HUD Upgrades

Following the Technocolor update and As Advertised update that replaced the shaders and rebalanced the colors for the world's terrain and decorations, the HUD and servers needed their own overhaul. This update replaces many HUD elements and makes the servers pop with sizzling neon!

Targeting Info

When you aim at servers or enemies, you now see a compact bar with security types, health bars, and other info. Server and enemy names are colored to match, making it easier to tell which enemies belong with which server. New icons and detail about buffs / debuffs coming in the next updates.

Interaction Prompts

When aiming at a shop or interactable item, you'll get on-screen prompts under the reticle telling you how to interact with them. Similarly, you'll get warnings when you're being ambushed or hacked with instructions what to do next. In the next update, that will include instructions for defeating Lockout enemies and Proxy security.

If you leave the hack radius, you now get on-screen warnings with a countdown until the hack cancels, helping you time split-second flanking maneuvers.

Event Bars

When you hack, defend, or battle a boss, persistent event bars track your progress at the top of the screen. These can stack with each other and with the targeting info, helping you to battle multiple targets and objectives at once.

When 2 servers fight, you'll see a "tug of war" meter with their enemy counts and the rewards each side is offering. Help one color fill the meter to get their reward!

Allied servers now display as chrome, along with chrome spawns that are clearly your friends.

Chat Systems

The old chat messages were hard to read, especially during combat. Between a new cyberpunk font, better text outlining, and sender icons, it's much easier to tell at a glance who you're talking to and what they have to say. More important messages also trigger notification bubbles in the corner of the screen, also replacing the old tutorial message system. Expect these improvements to come to the Inbox and mission system soon...

Coming Next...

The next 2+ patches will complete the HUD and gameplay menu improvements.

First, the new HUD elements will be extended to the courier delivery missions while connecting them to specific companies and their lore, such as deliveries for the Knights of Ishkar or Machiavelli's Pizza. The payload events will be improved and adapted to work within story missions, destroying and defending payloads before they get to their destinations. I'll also add more elements and information to smaller HUD elements like the reticle, the buff / debuff feedback, more information when aiming at items/powerups, and more NPC and system icons for the chat system.

The second upcoming patch will focus on the Inventory, Progression, and Inbox screens. I've been getting a lot of feedback that those are the most confusing UIs that need improvements. In the inventory, better item tooltips and item icons that match the type of gun rather than its payload. The Progression screens will get an overhaul to make them less confusing and fit the cyberpunk flavor. The Inbox will also get an overhaul with better information about the missions, sender avatars and images to make it easier to tell who you're talking to, and more feedback on the rewards and objectives. Both items and servers will get a new batch of icons for their modifiers.

Altogether, these changes will make you feel more like a hacker interfacing with hardware and software modules and also provide smoother gameplay experiences.

Since these are some of the oldest systems and oldest code, please be patient as it takes a lot of time to debug everything that breaks while making the necessary changes. This update alone changed more than 10,000 lines of code in 300 files. But if you look at the Before / After shots from recent patches, it's worth the wait!

0.9.223 - ouroborOS: HUD Upgrades (10/19/25)

• Added new info bars for target info, hack events, defense/takeover events, and boss fights.
• Replaced the chat system with new message window and popup notifications.
• Added alerts when you leave the hack radius and a countdown to get back before it cancels.
• Added new animated waypoints for Hack, Deliver, Defend, and Destroy events.
• In addition to the XYZ world location, your current Sector is displayed above the RAM bar.
• Linked servers' targeting info now displays how many servers are linked and the +X levels added from those servers. Hacking the defenders now decreases the displayed hack level.
• Replaced most of the menu prompts with ouroborOS wireframes.
• Replaced the Game Over screen with info about what killed you (images coming in a future patch)
• Replaced the Escape Menu (music player info & visualizer coming in a future patch)
• Added several new fonts for UI readability.
• Replaced most of the loading screen backgrounds.
• Streamlined the tutorial with better prompting and covered some missing fallback states.
• Replaced the item loadout for the demo with more exciting weapons like a bouncy MG, a missile shotgun, the (Manta) Ray Gun, and Einar's Flame War.
• The miniatures of Einar's servers located in the Arcade are now gold-plated.
• So many small bugs were discovered and fixed during these upgrades that there's too many to list!

  - Nonadecimal & superdupergc