A year in review, upcoming playtest goals, and showing off 11 new AI types

2025 has been a year of extreme ups and downs for me. To be honest, the latter half hasn't been the best (as some of you probably saw from my message in the Discord announcements). I haven't had the correct time or focus to do what I needed to do because my energy was directed elsewhere.

I had every intention of having the playtest fully ready back in September or October, but unfortunately, some things came up and I wasn't able to make it happen. However, over the last few weeks, I’ve finally been able to spend almost all my time scripting to get this ready. I’ve taken the time to learn and create 11 new AI types from scratch, and I’ve spent countless hours redoing old scripts to make sure this upcoming playtest makes a great first impression.

I’m down to just a few things left to do now on the scripting side in regards to core functionality, mostly just wrapping everything together. Before playtesting, I’m going to do a giant update on the workshop dev-testing map to find any bugs and verify that everything is working like it should. Since the scripting is mostly wrapped, a large portion of what’s left is mapping redesigns and fixes.

I’m also looking at starting to stream my progress (not sure what platform yet). Finishing the mapping would be perfect for that, it would be a cool way to engage with you guys and maybe people can learn something along the way, too. If this is something you’d be interested in watching, let me know! I'm trying to gauge interest.

Playtesting will start soon after the majority of this stuff gets done. I don’t have a goal of "perfecting" any of this yet; it just needs to be a valid representation for a first look. I can’t give an exact date, but my personal wish is to have it ready in February.

I’ve uploaded a video along with this post showing off the new AI types mentioned. Here is a breakdown-

• Eyebots: These fly around the map and target players with a laser weapon. I’ve also added a "friendly" version that will shadow and protect the player within a certain radius.

• Mr. Gutsy: I completely scrapped my old version, which was basically just a zombie with custom animations. I've replaced them with a proper script that treats them more like a "vehicle" they actually fly and navigate correctly now. They’re equipped with various weapons and have dynamic armor spots you can shoot off to deal more damage.

• Sentrybot: Equipped with a Missile launcher, minigun, and grenade launcher, these will patrol and hold down specific areas. The plan is to place this as a miniboss in the Vault Atrium. Like the Gutsy, it has dynamic armor that changes how much damage it takes.

• Deathclaw / Glowing Deathclaw: These are round-based minibosses with a wide variety of attacks, lunges, and AOE moves. I even added a first-person "kill scene" if your health is low when they hit you. The Glowing version is still in the works, it’ll likely spawn during radstorms or replace the normal ones if the map gets nuked.

• Ghoul Power Armor: These heavy hitters spawn with either a Minigun or Gatling Laser. They have a "Pain Train" ability that lets them sprint into you, dealing damage and knocking you back. They can also throw grenades.

• Zetan Aliens: These show up once "Wild Wasteland" mode is active. They spawn via portals and can go invisible. They’re a bit basic right now, but I’m looking at adding teleporting or freezing mechanics later.

• Supermutants (5 different versions): I've created a Suicide Bomber (not seen in the video), Gunner, Melee, Minigunner, and Missile Launcher. These will spawn into the map in "raiding parties" and actually hunt down players.

Some of these might also be be turned into different "Legendary" minibosses that stay in specific areas of the map for you to hunt down and kill.

I have an absolute ton more to show, but we'll start with this for now.

I just want to thank everyone who has followed this project up until this point. It legitimately wouldn't exist without your support, whether it’s through Patreon or just following my work. Thank you. This will be a good year.