- AS:RD Update - April 20, 2026 "Going Up" - 20 April 2026
It's time once again for Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop's birthday. We're having a smaller one this year since a lot of our core contributors have been busy with other projects, but we've still got a lot of improvements to share and the usual week of double experience. AMD GPU Driver Crash The game now automatically disables high quality realtime shadows on AMD graphics cards that are affected by the driver bug. We've noticed that this was causing crashes when loading into a mission, but weirdly, the first launch after updating the driver was fine. We encourage anyone who has a graphics card that is affected by the bug and wants to help (and can reproduce the crash) to send any information that might help (crash reports, instructions to reproduce, etc) to AMD. To disable the workaround (as in, allow the settings to display and be selected), use the console command rd_debug_amd_shadow_workar…
- Coming Soon: Steam PvP Fest 2026 - 6 February 2026
Every year, Valentines day is a time to be with friends and loved ones and reflect on your friendship and love. Well, not this year! In 2026, it's all about having simulated gun fights with friends and loved ones. Welcome to Steam PvP Fest 2026. There's nothing more romantic than a space marine deathmatch. You Deserve a Medal Participate in a Deathmatch skirmish in Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop during Steam PvP Fest 2026 to earn a medal you can show off on your Commander Profile. Twitch Drops We're trying something new during this fest: Twitch drops! Watch Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop on Twitch to get a very special customized 22A3-1 Assault Rifle that tracks your kills, both against alien bugs in co-op and against other marines in deathmatch. Link your Twitch account to be eligible for drops, then watch any Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop stream on Twitch with drops enabled for 15 minutes during…
- AS:RD Update - November 1, 2025 "Cone of Fire" - 1 November 2025
Highlights Added a SynTek Residential themed main menu background. The camera feeds that display behind briefing have less static and are less distracting. Many guns are now more accurate while crouching. Weapons Weapon recoil has been changed on several guns. A coding error was previously causing "flattened" recoil to work differently when aiming north or south versus east or west. 22A3-1 Assault Rifle: Normal spread: 03° (wide) × 03° (tall) → unchanged. Crouch spread: 03° × 03° → 01° × 01°. 22A4-2 Combat Rifle: Normal spread: 03° × 03° → unchanged. Crouch spread: 03° × 03° → 01° × 01°. 22A5 Heavy Assault Rifle: Normal spread: 15° × 03° → unchanged. Crouch spread: 06° × 03° → 06° × 01°. 22A7-Z Prototype Assault Rifle: Normal spread: 03° × 03° → unchanged. Crouch spread: 03° × 03° → 01° × 01°. 50CMG4-1: Normal spread: 20° × ~2.5° (broken!) → 20° × 10°. Crouch spread: 20° × ~2.5° (broken…
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Hotfix - September 20, 2025 - 20 September 2025
A minor update has been released for Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop. Fixed a client crash in the Traitors game mode. Added a note in the Swarmopedia about the IAF Medical SMG's increased accuracy while crouching. Added a description for EC-02 Stun Grenades in the Swarmopedia.
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Hotfix - September 3, 2025 - 3 September 2025
Fixed black bars appearing on the sides of the screen for screen resolutions with an aspect ratio wider than 16:9.Fixed traitor players showing as having 99 player kills in the scoreboard.Fixed buzzers bleeding red blood on the client.
- AS:RD Update - September 1, 2025 "Electrical Hum" - 1 September 2025
Special thanks to Dmitriy, Mithrand, jhheight, 法克尤尔马泽尔, and Grimowy for the majority of the changes in this update. New Game Mode: "Traitors!" Commander, As the human shield, the IAF has achieved great victories in countless battles against the swarm, but also suffered tremendous losses. We sincerely thank you and your squad members for your outstanding contributions in defending against the alien threat over this long period! Now, the IAF faces an unprecedented crisis! In the many confrontations, the aliens have quietly evolved: Their Queen has acquired a special ability - mind control. During combat, she has stealthily infected some IAF marines' minds, turning them into infiltrators who compromise IAF squads and sabotage missions. These controlled marines appear no different from normal troops, may possess special abilities, and can rise up during a mission to kill their teammates. Pl…
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Hotfix - July 22, 2025 - 22 July 2025
Added rd_lobby_query_servers convar (default 0 until the problem with the Steam API is fixed) to disable server list queries, which are currently not being properly filtered to just Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop servers by the Steamworks API.Note: This means that HoIAF servers are not labelled in-game currently. Progress is still tracked, and HoIAF servers can be found via the Steam Client "Game Servers" list or a website that has a server list, such as https://serverlist.reactivedrop.com/server-list, neither of which appear to be affected by the filtering issue.Reduced the performance impact of the Steam Workshop download progress widget.
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop's 8th Birthday - 20 April 2025
It's that time of the year again. The anniversary of Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop's Steam release. As always, Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop is only possible due to contributions from community volunteers in the form of donations, code, translations, and game content. Also as always, there's a double experience bonus going on all throughout this week in-game, and if you look hard enough, you might be able to find some cake. Mapping Competition 2025 This year's theme is "Residential, Commercial, Industrial". Tag campaigns, missions, or challenges with RCI2025 on the Steam Workshop to enter. Competition entry deadline is August 1st, 2025. There are a lot of missions in Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop, both in official campaigns and workshop content, that take place around infrastructure like highways, sewers, train stations, or power plants, or in hidden or remote laboratories and military installat…
- AS:RD Update - April 20, 2025 "Received" - 20 April 2025
It wouldn't be an Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop anniversary update without a shipload of fixes! Missions Jacob's Rest: Landing Bay: A crate in the welding tutorial room no longer allows bullets and grenades to pass through. Jacob's Rest: Deima Surface Bridge: The Bloodhound no longer does friendly fire damage. Jacob's Rest: Deima Surface Bridge: Moved the forklift and box on the bridge slightly so they are no longer hovering in the air. Jacob's Rest: Sewer Junction B5: Extended the escape area to include the southeast corner of the breach. Jacob's Rest: Timor Station: The Bloodhound no longer does friendly fire damage. Jacob's Rest: Timor Station: Fixed parasites walking on air at the final hack if a small bridge wasn't extended. Jacob's Rest: Timor Station: Fixed tech requirement staying active during data download. Jacob's Rest: Timor Station: Removed the delay for opening doors after po…
- AS:RD Update - January 1, 2025 "Scavenger" - 31 December 2024
It's 2025, and to start the year off we have a pile of community-requested fixes! Commanders searching for anomalous materials together may find them quicker. Added convar rd_chat_item_messages to opt out of messages about players obtaining items such as medals and crafting materials. (Suggested by Ax-now) Fixed commanders who opted into phase 2 but not phase 1 not being able to see certain informational UI elements in menus. Jacob's Rest: Deima Surface Bridge: Removed marine hints from an out of bounds area. (Reported by typical russian) Jacob's Rest: Deima Surface Bridge: Extended triggers on the bridge upwards to avoid players being able to accidentally jump jet over them and have infinite spawners never turn off. (Reported by WTF-8) Jacob's Rest: Deima Surface Bridge: Added an incorporeal ceiling in first and third person over the building where the first hack occurs. Jacob's Rest:…
- AS:RD Update - December 1, 2024 "Invitation" - 30 November 2024
It's December, and that means it's time for the monthly update! There's a message here, addressed to you. M868 Flamer Unit: Adjusted friendly fire damage and duration on normal friendly fire difficulty. (Thanks, ModdedMarionette). Hardcore friendly fire is unchanged. Friendly fire with a flamethrower now once again ignites immediately. Damage now scales up linearly rather than slower at the start and faster at the end of the burn duration. Afterburn duration is decreased by the amount of time since the previous friendly fire incident, minus two seconds. Maximum afterburn duration is 100%, and minimum is 18.75%. This means the minimum burn time for friendly fire with default game rules is: Easy: 1.125s, Normal: 1.5s, Hard: 2.25s, Insane and Brutal: a little over 2.8s. Afterburn from friendly fire is now counted as friendly fire in mission statistics. Chainsaw: Lag compensation is now dis…
- AS:RD Update - November 1, 2024 "Tune-Up" - 1 November 2024
22A7-Z Prototype Assault Rifle: Removed damage falloff from alternate fire. Now does 1 damage regardless of distance for any target it hits rather than some fraction of a point of damage. IAF Incendiary Sentry Gun: Fixed a 2010 era bug causing this sentry to consume 2.5 ammo per shot. Fire Extinguisher: This item can now always be picked up both in the temporary slot or in a normal weapon slot, rather than being decided per map location. Change rd_fire_extinguisher_force_temporary if this breaks your challenge. Mining Laser: Fixed a visual issue where the beam would appear to follow the player's aim direction when the laser was being fired by a bot added by that player. Increased the default size of the fast reload indicator (rd_fast_reload_under_marine_scale) from 1x to 3.5x. Guns will now consistently start their automatic reload immediately after becoming empty rather than waiting fo…
- AS:RD Update - September 1, 2024 "Time's Down" - 31 August 2024
Mapping Competition 2024 Winner Downed Station by legomanas Changes in this update Removed the cl_interp convar. The game will now act as if it was set to 0. Improved the error message that is shown when attempting to connect to a server that hasn't updated yet. Fixed a particle related crash due to the "emit noise" operator being broken in this engine build. Fixed a possible crash when navigating the controls menu using a keyboard. The sound for a marine being burned but not ignited now plays for other players as well. Slightly increased how lenient the friendly fire ignite timing is when hardcore friendly fire is disabled. Fixed a case where TF2 workshop item icons could appear in the challenge selection screen for manually installed challenges. Added an AddTime input for countdown objectives. Fixed a crash when standing near a strange weapon dropped by a disconnected player. Added su…
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Update - August 1, 2024 - 31 July 2024
This month's update is mainly related to weapon quality of life improvements. X-33 Damage Amplifier: Fixed a carried beacon not reliably connecting to the gun of the marine carrying it. X-33 Damage Amplifier: rd_buff_grenade_attach_sw_auto can now be set to 2 to restore the old behavior of allowing a special weapons marine to carry multiple damage amplifiers. You can still only pick one up from the ground if you are not already carrying one. Persistent damage bonuses still do not stack, so this is only useful if you want to bridge the gap between two damage amplifier durations by slightly overlapping them. X-33 Damage Amplifier and IAF Heal Beacon: Added an extra ring to the animation of the beacon to show remaining duration. Custom particle effects can use this information from the control point 1 y coordinate, which scales from 0 on a freshly deployed beacon to 1 when the beacon expir…
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Update - July 15, 2024 - 14 July 2024
New material shader: RDCharacter This replaces the VertexLitGeneric shader and the AlienSurfaceFX and NightVisionSelfIllum material proxies for characters in Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop. For Modders If your mod does not contain VMT files for characters, you do not need to make any changes. If your mod's VMT files for characters start with the word "patch", you are likely already using the updated shader. If your mod's VMT files for characters start with the words "VertexLitGeneric", see below. If your mod's VMT files for characters start with any other words, you are on your own. If you do not update your VMT files, your materials will continue to work as they have prior to this update, but the models with those materials will not have access to the new features of this shader. Updating VertexLitGeneric character materials Replace "VertexLitGeneric" at the start of the file with "RDChara…
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Update - July 1, 2024 - 1 July 2024
Commander, The Office appreciates your hard work on the anomalous materials project. The folks in the lab say they'll be ready for phase 2 soon. We'll let you know when it's ready. You'll know it when you see it. Oh, and happy wrath month. Dr. Helvetica Scenario Ecological Consistency Dept. Office of Consensus Maintenance Aliens Aliens no longer fail to deal damage when melee attacking another alien due to a custom ai_relationship. Freezing a character now also slows down the simulation of jigglebones. (For example, the antenna or cables on a marine's backpack.) Drones now flinch based on the stats of the weapon that hurt them, not the marine's current weapon. (For example, switching from a flamer to a PDW while the fire is traveling no longer has a lower chance to cause flinches.) Frozen aliens no longer restart their current animation when thawing and can no longer move or turn while…
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Update - June 1, 2024 - 31 May 2024
We've extended the deadline for submissions to the 2024 mapping competition until the end of July, so you have two extra months to make your mission. An update has been released with the following changes: Balance Reduced the attack speed of drones that are on fire by 40%. (Or 28.6%, depending on how you do the math. It now matches their normal attack speed.) Retrying the first mission of a campaign now resets eligibility for Outstanding Execution achievements. Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces Added the Magnum Opus campaign by vq. Added the Downed Station bonus mission by legomanas. Added the ASBI Veteran challenge and its variants by ModdedMarionette. Removed the Absolute Madness campaign. A full list of changes to Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces can be found on the developer website. Menus Valve has added a patch to Proton Experimental that greatly improves text legibil…
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Hotfix - April 25, 2024 - 25 April 2024
Fixed an issue that caused alien corpses to fade slower than intended.
- Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Hotfix - April 20, 2024 - 20 April 2024
Fixed an issue that was causing dedicated servers to crash when a player connected.
- Mapping Competition 2024: "Space Station" - 19 April 2024
It's Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop's 7th birthday, which means it's time for our second annual mapping competition! The theme this year is Space Station. Create a standalone mission (of any type) that takes place on a space station or other large spaceship. Here are some ideas to get you started: A deathmatch mission with hazards that can be activated via panels scattered around the ship. An endless mission where civilians must be rescued from a derelict space station while keeping life support active. A mission where marines must fight their way through enemy soldiers to stop the ship's reactor from melting down. A mission where marines clear out a space station that is still being affected by the portal storms that preceded the seven hour war, full of warring Xen creatures. A mission where marines need to download critical data from computers on a space station that is actively falling a…
