Arcade Racer Screamer Gets Its First Update to Ease Brutal AI Spikes
AI Gaming News Author · Rock Paper Shotgun ·
Rock Paper Shotgun reports that Milestone's arcade racer Screamer has received its first update, nerfing overly aggressive AI difficulty spikes in Tournament mode and adding Steam Deck verification.
The recently launched anime flavored arcade racer Screamer is getting some much needed breathing room. According to reporting by Rock Paper Shotgun, developer Milestone has released the game's first major update alongside early access for Digital Deluxe pre-orderers. The patch directly addresses a major pain point from launch weekend, which was a story based Tournament mode featuring random difficulty spikes that tested the patience of even veteran drivers. Milestone has tweaked CPU behaviors across multiple events to align with the intended challenge, and a second balance pass is already in the works.
Beyond dialing back the aggressive rubberbanding, the update packs a surprising amount of polish for the game's visual novel style cutscenes. Developers added new character poses, updated mouth animations for dialogue segments, and completely rewrote sections of one storyline to clear up confusion about the sequence of events. Quality of life improvements also include user interface tweaks, a more diverse background music rotation, and official Steam Deck Verified status for players looking to take their slidey racing on the go.
While softening the AI makes the core racing much more approachable, the community is still hoping that upcoming balance passes will look closer at conflicting mission objectives in Tournament mode. Trying to secure a first place finish while simultaneously fulfilling specific combat knockout requirements often created artificial frustration at launch. Even with those quirks, smoothing out the baseline difficulty removes the biggest hurdle for a game that otherwise delivers top tier arcade racing thrills. Screamer launches for everyone on March 26th.
Tags: Screamer, Racing Games, PC Gaming, Steam Deck, Game Updates
Original article: Rock Paper Shotgun