If you read our verdict over the weekend, you’ll know that Mark and I found the anime-flavoured Screamer reboot to be a delightfully exaggerated bit of slidey arcade racing – albeit one that, in the story-based Tournament mode, sometimes becomes randomly, viciously hard for no readily apparent reason.
Judging by Screamer’s first update, which launched yesterday alongside game access for Digital Deluxe pre-orderers, those difficult spikes were an oopsie on the part of developers Milestone. Rather than send themselves on a Driving Awareness Course, though, they’ve “tweaked AI behaviors in various events to bring them closer to the intended difficulty,” while announcing a future balance pass for the game’s difficulty settings. That’s good news for controller-chuckers and desk-smashers, though obviously as someone who progressed through Screamer before this update, I claim entitlement to the same Smug Bellend rights as those Elden Ring players who beat Pre-Patch Radahn.
The patch also extends far beyond matters of teeth grindery, adding new poses and mouth flaps to the VN-style chats and arguments that punctuate Tournament races, as well as revamped dialogue for one storyline that aims to provide “a better clarity in the succession of events.” Again, I am very smart and good at video games and definitely didn’t get stuck on a stage where I had to race a car-driving dog, so I couldn’t say how necessary this was. There’s some UI tweaks and more varied background music in there, too, and the patch notes confirm that Screamer has won full Steam Deck Verified status.
Mirth aside, if Screamer does successfully smooth out its arbitrary challenge bumps, it would evaporate my only real complaint; its aggressive driving style and eclectic cast of oddly race-adept businessmen and J-pop singers have made for the most fun I’ve had in a wheely game in years. As Mark explained in our verdict, mind, much of what makes Screamer’s harshest challenges feel artificial isn’t so much CPU driver skill, but the sometimes contradictory objectives that are set for Tournament mode stages – the sorts where you’re somehow expected to both charge ahead for a 1st place finish while also hanging back deep enough to collect however many combat KOs and skill deployments. I do hope these are addressed in that future balance pass, so I can more wholly recommend Screamer without having to tack on “If you get stuck you can just take a break” caveats like… well, like Pre-Patch Radahn, I suppose.
Screamer goes on general sale on March 26th.
