- HEXTERMINATE v2.1.2 - 1 June 2026
Bug fixesTLDR: Fixes a critical issue when using DPI scaling on Windows and Linux where the user interface couldn't be interacted with due to a mismatch between the logical and visual positions of UI objects. My thanks to CapnDan for the bug report and testing the experimental builds. Follow the developmentJoin the Hexterminate Discord
- HEXTERMINATE v2.1.1 - 28 April 2026
Bug fixesFixed an issue where perks wouldn't be unlocked, despite having enough perk points to do so. My thanks to Teffers and ltanderl for the bug report.Fixed a linking error which caused the Linux build not to boot when launched through Steam.Follow the developmentJoin the Hexterminate Discord
- HEXTERMINATE v2.1.0 - 25 April 2026
FeaturesA new user interface is being rolled out and has replaced all the UI in the main menu and galaxy views. It's significantly nicer looking, easier to develop with and more performant!Added windowed mode and resolution selection.Replaced the software cursor with a hardware cursor, which should feel more responsive.Replaced the glow/bloom effect with a better looking, more modern technique.Improved the "space dust" effect while inside a sector. The new effect has parallax, is more responsive to velocity and orientation and works in any resolution.Added some minimal analytics. This will be useful in the future to help with balancing a new game mode.Bug fixesFixed rendering in ultrawide resolutions which was causing the star in a sector to have the wrong aspect ratio and appear much larger than it was intended.Fixed a major bug which was causing projectiles to be updated twice per fra…
- HEXTERMINATE in 2026 - 22 April 2026
After a year where HEXTERMINATE was on ice as I explored prototyping other games, programming languages and writing another engine, one thing became abundantly obvious: I really, really like HEXTERMINATE and working on it.A month and a half ago I picked it back up, and started looking into what improvements could be made to the game. These are broadly split into four categories:Development streamliningLong-standing issuesGameplay improvementsNew game mode: HyperscapeEach patch will generally contribute to more than one category, but splitting the development streams like this makes it easier to reason about.Development streamliningAs some of you may know, HEXTERMINATE was in development for a long time: it has been my hobby project for many years. This means both that technologies move on, and that I have learned much since the development of the game began all those years ago.The major…
- HEXTERMINATE v2.0.7 - 6 June 2024
Bug fixes Windows build accidentally had God Mode enabled. My thanks to Hové for the bug report. Follow the development Join the Hexterminate Discord Official forum
- HEXTERMINATE v2.0.6 - What do you mean, 106 fleets in a sector? - 4 June 2024
New features Rewrote the fleet spawn system (my thanks to Gimpel for some exciting save games, one of them had 104 fleets in a single sector). This allows fleets to correctly reinforce contested sectors, and addresses several bugs. Bug fixes Sectors can now have more than 9 fleets contesting them. A player will now always be able to enter a sector, no matter how many fleets are contesting it. Contesting fleets will keep jumping into a sector whenever there is space available, fixing an issue where fleets were seemingly idling and not assisting in battle. Fleets spawning should no longer overlap existing ships. This could lead to ships getting stuck or being instantly destroyed. Fixed various serialisation issues which could cause odd behaviours and crashes in Infinite War. Message boxes will no longer spawn on game/engine warnings, only on fatal errors. Models were being incorrectly cli…
- HEXTERMINATE v2.0.5 - A little personal space please - 24 April 2024
Balancing In the Infinite War game mode, it was possible for enemy homeworlds to spawn too close to the player's homeworld. As enemy fleets will spawn from a homeworld, this could very quickly lead to a loss. The galaxy generation has been adjusted and enemy homeworlds now have a minimum spawn distance. The Hegemon faction (green) had the wrong loot table associated with them. They were dropping far worse modules than intended, and should now drop modules in line with their role as an end-game faction. Bug fixes The Linux build could fail to launch in certain situations where the steamapi.so hadn't loaded. This should now be fixed. Fixed two shutdown crashes, one with the sound system and another with the Module code. Removed a couple of references to the old "Resource Units". Follow the development Join the Hexterminate Discord Official forum
- HEXTERMINATE v2.0.4 - Bug fixes - 12 April 2024
Bug fixes Fix for an issue on Windows when window scaling was in use where the mouse cursor would be clamped and unable to reach the bottom right of the screen. Fixed a crash when all the ship's modules were removed when in the shipyard. Fixed a rare crash in very large battles where the number of projectiles was hitting a hardcoded cap. Follow the development Join the Hexterminate Discord Official forum
- HEXTERMINATE v2.0.3 - Bug fixes - 10 April 2024
Bug fixes Fix for an issue on Windows where window scaling was set to 125% or above. This would cause the game window to be significantly larger than it should, cropping the UI and causing very low quality rendering. My thanks to player Midnight for helping me identify the source of this one. Fixed a crash when exiting the game while the tutorial was on-going. Fixed a crash after leaving a game to the main menu, and then starting a new game. Fixed multiple crashes when force-closing the game (e.g. Alt-F4). Next steps The next few patches will focus on general stability and engine improvements. There are still several known issues (such as problems with ultra-wide screen support, the ship's capacitor regeneration calculations being off and a few crashes) which need to be addressed, and the game's logging needs some attention so I get better information when players experience a crash or…
- HEXTERMINATE v2.0 - Free to play, open-source, Linux support - 8 April 2024
It has been a long time since Hexterminate has had a release, and given the size of the changes I think it justifies a 2.0 release! There is a lot more to come, but I wanted to draw the line somewhere and give players a new version. If you’d like to join me in Discord, I’ve created a new server where I’ll provide regular updates and discuss any issues you might find. Hexterminate is now free and open source! The game has had a good run on Steam as a paid product when I released it several years ago, but I have decided to make it free for anyone to play. Hexterminate is a hobby project, and I am financially in a better position now from my day job than when the game was originally released. If you are one of the original players, you have my deepest thanks for supporting me. This lets me put the game out there for anyone who would like to play it, and make the source available. If you’re…
- Build 19 - crash fix - 14 October 2021
Bug fixes Fixed a crash when accessing the Fleet menu.
- HEXTERMINATE - Build 18 update - 12 September 2021
Hello everyone. This build contains substantial engine changes ahead of a public Linux build and these changes touch many parts of the game. If you find a bug or a crash, please jump on the forum and let me know! Additions Added new Codex to the main menu, with descriptions of the various modules and factions. Added vignette post-processing effect. Changes Upgraded post-processing pipeline, which is more performant and allows for improved effects. Re-wrote the glow effect, addressing various banding artefacts. Split audio system into Windows and Linux implementations. Now using cross-platform implementation for identifying the resolution of the current screen. Bug fixes Fixed several rendering issues which could result in the game presenting a black screen. Fixed various stuttering issues by adding a dedicated loading screen between the intro movie and the main menu. Fixed several memor…
- HEXTERMINATE - Developer blog #7 - 19 August 2021
With holidays and birthday season out of the way, it’s time to let you know what’s been happening in HEXTERMINATE land. Engine upgrades Linux support & Proton Being stuck on holiday with a laptop that only runs Linux Mint, I thought I’d try to get the game running on it, as the majority of the code was meant to be portable anyway. That was the theory. In practice, it required quite a substantial amount of work to get the game compiling, nevermind actually running. Right now it does run and it is playable, although there are some graphical artefacts and sound doesn’t work. However, this led to some interesting discoveries which will affect everyone, leading to better performance and fewer memory issues. Currently, native Linux support is scheduled for Build 19 (so, not this one but the one after), but the many fixes that have been done to the engine will likely allow the game to be run t…
- HEXTERMINATE - Hyperscape - 3 July 2021
Overview Hyperscape will be a new game mode and is where the long term development of HEXTERMINATE will take place. In a way, Hyperscape is HEXTERMINATE 2, building on the pre-existing foundations, but freely available to anyone who has purchased the game. Rather than a structured campaign, it takes a turn towards the roguelike style. The player takes a fleet from Real Space into hyperspace, exploring that realm rather than just using it as a convenient way to travel. This space, called the Hyperscape, is a realm of constant change and inhabited by unshackled AIs. The player starts in a sector and once the sector is cleared, they can choose one out of a few different sectors to progress towards, taking them deeper and deeper into the Hyperscape. To assist the player with surviving in this challenging environment, the Empire also sends a jump capable space station. The player's progressi…
- HEXTERMINATE - Build 17 update - 21 June 2021
Additions The main menu has been replaced with the new User Interface. The player ship can now strafe, using Q and E. There is new Navigation perk, Thrust Vectoring, which increases how quickly a ship moves sideways and backwards. Changes Dodging when using the Evasive Manoeuvres perk is now achieved by double-tapping Q or E. Dodging left and right no longer have separate cooldowns. Dodging has had the engine thrust multiplier reduced from 3.5 to 2.0. This should still allow to you to dodge incoming fire, but should make lighter ships with a high engine-to-mass ratio easier to control. The perk Reverse Thrusters has been removed, which allowed your ship to move backwards. This really shouldn't be locked behind a perk and is now part of the ship's basic controls. The main combat playlists have been unified. Previously you'd get separate playlists depending on which ship you started with,…
- HEXTERMINATE - Developer blog #6 - 20 June 2021
Community Discord server This should definitely have happened a long time ago, but I've created a Discord server for HEXTERMINATE, as well as general games development and programming. If you'd like to have a chat and discuss where the game is going, join our Discord server here. A new User Interface It is one of those things which are inevitable in software development: mistakes are often obvious in hindsight. If we go back several years, I decided that writing my own User Interface library was a good idea. This was a valuable experiment in a number of ways, providing valuable insight into the complexity of such a system: how do I bring fonts in? How does input need to be implemented in a multilayered system? What about popups? How difficult can it be to get the text in a text box wrapping correctly? If I was just making an engine for fun and experience, that decision would have been f…
- HEXTERMINATE - Build 16 update - 8 May 2021
Improvements Ships can now have an outline surrounding them, helping you identify whether they are friend or foe. This is enabled by default, but can be turned off in the Options screen. The player's ship has a cyan outline, any friendlies are blue and hostiles are red: An accessibility option has been added to allow firing turrets to be a toggle, rather than having to hold the left mouse button. This option is disabled by default, but can be turned on in the Options screen. The engine has been updated to use OpenGL 3.3 and GLEW, greatly simplifying some of the underlying rendering code. This is not expected to make any difference for the majority of players, but it makes further development easier.
- HEXTERMINATE - Developer blog #5 - 6 May 2021
With HEXTERMINATE having been out for a while and the bulk of the issues resolved, it is time to talk about what will happen to the game in the long term. Although the game is has been released, development will be carrying on for a long time to come: HEXTERMINATE is one of my two hobby projects and one that has an ever-growing list of things I’d like to do. Before we go any further, let me just make one thing clear: these will all be free updates and available to anyone who has bought the game. So, lets have a look at the backlog for a broad overview of where development time is going. Engine updates The engine HEXTERMINATE uses is homegrown and was started a very, very long time ago (a cursory look shows the first copyright notice in it dating back to 2014, but the first files were probably created in 2006 or so). Over the years it has been updated as necessary and chunks have been re…
- Crash & hardcore fixes - 27 July 2020
Fixes Fixed an issue where some of the main menu's logic would still be active during general gameplay. This is believed to be the source of some crashes and odd behaviour, such as duplicated player fleets. Fixed a bug where the "kill this save" flag was not being correctly cleared.
- HEXTERMINATE - Build 14 update - 26 July 2020
Fixes Infinite War achievements should no longer unlock in the Campaign mode. Fixed a stuttering issue introduced in build 13.
