For our upcoming Gas Update, we plan to extend the game time by another in-game year. This also means that you will experience another year with the soldiers through your diary entries – for better or for worse. A total of over 40 new diary entries are planned for the Gas Update.

Personal stories of the soldiers

Each soldier in your squad already has stories tailored specifically to them and their character development. We have added more stories for all soldiers, which primarily deal with personal topics related to that soldier, their background and motives.

Stories about the gas war

In addition, there are stories that deal specifically with the gas war and its consequences. They are intended to show how the gas war was experienced from the personal perspective of an individual soldier, how its effects were felt and what difficult decisions this new form of warfare entailed.

Historical stories

More historical stories are planned to be included that shall establish a connection to specific events of the time as experienced by soldiers on the front lines and place the soldiers' own experiences in a historical context.

Various other topics

Additional stories on a wide variety of topics are planned to be added to the game. These are stories that deal with the personalities, moods or other attributes of the soldiers, or that focus on specific unusual game situations.

A current screenshot of our ticket system.

Hello everyone,

We are excited to officially announce that the next major update for All Quiet in the Trenches will be the Gas Update (Version 0.9) and will be released on 19 May 2025!

Version 0.9 will be our biggest update yet. It extends the game to early 1917 and brings new features, content and improvements to the game. We plan to release 2-3 more Dev Diaries before the release date.

There will also be an Open Beta available to everyone in a Steam beta branch roughly one week before the official release. Please note:

• Not all game content may be included in the beta
  
• No official patch notes will be published for the beta
  
• We cannot guarantee that save files from the beta will work in the release version
  
• Feedback and bug reports in Discord, on Steam or via email are very important to us and expressly welcome, but depending on the number of reports, we may not be able to respond to everyone

Thank you very much for your support!

All Quiet in the Trenches is set in a (fictional) secondary theatre of war on the Western Front. Many soldiers stationed away from the main front lines probably did not come into direct contact with poison gas very often. Nevertheless, poison gas is one of the most well-known and devastating weapons of the First World War. That's why it was clear to us from the very beginning that we wanted to incorporate this topic into the game.

Poison Gas in the Diary

With less than one percent of all World War I deaths, poison gas is considered an ineffective weapon in retrospect, but its cruelty and the effects it had on soldiers give it its terrible reputation.

We have written several new journal entries on this topic, which deal with various aspects of gas warfare. We plan to have 6-8 stories by the time of release of the next update, but due to our dynamic storytelling, it is of course possible that you will not experience all of them in one playthrough.

Gas Masks

We designed the gas masks in the game based on the German ‘GM15’ rubber mask and the French ‘M2’ mask. Both variants have been given their own storage locations: A carrying bag for French soldiers and the ‘Bereitschaftsbüchse’ ('emergency box') for German soldiers.

Gas Attacks in the Trenches

During the trench phase, occasional gas attacks may now occur. The main consequences are increased exhaustion and mental stress for the soldiers.

The use and duration of a gas attack depend on the wind. Gas can affect life in the trenches for several days, but it is ineffective in strong winds. The wind, in turn, depends on the weather. So heavy rain now has its good sides too.

Chlorine Gas on the Battlefield

Some new levels have been designed in which chlorine gas is used. Soldiers who are near poison gas clouds automatically put on their gas masks.

The gas clouds behave similarly to artillery smoke or smoke grenades. However, gas adds additional penalties to the visibility impairment: reduced stamina and lower soldier effectiveness.

Stamina Adjustments

As part of this, we have made minor changes to stamina, which is reflected in the game via the ‘Out of Breath’ attribute. In addition to balancing changes, we have introduced a mechanic where soldiers who are not given a break on the battlefield will eventually become unable to carry out orders.

In the last two Dev Diaries, we talked about the limited visibility caused by artillery smoke and smoke grenades. This will be supplemented by fog as a natural challenge that will be added with the gas update and which we will tell you about today.

Occurrences of Fog

Fog will occur as an additional weather effect in the game and will influence both the battle and the trench phases. While fog cannot occur in hot or sunny weather, there is a certain probability of it occurring in moderate or rainy weather, as well as in cold snaps (in order of increasing probability).

Effects of Fog in Battle

During a battle, fog drastically reduces visual range to about half of the normal distance. This makes movement through no-man's land less dangerous, as generally there are fewer enemy troops in sight.

However, careless movements can also be extremely risky, as you can now move into close combat or grenade range of one or more enemy troops that were previously out of your sight.

Fog in the Trenches

In the trench phase, fog reduces the danger of all tasks and also affects other circumstances: while enemy snipers, for example, can no longer carry out their tasks, which further lowers the danger level, the probability of an enemy attack increases.

Unknown Factors

There will be another change in battle: if a movement poses dangers from enemy troops that were not previously visible, this information will be hidden. This also applies to tactical attributes such as flanking or close combat. It does not matter whether visibility is restricted by terrain, fog, smoke or other factors.

This is supposed to make movements through fog or smoke more interesting and encourage cautious, short movements. Positions that can be seen by many enemy troops are generally more dangerous, but also give the player more information about the battlefield. The aim is to create a new strategic weighing of safety and information gain. NPC troops are subject to the same restrictions.

Graphical and Technical Improvements

As part of the integration of the fog effect, further adjustments were made:

The shader has been modified in such a way that the graphical outlines are now also influenced by the fog, which previously caused unwanted artifacts in the distance, especially at low resolutions.

Both screenshots in low resolution without anti-aliasingThe transitions to the skybox, especially in hot and sunny weather, have been optimized, which overall leads to a more beautiful appearance in the depths. This has also prompted us to tilt the camera up a little during the battle so that it can now see further into the distance.

The last dev diary was about the effects of artillery fire and the resulting smoke as a tactical challenge in the upcoming Gas Update 0.9. Now we can present another way in which obscuring visibility can affect gameplay: smoke grenades

Smoke Grenades in the First World War

On the German side, production of the Nebelbombe Typ N (literal translation: ‘Fog Bomb Type N’) did not begin until 1917, while the French had used smoke grenades before then, but in the form of hand grenades for infantry they were quite rare. Due to the similarity in development to gas and smoke and the tactical component in the game, we still wanted to introduce them with this update. Up until 1917, they can only be found occasionally on the battlefield or on French soldiers.

Use of Smoke Grenades

Soldiers can actively throw smoke grenades during an advance or retreat. When doing so, they try to place the grenades with the aim of obscuring the largest possible fields of vision. Smoke grenades produce a grayish-white smoke and are similar in effect to the smoke from artillery strikes. The emitted smoke disappears after two turns.

Kohn places the smoke grenade as a barrier to the French troopEquipment Changes

With the introduction of smoke grenades, we have also adjusted our general equipment system. Previously, ammunition, bandages and hand grenades were set to a fixed value at the start of a battle. With the upcoming update, equipment that is won will be retained throughout the entire game and the troop will receive additional equipment from Feldintendant Hennek at the end of each camp phase. The amount can depend on various factors, such as the supply situation or your standing with your superiors.

... or if you hoard far too much ammunition ...

With the upcoming Gas Update 0.9, there will be new tactical challenges in battle that restrict visibility and movement. These new features are primarily intended to provide more depth and more dynamic gameplay in battle.

Today we would like to take a closer look at one of these new features:

Fires caused by artillery strikes

Artillery is already a relentless threat on the battlefield. With version 0.9, it will be expanded by one more dimension: As soon as an artillery salvo hits the battlefield, there is now a chance that areas will be ignited by the detonations. These (smaller) fires then produce dense smoke that spreads across the terrain depending on the wind direction. After a random number of turns, the fires extinguish themselves.

Restricted visibility due to smoke

The emerging smoke blocks the lines of sight, obscuring troops at a certain distance behind it. They can then no longer be suppressed or focussed in any other way. ‘Fire on sight’ is still possible, but the chance to hit is greatly reduced.

Comparison of the fields of vision of the French and German troop.Impassable positions

A burning position is also impassable for a certain period of time. Especially in narrow trenches, this can mean that certain routes are blocked or that favoured positions with good cover can no longer be used.

The position further ahead would have been passable under normal circumstances.

In early January, we started working on the Gas Update 0.9. The first thing we did was to revise the save system in response to numerous requests from the community. We would like to present the changes to the save games that will come with the 0.9 update in a few months today.

Saving After Every Turn

From the beginning of development many years ago until today, All Quiet in the Trenches has undergone many changes. The decision to only save at the beginning of a level was made at a point when the playing time of a single level was still considerably shorter. This system was easy to implement and served its purpose well at the time.

This system became increasingly impractical the longer a single level took to play. This revision of the save system has therefore been on our to-do list since the beginning of Early Access. Due to the many requests from the community to adjust the save system, we felt it was important to address this now.

With the 0.9 update, the game will save at the beginning of each turn. While saves at the beginning of each level will remain permanently, there will be a certain number of save slots (currently 10, but there may be an option to set this in the settings) per game for turn-based saves.

Revision of the User Interface

The most important changes to the UI are as follows:

A thumbnail for the game is created when saving, which improves the overview and identification of the individual saved games. The active soldiers are displayed as icons. The saves for each playthrough are grouped together to provide better structure in the window, and the key information has been restructured.

Further Changes

Due to the aforementioned changes, it will no longer be possible to open older saves from version 0.8 and earlier.

However, the system revision will also bring other improvements: the size of the individual save games has been reduced somewhat, whilst the performance when loading the information has been significantly improved. This has eliminated the lag when opening the window.

One year ago today, we released All Quiet in the Trenches in Early Access. It has been a very exciting year for us, with difficult moments but also many wonderful experiences. Thank you for accompanying and supporting us on this journey.

During this time, we have concentrated our updates on the trenches and the battle. The upcoming update aims to focus on the gas war and extend the playable time to the spring of 1917. We then plan to look more closely at the soldiers, the military hospital and the French civilian population before tackling the final year of the war. You can find a detailed list of all previous and planned future updates here: https://totallynotaliens.com/aqitt#roadmap


Your feedback and your opinions have repeatedly given us new insights and perspectives on our game over the past year. We are happy and grateful to have found such a thoughtful and pleasant community in you.

We are looking forward to the coming year, which will continue to be dedicated to our Early Access, and wish you many exciting and memorable experiences with All Quiet in the Trenches!

Your Totally Not Aliens team!

With the update to version 0.8.4, we are releasing a few new features in addition to some bug fixes.

In addition to a new offensive level and two Christmas stories, there are also new settings for a new game. We have split Hard Mode into smaller modes, added a few new modifications and made balancing changes.

It is now possible to select only some of the Hard Mode options. If you select all Hard Mode sub-options, the game will be slightly more difficult than before.

Game saves from version 0.8.3 should be compatible with the new update, but the new stories can only occur in a new game. If you still encounter errors, you can switch back to version 0.8.3 at any time via the Steam beta.

And here are the full patch notes for 0.8.4:

Features:

• Added new difficulty settings, hard mode has been slightly rebalanced and divided into:
  
  - Hard times
  - Ailing troop
  - Outsider
  - Out of luck
  - Incompatible ammunition
  
  
• Added two new stories around Christmas
  
• Added new offensive level MG Decoy

Improvements:

• Added a bonus for Trained in first aid in Assist in the hospital
  
• Added a chance of mood Disgusted when failing to loot corpses

Bugfixes:

• Fixed game over in battle not working when a soldier is in the hospital in the camp
  
• Fixed soldiers may not automatically return even if they are in close range at the end of a battle
  
• Fixed some stories that deal with the death of a soldier happening for a soldier who didn't know the dead comrade
  
  
• Fixed an error when a machine gun is repositioned while it's firing
  
• Fixed not cleaning up the Drive away MG-troop task at the end of a battle, which leads to an error in the camp
  
• Fix an error happening in camp, when a soldier lost his glasses in battle and died