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Samson Update #8 Brings Major Tweaks & Improvements – Patch Notes

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Liquid Swords has released a new major update for the PC version of Samson and shared its full patch notes. So, let’s see what Patch #8 brings to the table.

Update #8 adds a new playable combat tutorial that also shows part of Samson’s past. More tutorials now explain easy-to-miss systems, such as Adrenaline Rush and shoving enemies into hazards. New images and gameplay hints also make these lessons easier to follow.

Vehicle combat gets several changes. Enemy vehicle weak spots are now shown on screen. Wheels turn red when they are close to being destroyed. Enemy drivers are also more aggressive and will use side rams more often. NPC drivers are better at avoiding cars, too. Mission vehicles now have map markers, making them easier to find.

Players can also unlock five new jackets. Four are tied to Skill Points, while the fifth unlocks after the final story chapter. A new Respawn at the Clinic option has also been added. This can help if a save gets stuck in a bad spot.

Vehicle progression has been changed as well. Normal traffic cars no longer give XP. Vehicle takedowns now give more XP, and players can also earn XP when mission vehicles are destroyed in other ways. Garages now have a cheaper partial repair option. Nitro and repair boards also give better rewards.

It’s also worth noting that Update #8 adds three new Takedown Jobs. These target the Grim Skulls, Debt Collectors, and a new street gang. Mission variety has also been improved, so players should see fewer repeat missions.

There are also many mission fixes. These include fixes for stuck NPCs, broken objectives, bad vehicle spawns, blocked paths, and missions that could not be completed. NPC navigation has been improved, and the GPS now favors larger roads.

Finally, Patch #8 fixes many smaller bugs. These cover perks, achievements, cash rewards, combat music, phone hints, camera movement, NPCs, and more. Overall, this is a large update with new content, better tutorials, improved combat, and a long list of fixes.

As always, Steam will download this update the next time you launch its client. Below, you can also find its full patch notes.

Samson Patch #8 Release Notes

Playable Tutorial Prologue & Onboarding Updates

Added a new playable step-by-step combat tutorial at the start of the game that also ties into Samson’s past before returning to Tyndalston. Added some new tutorials to highlight easy to miss gameplay elements, like triggering Adrenaline Rush while driving a vehicle and shoving enemies into hazards. Updated tutorials to include images to make them more informative. Added gameplay hints at various points in time to help you progress.

Vehicle Combat Messaging

Added visualization of enemy vehicle weak spots. As you approach an enemy vehicle that you are supposed to take out, their wheel weak spots will have a blue overlay to denote that they are what you should typically aim for when performing a side ram. This blue overlay will change color to blinking red as it takes damage to show when it has reached critical health. Ramming a wheel that has reached the red damage state is often the fastest way to take out a vehicle. The health bar above a vehicle is a more general health pool that can take damage from normal collisions, but performing the side ram action on the wheels is the recommended way to take out vehicles fast.

Introducing Swappable Player Jackets

With this update, you will be able to unlock 5 additional jackets to freely swap between. 4 of these are progressively unlocked by earning between 2 and 12 Skill Points total (whether you spend them or not.) The fifth option will unlock as you complete the final Story Chapter. All jackets are visible and available as they unlock in the hallway in your apartment. If you have already earned the required amount of Skill Points, any related jackets should be retroactively awarded to you as you load your saved game.

Adding Emergency Respawn at Clinic Option

We have added a “Respawn at the Clinic” choice under the Quit option in the pause menu. Selecting this choice will effectively make you Knocked Out, and apply any and all gameplay effects accordingly. This means that depending on your Skills, current Perk, and your chosen difficulty level, you may lose any Cash you were holding. This is meant as an emergency option if your save file puts you in a state that you cannot progress from. While the risk of this happening is very low, we know it can happen and wanted to offer a solution to it.

Loot Drop Placement Tweaks

Improved where loot from knocked out enemies is spawned to reduce the risk of items ending up inside walls and similar. Also made sure that dead bodies don’t block interactions in general.

Missions: Increased Fail Distances

Increased the fail distances in a few Missions, including Fine Old Things, Wreck the Wrecking Crew, and Never too Old to make it easier to reach your objectives without seeing the “Too Far Away” warning message. Removed fail distances from most Takedown Jobs so that you are not at risk of failing a Mission if you go after one vehicle while the other target vehicle stays behind or drives to another location.

Mission: No Return Fare

Fixed an issue where the passenger could sometimes enter the front seat instead of back seat as intended.

Mission: Bad for Business

Fixed an issue where the fleeing NPCs would move erratically at the start of their escape attempt.

Mission: Unholy Trinity

Removed delivered cars and replaced them with smashed wrecks out of the way of the dropoff point to avoid obstacles when dropping off cars 2 and 3. Fixed an issue where the “Lose Your Wanted State” warning message would sometimes flicker on and off instead of activating correctly when trying to deliver a vehicle while Wanted.

Vehicle XP Tweaks

  • You are no longer rewarded XP for destroying normal traffic cars
  • You now gain a larger amount of XP for vehicle Takedowns
  • You now also gain some XP for taking out a mission target vehicle by depleting their “normal” health (shown in their health bar)
  • You are now also rewarded XP if an enemy car gets destroyed in any way (e.g. by driving into a pillar or into the water) if that happens within 3 seconds after you last dealt damage to it

Vehicle Tweaks

  • Added a Partial Repair option in all garages where you can repair a small chunk of your car health at a lower cost than a full repair
  • Increased the chance to spawn an alternate Sandwich Board (repairs or Nitro refill) after the original board has been smashed
  • Increased the amount of Nitro replenished when smashing a Nitro board, and the amount of repairs done when smashing the Repair board
  • Increased the duration of Adrenaline Rush while in a vehicle to make it easier to benefit from its damage bonus when trying to take out enemy vehicles
  • Moved the first Nitro Flask unlock from 50 to 25 Sandwich Boards smashed to make it quicker to get this vital upgrade
  • Improved NPC vehicle avoidance – The response should now be quicker and give NPCs a better chance at avoiding incoming vehicles.

Miscellaneous Tweaks, Improvements and Fixes

  • Fixed a visual issue where the “Pay All” option when going to sleep could incorrectly show a higher number than your remaining debt (the actual payment would still function as intended.)
  • Fixed an issue where some NPC vignette characters sometimes could end up in the staircase down to the Clinic and block your movement.
  • Fixed an issue where the “Incoming Call” hint could be displayed when already on the phone.
  • Fixed an issue where the Perk “Violent Healing” could sometimes stay active even after being replaced by another Perk.
  • Achievements: Changed unlock thresholds for “Car Care” and “Crash Test Dummy” from 100 and 50 to 10 and 5 to make them quicker to complete.
  • Fixed an issue where you could get repeatedly rewarded with cash for finishing the Pimping Hard and No Place Like Home Stories.
  • Made the “Skill Point Available” notification flash to make it harder to miss.
  • Fixed an issue where one Grim Skull gang could have their money bag placed in an unobtainable location.
  • Fixed an issue where the “Driver” Perk did not apply to the Taxi Mission The Meter’s Tickin’.
  • Slightly increased the range at which taxi passengers decide to enter your cab to make it easier to pick up passengers.
  • Fixed an issue where Samson could say “Out of Nitrous” while swapping to the next nitro flask.
  • Tweaked the GPS settings to more strongly favor bigger and well-established asphalt streets compared to offroad routes and shortcuts (these are for you to discover, and are not always preferable, depending on your playstyle and current situation)
  • Fixed an issue where combat music sometimes could continue playing after completing a fight against Debt Collectors
  • Improved NPC navigation through doorways and when in close proximity to one another to make their movement smoother
  • Improved camera movement and smoothness when entering and exiting vehicles
  • Ensure Greater Mission Variety on Population
    • We have tweaked how we populate new Missions each in-game Day. Now, we strive for a larger variety of seen Missions, whether you have played them or not. This means that you should see less (but still some in certain cases) repetition of Missions until the point where we have rotated through all of the 100+ Missions currently available in the game.
  • Introducing New Enforcements Factions: Debt Collectors, Grim Skulls, and Generic Gang!
    • Added new Enforcements for Debt Collectors, Grim Skulls, and a standard Street Gang that is now called during Jobs. Each Faction has new roadblocks (excluding Debt Collectors), and improvements have been made to the existing Crow Lane and Law Enforcement. The Debt Collector Enforcements are triggered in the new Takedown Job “Three Payments Due” (see below.) We are hoping to increase the Debt Collector Enforcement presence in various ways in future updates.
  • Increased the number of spawn points for all Enforcement factions and spread them out across the map to reduce some of the longer response times that could happen when you committed a crime in certain parts of the city.
  • New Takedown Job: Culling of the Skulls
    • It’s these Skull bozos again. They’re becoming a nuisance. Been seen zippin’ around in their juiced up rust buckets trying to build a rep. We need to thin out their numbers so they don’t get any ideas. Take 3 rides outta commission.
  • New Takedown Job: Three Payments Due
    • Samson. I know these Saint Louis assholes have been hounding you. Today you get a shot at a little sweet revenge. These suit-wearing piss bags are cruising around town stirrin’ up shit. Go after them. Any cash they drop is yours.
  • New Takedown Job: Black Top Bunco Boys
    • A few of these Black Top kids are playing fast and loose with the rulebook. Taking bets on the side, getting their own little racket going. You know the drill. Find these punks and run ’em off the road.
  • More Aggressive and Dynamic Enemy Vehicle Combat Behavior
    • To make car combat overall a bit more dynamic, unpredictable, dangerous, and exciting, we have tweaked most enemy vehicles to be a bit more aggressive. This mainly means that they will try to perform side rams on you more often, and from a wider range of situations. This move can be used by enemies both to try to deal damage to you, and to try to evade you or block your progress. Some enemies, like Paulie Flash in Chapter 2, will instead be more defensive in their driving, sometimes pumping the brakes when going at high speed and you are close behind, to try to shake you or even deal damage to you if you slam into his car.
  • Drivers Stay in Wrecked Cars (Normally)
    • Enemy vehicle drivers in various Missions should now normally not try to exit their vehicle when it is wrecked. The rationale for this is that if you are in a Mission that only requires you to take out vehicles, we don’t want to distract players with anything else – You should go after the next vehicle target instead of getting out and fighting the driver. If you have unfinished business with the driver, they still get out so you can progress the Mission, e.g. in Silver Bullet (Chapter 2.)
  • Improved NPC vehicle avoidance – The response should now be quicker and give NPCs a better chance at avoiding incoming vehicles.
  • Fixed an issue where it could become impossible to complete a new Jack Mission after having failed a previous Jack Mission (if you accepted defeat after having picked up at least 1, but not all, of the objective items)
  • Fixed an issue where Greet / Taunt sometimes resulted in no lines being spoken
  • Added map markers for vehicle targets in Missions so they are easier to track and hunt down from a large distance
  • Fixed an issue where in some scenarios the Debt Collectors at your parking lot would not despawn after knocking you out
  • Fixed so that you can now navigate to the southernmost parts of the map, e.g. Lowline Circuit
  • Fixed an issue where you could sometimes travel through a chain link fence during certain moves, e.g. certain melee takedowns
  • Kill enemies quicker during the wall takedown move to avoid a few edge cases in combat
  • Ensure that Enforcement vehicles do not spawn too close to player
  • Fixed issues with Enforcement vehicles getting stuck when trying to reach the player when far away
  • Bust out Barry: Enable trail lights when you are supposed to take out the police car, which also enables the weak spot highlights on the wheels. Made sure the police car does not consider sidewalks viable for driving
  • Not Too Old for Shit: Fixed issue where the final beatdown may not complete, preventing the player from completing the mission
  • Heavy Hitters: Made final objective to Torch the Car more clear by updating the map marker location, adding props, and updating the objective text to better inform the player of what is needed to complete the objective
  • Fixed an issue where you were allowed to “Quit to Clinic” while in onboarding or other cases where you are not supposed to leave your apartment
  • Fixed an issue in “Big Take on Trader Street” where NPCs could have issues to navigate through the gate at the pickup point
  • Make Him Pay: Increased the distance you have to put between yourself and the target to complete the Mission, since you in rare cases could end up completing it while still inside, effectively trapping you in the factory
  • Fixed a rare issue where sometimes a passenger in a Getaway Mission would fail to use their fallback teleport into your car after having failed to navigate to it normally
  • Fixed a rare issue where sometimes a Mission objective would activate, but the objective would not be completable