
• Fixed a long standing issue preventing boxes on Incinerator from rendering online.
  
• Fixed a long standing issue preventing the vehicles on Trucks from moving correctly online.
  
• Several optimisations and fixes to the character system to improve online performance.
  
• Several optimisations and changes to the way we sync objects online. This should improve online performance and stability.
  
• Fixed an issue with the join screen that meant player names wouldn't show up.
  
• Fixed an issue on Elevators that made the hatches start in the wrong position on level load.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented Containers mechanics that move the containers from triggering correctly online.