The Halloween update for the survival adventure Kona has been released for Linux on Steam after more than eight years.

The game moved to Unity 6 with a new render pipeline and brings Vulkan support, Steam Cloud saves, native Steam Deck support, OpenXR for VR and the new, experimental Survivor mode. The old version remains available via Properties > Game Versions > Legacy.

Further updates with bug fixes have been released since this update.

Kona Halloween Update is Out Now (Windows & Linux)!

DISCLAIMER: This update contains a lot of changes and I expect bugs to surface, but I’ll be there to fix them as they reveal themselves, and the Legacy Version is always available to download in the game’s Properties > Game Versions > Legacy.

Release Notes

Game modes and combat

• Added Detective, Balanced, and Survivor modes, with the selected mode displayed beside each save.
• Added Survivor’s night presentation, storm effects, red interface accents, and additional wolf encounters.
• Added five Survivor achievements in a separate Steam achievement set.
• Added the hidden Golden Gun, with its own unlock conditions and unlimited ammunition.
• Reworked wolf encounters with more space between attacks, clearer preparation before lunging, and revised recovery times.
• Updated wolf retreat behaviour according to the selected mode. In Survivor, living wolves keep fighting.
• Fixed attack-queue issues and cases where a dead wolf could still deal bite damage.
• Fixed wolf navigation failures that could send an animal toward an invalid destination.
• Rebalanced rifle and revolver damage against wolves, including headshots.
• Reduced sprint stamina consumption in Balanced and Survivor modes.
• Made the time from firing input to shot much shorter.

Performance and graphics

• Updated Kona’s engine and rendering pipeline.
• Reworked terrain, scenery, and texture loading, with improvements to visibility management and background loading.
• Reduced repeated object searches, unnecessary per-frame work, and memory allocations in several gameplay systems.
• Spread scenery spawning and visibility updates across frames to reduce sudden bursts of work.
• Updated shader preparation to reduce first-use rendering stalls.
• Expanded graphics settings and frame-rate limits, including 72, 80, and 90 FPS options, mainly for VR.
• Added experimental NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR 2 upscaling for supported Windows hardware, disabled by default.
• Added optional volumetric lighting and GPU snow particles on supported configurations.
• Updated snow, water, fog, and material rendering for the new pipeline.
• Fixed colour-grading and exposure issues, including incorrect transitions between lighting conditions.
• Restored missing effects on vision characters and glowing footprints.
• Improved motion-blur support for moving objects and held equipment.

Menus, reading, and controls

• Reworked settings navigation, controller focus, and confirmation dialogs.
• Fixed pause-menu backgrounds intercepting input intended for submenus.
• Fixed cases where menu transitions could become stuck while the game was paused.
• Improved save-slot readability and added clearer mode labels.
• Added page indicators and previous/next arrows when reading documents.
• Fixed document-navigation clicks also triggering unrelated gameplay input.
• Fixed settings panels reopening at an old scroll position.
• Fixed notification cleanup and several input and interface errors.
• Improved movement input handling at high frame rates.

VR

• Replaced the legacy VR integration with OpenXR.
• Added revised hand poses, support-hand grips, and left- or right-handed item handling.
• Added physical steering-wheel interaction, with stick steering still available.
• Improved firearm aiming and reloading, including partial reloads for supported equipment.
• Improved journal navigation, document handling, and Polaroid positioning.
• Improved menu pointers, interaction markers, subtitle readability, and recentering.
• Fixed several loading and fade issues that could reveal the world too early or leave interface elements in the wrong place.
• Improved teleport landing checks around steps and obstacles.
• Added separate PC VR preferences so switching between desktop and headset play preserves each setup.

Saves, achievements, and other fixes

• Added Steam Cloud saves, allowing you to continue your investigation across computers and Steam Deck, with your checkpoints and journal photos synchronized.
• Added a migration prompt for older saves, with recovery backups created before importing them.
• Improved checkpoint and photo saving, including recovery copies and safer handling of interrupted writes.
• Fixed unreadable checkpoints preventing other saves from being listed.
• Fixed save triggers failing to retry after an unsuccessful save.
• Improved achievement delivery and retry handling when Steam is temporarily unavailable.
• Fixed water incorrectly counting as alcohol for the Prohibition achievement, with recovery handling for eligible older saves.
• Fixed road sections disappearing when travelling between certain loading regions.
• Improved restoration of indoor context when loading a checkpoint.
• Fixed radio playback initialization and several animation-state errors.

Source: Steam