TLDR:
- Zero Hour 1.0 will be available on August 15 with two new maps.
- The School map will not be an optional mission and shooting at students will result in an instant gameover.
- The final version will include better sounds for weapons and new animations for characters.
- Some existing maps have been improved visually and the AI enemies will be smarter in 1.0.
Hardcore tactical shooter Zero Hour will soon exit three years of Early Access. The developer behind the game recently shared more details about what players can expect to experience in the 1.0 build.
Zero Hour will deliver multiple enhancements with its final version to different aspects of the game, but content-wise you can expect the addition of two new maps: Critical Respons and Cocktail Crisis.
The former is set in a school under siege. Players are tasked to bring order to chaos and free all hostages inside while apprehending the terrorists.
While the description for this map indicates that students have been evacuated from the school, somewhere else the developer mentions that shooting at students will result in an instant gameover. So, it remains unknown whether students will still be inside school or not. The main hostages are expected to be the school staff members.
Prior to Zero Hour, the fellow hardcore shooter Ready Or Not added a similar school map to its roster and received some criticisms from a number of the media, though the map remained in place and then the developers also added a college map as well.
Similar to Zero Hour, Ready Or Not also had students and kids evacuated from the school map, while the staff members were the actual hostages. But even without that, when these horrifying situations occur in real life, there is no need to hide them in games, though preventing players from shooting at innocent hostages via unforgiving gameplay mechanics must be a thing.
The second map, on the other hand, depicts a Bollywood-themed bar, whose manager is involved in some serious criminal activities such as human trafficking and drug dealing. Players will need to take control of the bar and apprehend the manager.
Aside from the new maps, Zero Hour will improve the weapon sounds in an attempt to make them more realistic. Moreover, the character animations will be improved, with new animations added for rappeling and weapon stance change.
With version 1.0 arriving, you can expect more Steam achievements to unlock, as well as some visual improvements for the existing maps, which will add new, high-quality textures.
When it comes to the co-op mode, players can expect better and smarter AI enemies, as they will now react faster to player actions, and will be able to carry hostages around. Also, the AI will now be able to detect the player running or rushing, which allows the enemy to pre-fire.
Last but not least, the opening and closing doors will now have simplified UI interactions to help all the new players who find it clunky and unpolished.
The developers also promised some anti-cheat improvements in the final version to help create a fair environment in Zero Hour, especially in the PvP matches.
