OpenShao 0.5.0 adds Survival Mode, Improved Difficulty with the new Monk mode, Restore Lost Dialogue, Vulkan on Windows, high refresh rate support up to 240 FPS, 5.1 audio, save pages and a long list of fixes. It also includes everything prepared for 0.4.0, which was not published separately.
Important
Update from 0.3.0 with the launcher's Update button, or extract this release to a new folder. Saves, settings and mods are preserved. You still need your own USA/Europe Xbox copy of the game.
Survival Mode
- Added Game Mode to the main menu, after Versus, for extra game modes.
- Added Survival Mode: nine levels of enemy waves in single player or Ko-op.
- Survival uses your unlocked Versus fighters, including Johnny Cage, Scorpion and the other unlockables, and the same difficulty options as Story Mode.
- Survival starts locked. Find its secret portal in The Foundry during Story Mode, then save your game. The unlock applies to every save slot and page.
- The unlock message appears by itself when the secret is revealed. It says whether the unlock still needs a save.
- Fighters start Survival with the full Story Mode upgrades: every move rank and maximum health from the real health pickups.
- Level 1 opens with a framed rules screen over a black backdrop. Press A to begin.
Improved Difficulty
- Added Improved Difficulty in Enhancements, on by default. New campaigns offer Easy, Normal, Hard and Monk. Saves keep their difficulty.
- Easy: enemies hit softer.
- Monk: larger enemy groups, harder unguarded hits, faster and smarter enemies, less health recovery and less experience. Shrines save but do not heal.
- Monk: death returns you to your last shrine save with the health you saved, or to the start of the campaign before your first save.
- Monk: guarded hits deal the normal Hard damage.
- Fixed Monk health pickups and kill recovery exceeding the reduced recovery.
- Both save lists now show a Difficulty column.
Restore Lost Dialogue
- Added Restore Lost Dialogue in Enhancements, on by default. It uses only the original recordings in your selected voice language.
- Added unused takes to matching boss encounters, including Reptile, Scorpion, Baraka, Mileena and Ermac.
- Added unused monk lines to their scenes: the Wu Shi gate and combo replies, the Orochi feast, the catapults and barricades, the warlord's arrival, the Foundry hooks, cauldron, furnace and forge door, and Shao Kahn's fight.
- Raiden explains save shrines at the first one, in new campaigns only.
- Fixed fatality music missing from cinematic fatalities.
Graphics and performance
- Added Vulkan on Windows. Select Direct3D 12 or Vulkan under Graphics API on the launcher's Play page. Linux uses Vulkan.
- Added frame rate options for 60, 120, 144, 165 and 240 FPS with V-Sync off. V-Sync follows the monitor. Simulation stays at 60 Hz.
- Menus now run at a fixed 60 FPS.
- Fixed particle effects at frame rates above 60.
- Fixed animation recovery in Foundry Map 10 at high frame rates.
- Updated XboxXBERecomp. Faster rendering: about 20% higher median frame rate in our Direct3D 12 tests.
- Added shader and pipeline precompilation to reduce first-use pauses.
- Added Cinematic Bars in Enhancements: animated black bands in in-game cutscenes, off by default.
- Improved character shadows: they follow the game's moving lights and have softer edges. Removed the old Vertical Shadows option.
- Fixed Test Your Might's frame and countdown in widescreen.
- Fixed Kontent technique names in widescreen and translated languages.
- Fixed the brightness of the Press START screen and the logo before it.
- Fixed a distorted Select pause menu after some of Raiden's messages.
- Fixed main menu ornaments, the selector star and transitions.
Note
Above 60 FPS, OpenShao draws extra frames between the game's original 60 Hz updates. Some character animations, effects or areas can still look wrong at high frame rates. If you notice a problem, switch to 60 FPS and report it with the area and the frame rate you used.
Audio
- Added Audio Output in Konfigure Recompilation: Mono, Stereo (default) and Surround with discrete PCM 5.1. Devices without six channels use a stereo downmix.
Saves
- Load Game and Save Game now have ten pages of nine slots. Use the triggers to turn pages.
- Press X to delete a saved game after confirmation.
Input and Ko-op
- Fixed loading a Ko-op save with keyboard and mouse as player 1 and a controller as player 2.
- Fixed DualShock 4 over Bluetooth staying active after it disconnects.
Stability
- Fixed a crash after pausing and switching windows (#41).
- Crash reports keep more information about guest crashes.
Launcher
- Added Release notes on the Play page for the installed version.
- Added optional Discord Rich Presence in Files > Discord.
- Report a bug on the Support page opens a GitHub form with your version and settings filled in, and the crash form after a crash.
- Improved update checks.
Project
- Added issue forms for bugs, crashes, audio, graphics and fan translation mods.
- Added a contribution guide and an AI usage policy.
- Added a page for fan translators who want to offer a translation as a mod.
- The Brazilian Portuguese fan translation and dub stays available as an optional language pack in Mods.
Validation
- Windows: 139/139 automated tests passed. Linux: 97/97.
- Windows ZIP and Linux TAR.GZ packages were built with SHA-256 checksums.
- Survival, Monk, saves and restored dialogue were played and checked in game. Full Survival clears, every fighter, physical 5.1 setups and every high refresh rate on every GPU were not tested exhaustively. Please report what you find.
Special thanks
Thanks to @dreynoplay and @PanicoDaMorte for testing, reporting bugs and giving feedback throughout this release.