- Update 1.42 - 3 July 2026
Just a small patch implementing achievement stacking.Full Patch Notes Unlocking a difficulty-tied achievement will also unlock the lower difficulty equivalent achievements. Reaching level 4 on any non-custom difficulty will also unlock the "Training Wheels Off" achievement (the one you get for completing Practice Mode). The game will check at startup if any lower difficulty achievements should be unlocked retroactively. This happens before the Steam Overlay is fully initialized, so you likely won't see the pop-up notifications. However, the newly unlocked achievements will appear on your profile/game stats. Dead Hand now has Trading Cards / Badges and some Point Shop items, in case you missed them. Cheers!
- Update 1.41 - 26 June 2025
I've been tinkering a bit with the engine, upgrading some components, and decided to backport the changes to Dead Hand. Changelog follows: Full Patch Notes Switched from the venerable DirectSound API to XAudio2, upping the minimum requirements to Windows 10 as a result (can't do that yet, still have players on Windows 7). Replaced the Lua 5.2 interpreter with LuaJIT, improving performance on low-end CPUs. Updated RecastNavigation library to the latest version. Pathfinding improvements. More robust actor snapping to ground algo. As usual, fixed a bunch of minor bugs and memory leaks. Have fun!
- Hotfix 1.4a - 23 May 2025
Hotfix for a crash that happened when an enemy managed to kill itself several times over in a single attack action.
- Update 1.4 - 31 March 2025
Surprise Update 1.4 (not an Aprils' fools one, honest!), containing some requested fixes and additions as well as a few new music tracks. Here's the changelog: Full Patch Notes The level exit beacon could cast broken shadows on certain combinations of AMD cards and driver versions. The "Player Turn" HUD indicator now has a turn counter for the current level when in Turn Based Mode. Added audio cues for the Hunter/Killer drone appearance warning messages. When an enemy kills itself (eg: by ramming the player when low on health) the game pauses for a moment to give the player time to process it. Updated to VS2022, the Steam client will download new redistributables if necessary. Fixed very rare cases where enemy parts other than Hulls could drop with 0 SP. Added a confirmation dialog to the mid-run Quit Game options in the Pause Menu. Added four new music tracks by Z Asmut, from the "Soun…
- Hotfix v1.3b - 3 October 2022
Fix for a crash that happened when a Multiple Rocket Launcher was destroyed while having some of its rockets mid-flight or queued to launch.
- Hotfix v1.3a - 3 July 2022
Small hotfix to include the Escape Pod Plasma Torch files in the retail Pakfile, since they were missing from v1.3
- Update 1.3 - 24 June 2022
Update 1.3 is live with the usual slew of tweaks and fixes plus a couple of bigger changes addressing some relatively common grumblings about the game. First, some of the main difficulty modes have been redesigned: EASY mode now has been made considerably easier, giving the player a damage bonus, double the starting supplies, longer times before the H/K spawn and lower enemy density on top of the usual enemy damage reduction. NORMAL mode, which used to be that enemies dealt 75% damage has been replaced by what was previously easy mode, where enemies deal 50% damage. The rationale for this change is that, on one hand, a 25% damage reduction didn't give you that much more survivability over taking full damage, so the previous normal difficulty felt somewhat redundant as it overlapped quite a bit with hard mode. And on the other hand the previous easy mode was a bit of a misnomer by not be…
- Update 1.24 - 7 June 2021
Update 1.24 is live, bringing an assortment of balance tweaks and fixes for some obscure and corner case bugs, mostly affecting the later levels. Here's the detailed changelog: Patch notes Enemy Tankettes may now drop Ablative Cooling Gel. Buffed Killdozer boss stats, as it was too easy to one shot it in a single turn and its ramming attack didn't do enough damage. Fixed some instances where a C-RAM Boss wouldn't fire its gatling gun after running out of rockets. Fixed minor lua error when mounting a previously used Twin Mount. When scanning an enemy, its "base AP per turn" now includes any Overclocking Module bonus. The End of Level 3 Menu no longer shows the "Save and Exit" option on a Practice mode run. Player related entries in the combat log now say "Player" instead of the player's starting AWP class. Scrapyard entries registered after deploying an Escape Pod now list the correct s…
- Update 1.23 - 26 January 2021
I've been doing some engine work lately, and this change was significant enough to merit being backported to Dead Hand: Changed the PAKfile compression algorithm, resulting in considerably faster loading times.
- Update 1.22 - 14 September 2020
Update 1.22 is live bringing local Hi-Score tables plus the usual assortment of fixes and tweaks. Here's the detailed changelog: Patch notes Added a per difficulty level "Hi-Score" table under the "Scrapyard" Main Menu entry. If you have a saved game in progress the "Kill Count" stat won't take into account enemies destroyed prior to this update. Increased amount of rocket ammo carried by MRL equipped LAV type enemies. Fixed bug where the initial part of the ending sequence wouldn't display properly if the hidden movement screen was being shown at the time. Mounting a lighter Hull or Chassis would allow you to keep large weapons mounted on incompatible (smaller) hardpoints. Incompatible weapons are now dismounted. Fixed enemies being able to melee through the ground when navmesh polys overlapped in the y-axis. Have fun!
- Update 1.21a - 9 August 2020
Hi all, Here's a hotfix for an issue where destroyed enemy hulls could keep "phantom" weapons mounted and, when kept stored in the inventory, would prevent the savegame from loading. Cheers!
- Update 1.21 - 8 August 2020
Update 1.21 brings fixes for a couple of elusive bugs regarding navigation mesh generation & pathfinding. Here's the detailed changelog: Patch notes Fixed some instances of NavMesh actor obstacles not updating correctly when transitioning from Real Time Mode into Turn Based Mode. Collapsed all NavMesh vertical layers into a single tile in order to fix connectivity and pathfinding issues when digging deep downwards. Slightly delayed the appearance of Hunter Killers in Accelerated Mode, since you're more likely to want to fully explore each level. Small tweaks to the AWP Stats screen. Interrupt chance is now shown as a percentage. And I'd like to end the announcement with a reminder for new players who might be struggling with the difficulty: There's a "Tactics Primer" guide you can read and a 3 level video playthrough you can watch to get some ideas on how to better approach a new Dead H…
- Update 1.2 and Anniversary Sale - 27 July 2020
Update 1.2 is here bringing a brand new "Accelerated Mode" intended for seasoned players wanting to reach the later levels more quickly in exchange for a steeper difficulty curve. "Accelerated Mode" reduces the size of every level except for the last one to a mere 5 rooms and skips levels 2, 5 & 8, leaving only the tier transition levels and the boss levels; making for a 6 level long successful run. Loot rates (both enemy drops and supply crate chances) are increased in order to allow the player to gear up before every boss fight. "Accelerated Mode" can be toggled in the "Select Difficulty Level" menu. It's available for all difficulty modes and doesn't affect steam achievements; they can be unlocked as usual, regardless of "Accelerated Mode" being toggled. Here's the detailed changelog with the usual assortment of minor fixes and tweaks: Patch notes Implemented a new "Accelerated Mode"…
- Update 1.16 - 21 June 2020
Update 1.16 is live introducing a new miniboss, some balance tweaks and a minor bugfix. Patch notes Added the "Technical Prime" miniboss, here to seek revenge for all the Technical trucks you've mercilessly slaughtered across your runs. It may appear in levels 2 or 3 and if you're lucky it might drop its tasty Twin Mount. Lowered the AP cost of replacing a mounted weapon with another from 6 AP to 3 AP to encourage the use of the 2 hardpoint hulls and to improve the viability of midfight weapon swapping. Increased the amount and quality of consumables (possibly) dropped by C-RAM, Killdozer, Scout and Recon class enemies. Lowered enemy density and raised drop rates in tier transition levels (4 & 7). Improved the calculation of level camera bounds. When swapping hulls would cause the currently selected weapon to be dismounted, the game will now automatically select the first mounted weapon…
- Update 1.15 - 1 June 2020
Update 1.15 is live with a few improvements and balancing tweaks. Patch notes Replaced Sniper/Brawler Trio minibosses' "Armor Plating" hull module with a "Targeting Coprocessor" module and a "Ground Penetrating Radar" module respectively to make them more vulnerable to 5.56mm fire. Removed the "Choose Amount" menu when picking up item stacks in favor of picking up the whole stack if possible or as many items as you have storage space for if not. Note that you can still partially discard stacks from your inventory at 0 AP cost. Fixed some instances where the post-shooting wait period would end before a ricocheting projectile had hit its final target. The log console now shows a message when a miniboss is present in the current level, and the presence of a miniboss slightly delays the appearance of the Hunter Killers. "Custom Difficulty" mode now mentions that it doesn't unlock progress a…
- Dead Hand Update 1.14 - 23 March 2020
Hi all, Another small update: Having a twin mount equipped would prevent the savegame from loading correctly; this has now been fixed. Cheers!
- Dead Hand Update 1.13 - 28 February 2020
Hi all, I've just pushed a small update that fixes some instances where the first level exit couldn't be reached without needing to dig a path to it. Cheers!
- Dead Hand Update 1.12 - 3 December 2019
Patch notes Update version 1.12 adds GUI Scaling, improving readability on high resolution and high pixel density displays. It can be configured under Settings -> Graphics -> GUI Scaling, where it can be set to one of the following values: Off : Disables GUI Scaling. Normal : The default value. Scales the GUI linearly when the vertical resolution is higher than 1080p. High : Scales the GUI linearly when the vertical resolution is higher than 720p. Intended for tablet pcs and netbooks with small, high pixel density screens. I've also upgraded the build toolchain to Visual Studio 2019. Steam will automatically download and install the new required redistributables for you.
- The Flare Path: A2Z - 29 November 2019
A is for Alphabetised wargame and sim news . Every four weeks or so I hang up a streamer of industrial strength fly paper in The Flare Path dunny and see what wargame and simulation news stories adhere to it. Below is this month’s bag – 25 bite-size stories involving virtual vehicles and surrogate slaughter. If you wince when someone calls a locomotive a train, and can put these three battles – Trenton, Turnham Green, Trafalgar – in chronological order, you should probably click where it says… (more…)
- Dead Hand Update 1.1 - 28 October 2019
Update 1.1 is now live on Steam bringing the following additions and improvements to Dead Hand: The Shredder miniboss The Shredder is a medium hovercraft equipped with twin-mounted gatling guns and an advanced targeting system array, allowing it to effortlessly punch through heavy cover by sheer volume of accurate fire. This miniboss has a small chance of appearing on levels 4 to 6. Practice and Custom Difficulty Modes Dead Hand has two new difficulty modes, "Practice" and "Custom". Practice Difficulty is a 3 level long game mode intended for players that find learning the ropes through repeated head-banging against the (not so) "Easy Difficulty" level a tad too grueling; and would prefer a less punishing environment for exploring the game mechanics. There's also a new achievement to be obtained when beating this mode. Custom Difficulty allows you to adjust several aspects of the game d…
