Welcome to the Citadel. This is our largest update since launching on Quest, and this is only the beginning of what we have planned. This update adds a social hub where players can gather before matches, a brand new revolver, several new weapon sights, jumping in all game modes, and prestige level 2: ORIGINS.

The Citadel is a brand new social space where players can gather before jumping into the regular game. It features a 1v1 arena, combat arena, mini-golf, marketplace, and more for you to discover. This is a first iteration of the Citadel, which we plan on expanding with more features and content in future updates.

Located on forgotten outlands, the Citadel is a trading outpost controlled by the Amani as a neutral territory. Its location holds both spiritual and economic significance, having been built upon an ancient temple with historical importance. While the main area serves as a market and recreational space, the depths of The Citadel are used by the Amani for extracting precious resources to power their operations. This allows the Amani to sustain their pivotal role in the balance of power, as they supply both factions with weapons, resources, data, and mercenaries.

To go to the Citadel, simply press the new Social Hub button in the main menu to start Matchmaking.

Upon entering the Citadel to the right you’ll find the mini-golf courses. The Citadel features 5 mini-golf courses, a couple of drawing boards for keeping score, and of course golf clubs and balls. When you pickup a golf ball, it is owned by you and nobody else can hit or grab it. And while you can technically place it anywhere and play golf anywhere, if you hit a hole in one from each course’s starting mat, you might see something cool.

Past the golf courses, you’ll see the Face Off arena. Here you can queue up for a 1v1, see who else is queued up, see who has the most 1v1 wins in that server, and gather inside of the arena to watch ongoing matches. Once it’s your turn to compete you’ll be teleported to the holographic arena where you’ll be given a random weapon with a random sight. Each match is played in rounds, with the first person to win 3 rounds winning the match. Currently we have eight different 1v1 maps that will appear randomly with every match, and in future updates we’ll continue to add more so that every match is unique.

Moving on from there, you’ll see the quarry, which features a rather large and difficult obstacle course. Scattered around the quarry are random weapon spawns, with some of the best weapons spawning at the top of the obstacle course. This is a great area to get used to the new jumping mechanics, or just shoot your friends before they can get to the top.

Elsewhere in the Citadel you’ll see a marketplace, shooting range, and we’ll continue building onto the Citadel adding more things to do in future updates.

One of our most requested features is finally here: introducing the NXS Hammer, an 8-shot revolver based on a .357 magnum. This new weapon is a powerful handgun complete with individual bullet reloading, a variety of sight options, and of course gun spinning.

The NXS Hammer is a completely new class of weapon that functions completely differently from any other weapon in VAIL. It features a slight delay when shooting, which is designed to mimic how it feels to pull the trigger of a double-action revolver which has a heavier trigger pull as it pulls back the hammer before firing.

To reload, press the mag eject button which allows you to open the cylinder with a slight flick of the wrists. Pointing the gun up with the cylinder open will drop empty bullet casings first, then regular bullets after a slight delay. After refilling the revolver one bullet at a time, just flick the cylinder back in and you’re ready to fire.

We added new sight variations that combine multiple different sights and scopes together for some unique combinations. These are designed to allow you to seamlessly switch between a normal sight and a magnified scope without changing your loadout.

• The G33 is a new magnifier sight that you can flip on and off. Currently you can get it with the EXPS3 or the SRS sights.
• Canted SRO sights have been added to the SpecterOS scope. There’s a left and a right variant, allowing you to simply rotate the gun to switch between a normal sight and a magnified scope.
• We’ve combined an ACOG with an RMR sight in a configuration similar to the existing HAMR sight.

This update brings jumping to all of VAIL’s game modes. This new style of jumping is designed to be immersive while retaining our game’s competitive integrity. By holding the button to jump, you’ll now crouch down slightly as you get ready to jump and letting go will of course launch you into the air. If you want to jump even higher, you can swing your arms up similar to how you swing your arms in real life to jump higher.

Jumping this way is designed to be used as a utility for traversing maps. While you can, of course, jump in the middle of combat, the crouch before jumping will slow you down and swinging your arms while jumping will impact your aim. There’s also increased recoil and added bloom when in the air, which will affect your ability to hit your shots while jumping. In other words, don’t worry; bunny hopping will not work in VAIL.

This is a new feature that radically changes how VAIL is played, and we believe it can make gameplay more interesting and engaging. That said, we fully expect for there to be bugs and we ask for your help to report in our Discord any bugs or exploits related to jumping.

• Added prestige level 2: Origins
• Updated the banner in armory for the new VAIL 2024 champions: R.E.K.T.
• Added spatialized voice chat to Shuttle and Citadel
• Changed respawn invulnerability from 3.5 to 2.5 seconds to prevent players from spawning and traversing too far to gain an advantage over other players
• Adjusted misc. reticles per player feedback
• Made milk bottle easier to throw and break
• Added SRO sights to Pistols

• Fixed Artifact scanner sometimes flying away when grabbing it
• Fixed impact grenades not doing damage if dropped by a dead player
• Fixed Heaven lighting using the wrong lighting scenario
• Fixed server browser not showing server regions
• Fixed a crash related to jump pads
• Fixed CTO hologram bubble going into Tron mode
• Fixed SKZ using team chat instead of global chat
• Fixed pillars on Khidi having no collision
• Fixed launchpads on Nine occasionally causing the player to stutter
• Fixed misc. jump exploits on various maps
• Possible fix for servers shutting down after a period of time

If you have any feedback on this update, be sure to let us know in our Discord. See you all in-game!

AEXLAB