The debut release from Liquid Swords, the studio founded by longtime Just Cause creative director Christofer Sundberg, has hit a rough patch. Samson: A Tyndalston Story launched this week to mixed early impressions, with players encountering a range of bugs from minor visual quirks to severe issues that halt progression entirely. Sundberg took to Steam to acknowledge the problems head-on, calling the state of affairs “unacceptable” and pledging that the team is working around the clock to deliver the experience they originally envisioned.
A substantial patch is scheduled to go live on Friday, April 10, targeting the most pressing complaints from the community. Among the most welcome additions is support for up to eight save files — a significant upgrade from the launch version’s single autosave system. While relying on one save slot added a layer of tension that fit the game’s punishing tone, it also meant that players who encountered a game-breaking bug had no earlier save to fall back on, sometimes losing hours of progress in the process, as noted by Rock Paper Shotgun.
The update also tackles a cluster of crash fixes and performance improvements, particularly around stuttering caused by PSO-related hitches. On the gameplay front, Liquid Swords is addressing several mission and progression blockers, including tailing missions with overly strict fail radiuses that have been made more forgiving. Enemies that refused to advance during group encounters — a problem multiple reviewers flagged — should now behave as intended, and a new failsafe for NPC fall damage aims to prevent foes from tumbling into unreachable spots and softlocking encounters.
The rocky launch was not entirely unexpected. As GameSpot reported, Sundberg had previously acknowledged that the game would likely ship with some lingering issues, describing Samson as a focused 25-hour AA experience rather than an expansive AAA blockbuster. The studio made deliberate cuts during development, shelving features like heavy RPG systems and base-building to keep the scope manageable and the action tight.
At its core, Samson tells the story of a man forced into a life of heists to rescue his kidnapped sister from mobsters, with a debt that grows over time and with every failed job. Rather than relying on gunplay, the game leans heavily on a melee combat system that sets it apart from the open-world crime games it inevitably draws comparisons to. It is a scrappy, hard-hitting brawler at heart — and one that clearly has an audience willing to stick with it through growing pains.
Sundberg closed his message by reaffirming the studio’s long-term commitment to both Samson and the fictional city of Tyndalston, promising continued improvements across quality, gameplay, and content. For players who have been holding off, the Friday patch should represent a meaningful first step toward a more stable experience, with further updates expected to follow in the weeks ahead.