Despite an earthquake, Scum's developers are still updating their game

(Image credit: Gamepires)

Prison riot survival game Scum was released in Early Access in 2018, and has been updated regularly since by Croatian development studio Gamepires. Their latest update comes in the wake of an earthquake in Croatia's capital Zagreb, where their office is located, which was apparently the worst quake the city has suffered in 140 years.

"We at Gamepires are fortunately all safe," they say in the latest development blog, "but many people lost their homes and some of the ruined infrastructure is still being fixed. Our thoughts are with everyone who was affected by the earthquake."

Given that Zagreb is currently under coronavirus lockdown, presumably they'd all be working from home right now anyway. Photos of their office show a lot of monitors, bookshelves, and potplants knocked over, but it seems like they avoided the worst of it and updates for Scum carry on.

The latest update include additions like: a bomb defusal minigame; UI markers for traps you place, visible in focus mode; a craftable sewing kit; item stacking for bolts, nails and money; damage to inventory containers, which can transfer to items inside them; various audio tweaks and quality of life additions. My favorite patch note is: "Fixed the bug when you would draw the compound bow the string would stretch in a demonic way."

In spite of everything Gamepires even had time for a second episode of their Scumcast.

Here's a guide to getting started in Scum.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.