Samson devs announce big patch to start fixing its "unacceptable" launch bugs, and boy am I glad to see it'll add in multiple saves

"We released a game with flaws for a number of reasons"

As you may be aware if you read myself and Julian's Samson verdict the other day, the launch version of the gritty minor crim simulator included plenty of bugs - ranging from the harmlessly jany to the debilitatingly playthrough-breaking. The good news is that developers Liquid Swords are on the case, with studio creative director and long-time Just Cause lead Christofer Sundberg having announced that a big patch is due before the week is out.

"Early impressions are mixed and many of you are experiencing game-breaking bugs and performance issues," Sundberg wrote in a Steam post commemorating Samson's launch. "That’s unacceptable and we are listening to everyone’s feedback and are hard at work to deliver the game we spent years of our lives developing. Launching a game is a ton of work and I'm proud of the effort our team has put into seeing Samson from its initial concept, through release.

"We are committed to the future of both Samson and Tyndalston and this game will grow over time on all fronts; quality, gameplay and content." Prior to that, though, the game's getting a first patch aimed at tackling "some of the immediate issues", with it set to arrive tomorrow, April 10th.

Right off the bat, I'm hugely relieved to see Sundberg note that it'll add in the ability to have up to eight save files at your disposal. I did enjoy the jeopardy of having to rely on a single autosave, and that arguably fits better with the game's desire to punish your mistakes, but not having older saves to go back to also cost me about five hours of progress when I got trapped in a corner with some fridges I couldn't climb over.

Delving into the more detailed patch notes Liquid Swords have provided (though the devs not these are "preliminary and might change"), there are a cluster of fixes for crashes and performance-related hiccups like stuttering. Most of note to my eye are the fixes for specific missions and general gameplay. "Several fixes for mission and progression related issues" is a bit vague, but the studio do note some specific tailing jobs which have had their fail radiuses tweaked to be more lenient. Liquid Swords have also stopped enemies "not advancing towards you in group encounters", which sounds similar to the issues with goons not spawning that both Julian and I ran into.

"NPC fall damage added as a failsafe for dropped NPCs" I assume should stop instances of enemies falling into hard to reach places and becoming impossible to kill, which is also very handy given my aforementioned fridge corner mishap. Meanwhile, "Suzy Red no longer gets multiplied during 'Stitches for Snitches' mission completion" is a fix for a bit more of an amusing bug, as is the fact the devs have "prevented corpses from popping back up or being launched into the air after takedowns, hazards, or railing interactions". Also NPCs should no longer run into roads without looking both ways to inspect dead bodies, which should certainly help make Tyndalston safer for drivers.

Here's hoping this patch does manage to clear away a lot of the more debilitating issues that make it tough for me to recommend giving Samson a go right now, as there's a decent time for folks who like a bit of simple but tense thug roleplay lurking underneath it all.