Bodycam's v0.9 brings zombies and a Public Pool rework, but the party system misses again
Reissad Studio's devlog detailed The Dead & Damned update, which shipped Fri 13 Nov with Zombie Trenches and anti-cheat but no party system.
What happened
Reissad Studio, the French indie team behind the body-camera shooter Bodycam, dropped the second half of its pre-launch devlog on Thu 12 Nov (AEST, Brisbane) titled "We made a map nobody want to play." It's the lead-up to v0.9 "The Dead & Damned," which brings back the zombie mode for up to four players, with Reissad Studio saying it picked Friday the 13th because it felt fitting for zombies. The update went live worldwide on Friday 13 November (AEDT Sydney/Melbourne), a day before this report.
Before release, Reissad ran a public stress test: a public playtest for 24 hours, from Wednesday 11 November at 09:00 UTC to Thursday 12 November at 09:00 UTC — that's 7pm Wed to 7pm Thu AEST in Brisbane, or 8pm Wed to 8pm Thu AEDT in Sydney/Melbourne.
What changed
The devlog's title refers to Public Pool, which the devs admitted was a dud: Public Pool has been the least played map since Locked & Loaded, so they wanted to change that, giving it a big visual rework to bring it up to the quality bar used across Bodycam, plus layout improvements, all without touching the core layout.
Zombies are the real headline, though. Zombie Trenches is a brand new game mode built on the Trenches map, and Village and Asylum are both back in Zombies, fixed up around spawns and zombie behaviour based on player reports, with a proper polish pass. Reissad also added randomised-attachment weapon boxes, a new lobby room for drones and RC cars, two new loadout weapons (crossbow and the TEC-9 machine pistol), and Steam-wide Easy Anti-Cheat.
The bad news: the party system — missing since v0.8 — isn't in this patch either. Reissad says it's rebuilding the whole online/matchmaking layer rather than patching the old one, and hit technical blockers that pushed it back again. Quick Play and the Server Browser stay solo-queue; playing with mates still means hosting your own lobby for up to 10.
What players are saying
Reaction splits cleanly along the two storylines. Zombies' return is landing well — players calling the zombie mode in the trenches "pretty cool" and "a nice change from classic PvP". On Steam's community page, one player summed up the mood: disappointed when zombies were pulled with Locked & Loaded, but understood the reasoning and couldn't wait for The Dead and Damned.
The party system is a different story. Steam discussion threads are openly sceptical, with one top post arguing the studio was already "6+ months late" on earlier features that ended up cutting a fifth of the game's content, and questioning whether a working party system will ever ship. It's a recurring complaint, not a new one — this is the second major update in a row to miss it.
On the numbers, Bodycam is still in good overall shape: 81% positive across 72,900+ reviews, 3.7M+ wishlists and a peak of 38,900+ concurrent players, with 86 percent recent reviews over the last 30 days — so this isn't a studio in crisis, just one copping steady heat on one unresolved promise.
What it means for you
If you play solo or duo and liked the old zombie maps, this is worth jumping back in for — Village, Asylum and the new Zombie Trenches mode are free, and Easy Anti-Cheat should help clean up public lobbies on OCE servers. If your Clutch Club squad is bigger than four and you were hanging out for proper party queuing to play PvP together, nothing's changed yet — you'll still need to host your own custom lobby for a full ten-player group.
What to watch next: Watch for Reissad's promised experimental branch test of the new party/matchmaking system, with full v0.9 patch notes expected on Steam around release day.
Sources
- Steam Community :: Bodycam (All News feed, incl. v0.9 release-date post)
- Steam Community :: Bodycam (devlog teaser, German locale)
- Bodycam v0.9 Zombie Update & Public Playtest - Games Press
- Bodycam Brings Back Four-Player Zombie Co-Op in Free November Update - VGTimes
- Bodycam Update: The Dead & Damned Adds Zombie Trenches, TEC-9 & More - dlcompare
- BODYCAM ZOMBIE release date: Dead & Damned v0.9 - Bodycam Zombie Wiki
- fix party - Bodycam General Discussions (Steam)
- Steam Community :: Bodycam (main community page)
Researched and written by ClutchBot News Desk (Claude + live web search) for The Clutch Club — PapaKow's community. Community voices are paraphrased. Spotted something wrong? Tell us in the Discord.