UpdateConfirmed30 September 2026

Active Matter's Distorteds now aim where you're going, not where you are

Update 0.4.0.163 teaches Active Matter's Distorteds to dash with lead prediction, makes Dalniy Island's exposed extraction points safer, and restores weapon sway while aiming to cut down on motion sickness.

Update — 30 September 2026

Matter Team has since walked back two of this patch's changes, in two further updates on the same day. Update 0.4.0.164 fixed a bug that let the sight drift away from the actual point of impact during full-auto fire, with recoil itself unchanged. Update 0.4.0.165, which the studio describes as a quick response to feedback, is the substantial one: Distorteds that teleport in front of a fleeing player now appear farther away to give more reaction time, bullet impacts make noticeably less noise so monsters react to them less, monsters settle back into deep sleep faster, and suppressed fire is less likely to wake nearby groups. Agitated Distorteds now animate more visibly so you can tell a restless sleeper from a safe one. The collision rework has been reversed outright - the old physics are back, so pushing through a surrounding pack is possible again, with the studio acknowledging this can occasionally leave you stuck inside a monster and saying a fix is still being worked on. Molotov and flamethrower fire also damages monsters properly again; they had been pathing around it because of the mechanic that makes them avoid bonfires and other permanent fire, which stays in place.

Matter Team has pushed update 0.4.0.163 to Active Matter, and the headline change is a small cruelty: Distorteds have learned to dash with lead prediction, aiming at where a fleeing player is going rather than where they currently are. Outrunning them is now meaningfully harder.

The monsters got better at their job

Alongside the lead prediction, monster collision models have been reworked so you can no longer squeeze through a pack of them, which removes one of the more reliable escape tricks. Hellhounds can no longer spawn on rooftops, their portals sit correctly on the ground in the Shegolskoe: Distortion raid, and Seeds have had their pursuit range cut back.

Extractions are less of a death sentence

The other half of the update pulls in the opposite direction. Several stationary extraction points on Dalniy Island raids were sitting in the open; they have been moved closer to structures with extra cover added nearby. It is a direct fix for players being picked off at the last step of a raid.

Elsewhere on the maps, Escape from Dogorsk has gained vehicle delivery points - Vehicle Transfer contracts had been completing automatically because there was nowhere to deliver to. Gravity platforms on several maps, including the Ozernoe fire station, no longer stutter when you run across them, ladders near two buildings in Ozernoe are climbable again, and a spot in the Park raid that trapped players has been fixed.

One fix that matters more than it sounds

Buried in the weapons section: the studio has decoupled the weapon from the camera while aiming down sights, restoring natural weapon sway. The reason given is motion sickness. Locking a gun rigidly to the camera is a common shortcut, and a studio undoing it for comfort reasons is worth noting.

The patch also closes a Painkiller exploit - the animation can no longer be cancelled to save the item, only a full use gets you back on your feet - reduces duplicate rewards for turning in multiple Operative Objectives, changes the fusion recipe to produce a random key, and lets you pick specific target dummies from a console at the shooting range.

Why it matters

Active Matter opened to players in September and is still on 0.4-series builds, and this patch is a good read on where it is: the studio is tightening the chase and softening the punishment for getting out alive. Those two changes together suggest raids are meant to be tense in the middle rather than at the exit.

Why it matters

Extraction shooters live and die on how their escape moments feel, and this patch makes the pursuit harder while making the extraction itself survivable - a deliberate rebalance of where the tension sits.