OpenShao 0.5.1

Fixes a crash on Monk difficulty and improves the GitHub forms for bug reports and suggestions.

Improved Difficulty

• Fixed a crash in Goro's Lair before the first Fatality.

Validation

• Windows — 139/139 automated tests passed.
• Linux — 97/97 automated tests passed.
• Both release packages were built and verified against the SHA-256 checksums.

OpenShao 0.5.0

OpenShao 0.5.0 adds Survival Mode, Improved Difficulty with the new Monk mode, Restore Lost Dialogue, Vulkan on Windows, high refresh rate support up to 240 FPS, 5.1 audio, save pages and a long list of fixes. It also includes everything prepared for 0.4.0, which was not published separately.

Important

Update from 0.3.0 with the launcher's Update button, or extract this release to a new folder. Saves, settings and mods are preserved. You still need your own USA/Europe Xbox copy of the game.

Survival Mode

• Added Game Mode to the main menu, after Versus, for extra game modes.
• Added Survival Mode: nine levels of enemy waves in single player or Ko-op.
• Survival uses your unlocked Versus fighters, including Johnny Cage, Scorpion and the other unlockables, and the same difficulty options as Story Mode.
• Survival starts locked. Find its secret portal in The Foundry during Story Mode, then save your game. The unlock applies to every save slot and page.
• The unlock message appears by itself when the secret is revealed. It says whether the unlock still needs a save.
• Fighters start Survival with the full Story Mode upgrades: every move rank and maximum health from the real health pickups.
• Level 1 opens with a framed rules screen over a black backdrop. Press A to begin.

Improved Difficulty

• Added Improved Difficulty in Enhancements, on by default. New campaigns offer Easy, Normal, Hard and Monk. Saves keep their difficulty.
• Easy: enemies hit softer.
• Monk: larger enemy groups, harder unguarded hits, faster and smarter enemies, less health recovery and less experience. Shrines save but do not heal.
• Monk: death returns you to your last shrine save with the health you saved, or to the start of the campaign before your first save.
• Monk: guarded hits deal the normal Hard damage.
• Fixed Monk health pickups and kill recovery exceeding the reduced recovery.
• Both save lists now show a Difficulty column.

Restore Lost Dialogue

• Added Restore Lost Dialogue in Enhancements, on by default. It uses only the original recordings in your selected voice language.
• Added unused takes to matching boss encounters, including Reptile, Scorpion, Baraka, Mileena and Ermac.
• Added unused monk lines to their scenes: the Wu Shi gate and combo replies, the Orochi feast, the catapults and barricades, the warlord's arrival, the Foundry hooks, cauldron, furnace and forge door, and Shao Kahn's fight.
• Raiden explains save shrines at the first one, in new campaigns only.
• Fixed fatality music missing from cinematic fatalities.

Graphics and performance

• Added Vulkan on Windows. Select Direct3D 12 or Vulkan under Graphics API on the launcher's Play page. Linux uses Vulkan.
• Added frame rate options for 60, 120, 144, 165 and 240 FPS with V-Sync off. V-Sync follows the monitor. Simulation stays at 60 Hz.
• Menus now run at a fixed 60 FPS.
• Fixed particle effects at frame rates above 60.
• Fixed animation recovery in Foundry Map 10 at high frame rates.
• Updated XboxXBERecomp. Faster rendering: about 20% higher median frame rate in our Direct3D 12 tests.
• Added shader and pipeline precompilation to reduce first-use pauses.
• Added Cinematic Bars in Enhancements: animated black bands in in-game cutscenes, off by default.
• Improved character shadows: they follow the game's moving lights and have softer edges. Removed the old Vertical Shadows option.
• Fixed Test Your Might's frame and countdown in widescreen.
• Fixed Kontent technique names in widescreen and translated languages.
• Fixed the brightness of the Press START screen and the logo before it.
• Fixed a distorted Select pause menu after some of Raiden's messages.
• Fixed main menu ornaments, the selector star and transitions.

Note

Above 60 FPS, OpenShao draws extra frames between the game's original 60 Hz updates. Some character animations, effects or areas can still look wrong at high frame rates. If you notice a problem, switch to 60 FPS and report it with the area and the frame rate you used.

Audio

• Added Audio Output in Konfigure Recompilation: Mono, Stereo (default) and Surround with discrete PCM 5.1. Devices without six channels use a stereo downmix.

Saves

• Load Game and Save Game now have ten pages of nine slots. Use the triggers to turn pages.
• Press X to delete a saved game after confirmation.

Input and Ko-op

• Fixed loading a Ko-op save with keyboard and mouse as player 1 and a controller as player 2.
• Fixed DualShock 4 over Bluetooth staying active after it disconnects.

Stability

• Fixed a crash after pausing and switching windows (#41).
• Crash reports keep more information about guest crashes.

Launcher

• Added Release notes on the Play page for the installed version.
• Added optional Discord Rich Presence in Files > Discord.
• Report a bug on the Support page opens a GitHub form with your version and settings filled in, and the crash form after a crash.
• Improved update checks.

Project

• Added issue forms for bugs, crashes, audio, graphics and fan translation mods.
• Added a contribution guide and an AI usage policy.
• Added a page for fan translators who want to offer a translation as a mod.
• The Brazilian Portuguese fan translation and dub stays available as an optional language pack in Mods.

Validation

• Windows: 139/139 automated tests passed. Linux: 97/97.
• Windows ZIP and Linux TAR.GZ packages were built with SHA-256 checksums.
• Survival, Monk, saves and restored dialogue were played and checked in game. Full Survival clears, every fighter, physical 5.1 setups and every high refresh rate on every GPU were not tested exhaustively. Please report what you find.

Special thanks

Thanks to @dreynoplay and @PanicoDaMorte for testing, reporting bugs and giving feedback throughout this release.

OpenShao 0.4.1

This maintenance update improves the launcher's update checks.

Launcher updates

• Improved update checks to GitHub.

Validation

• Windows: 111/111 automated tests passed.
• Linux: 73/73 automated tests passed.

OpenShao 0.4.0

This update adds Vulkan on Windows, higher frame rates, restored dialogue, cinematic bars, pipeline precompilation and a new Support page, alongside launcher startup fixes and improvements to widescreen layouts, Ko-op and in-game settings.

Graphics and performance

• Added Direct3D 12 / Vulkan selection to the launcher's Play page on Windows.
• Added automatic fallback to Direct3D 12 for the current session if Vulkan initialization fails.
• Added 60 and 120 FPS options with V-Sync disabled. With V-Sync enabled, rendering targets the monitor's refresh rate.
• Added interpolated rendering above 60 FPS while keeping gameplay simulation at 60 Hz.
• Added shader and pipeline preparation during loading on both renderers, reducing compilation stalls from the first session.
• Expanded background compilation and pipeline reuse across sessions.

Note

Some effects can still pause briefly on first use.

Restore Lost Dialogue

• Added Restore Lost Dialogue to Enhancements, enabled by default.
• Recovered story lines previously skipped when another voice was playing.
• Restored Johnny Cage's ledge instruction and wheel reactions, missing Goro's Lair dialogue, escape warnings and Living Forest hints.
• Added unused boss dialogue, taunts, reactions and laugh variations, including Ermac's phase dialogue.
• Added voices to selected tutorial captions and contextual responses throughout the campaign.
• Corrected solo Kung Lao dialogue during the Baraka encounter.
• Uses the original recordings and selected voice language.

Cinematic Bars

• Added optional animated black bars during in-game cutscenes. Available in Enhancements, disabled by default.

Widescreen and interface

• Corrected widescreen camera aspect-ratio handling.
• Improved solo and Ko-op positioning for health bars, names, experience, combo counters and praise.
• Corrected tutorial panels, text and confirmation prompts across aspect ratios.
• Improved Level Select backgrounds, arena previews and transitions on widescreen displays.

Controls and pause settings

• Improved Ko-op controller assignment, disconnection and reconnection handling.
• Added keyboard and mouse takeover when player 1's controller disconnects.
• Connected controllers retain their player slots, and replacement controllers fill empty slots.
• Any connected controller can navigate recompilation settings and remap controls.
• Fixed Start skipping Versus introductions without immediately opening pause.
• Reorganized pause settings into Display, Graphics, Controls and Audio, with corrected Back navigation.
• Expanded pause-menu graphics controls with 25%–400% render scale, V-Sync, FPS display and frame-rate selection.

Launcher stability

• Fixed startup failures on Windows profiles where the Saved Games folder had not been created yet.
• Improved handling of launcher graphics initialization failures, rendering errors and GPU timeouts.
• Added safer handling of font and interface resource creation, with a system-dialog fallback when the graphical launcher cannot initialize.
• Improved startup diagnostics, including logging when application folders cannot be prepared.

Support and crash reports

• Added a Support page with Generate report, Open reports and Report a bug actions.
• Diagnostic ZIPs collect recent session logs, selected settings, installed mod versions and available crash dumps.
• Added automatic diagnostic ZIP creation after unexpected launcher or game exits, without requiring the launcher to be reopened.
• The error message shows the ZIP location and reporting instructions. Selecting OK opens its folder.
• On Windows, automatic crash reports include a dump captured for that crash when one can be created. Manual reports include the latest completed dump when available.
• Reports are still generated with logs and other diagnostics if a dump cannot be created.
• Added filtering of account and computer names, personal paths, network addresses and credentials in text logs.
• Reports exclude saves, game files and screenshots. Nothing is uploaded automatically.
• Added --support-report to generate a diagnostic ZIP without opening the launcher.

Validation

• Automated regression tests: 109/109 passed on Windows and 71/71 passed on Linux.

Special thanks

Special thanks to @Joao13Traducoes for the additional testing

OpenShao 0.3.0

This update adds a new launcher with automatic updates, restores Survival Mode, and brings in-game recompilation settings, widescreen and ultrawide support, expanded input remapping, independent text and voice languages, new enhancements, graphics fixes and performance improvements.

Important

Releases before 0.3.0 have no updater. Download this version manually once and extract it to a new folder. From now on, updates are installed from the launcher.

New launcher

• Rebuilt the launcher with its own visual identity, rendered with Direct3D 12 on Windows and Vulkan on Linux.
• Organized it into four pages: Play, Mods, Files and About.
• Game selection now happens inside the launcher. The first start, or a game that moved, opens a page to choose a game file (ISO, XISO, ZIP or default.xbe) or an extracted folder.
• If the saved game folder no longer contains default.xbe, the launcher reopens game selection and explains why.
• ZIP imports show their progress in the launcher and can be cancelled.
• Files shows the game, saves, data and logs folders, with Change, Open and Move, plus Restore Video for recovering display settings.
• About lists the project license and every bundled component with its license.
• Language packs show their flag in Mods.
• Keyboard and controller navigation: Enter or A plays, Esc or B goes back, and the shoulder buttons switch pages.
• Only one copy runs at a time. Starting OpenShao again brings the open window forward on Windows and shows a notice on Linux.
• New application icon.

Automatic updates

• The launcher checks for a new version when it opens and shows Update when one is available.
• Updates are downloaded from the project's GitHub releases and installed only after their SHA-256 matches the published checksum.
• The play circle shows the download progress. The launcher restarts on the new version when the update is installed.
• A failed installation keeps the previous version.
• Saves, settings, mods and game files are never changed by an update.
• The check can be turned off in Files > Updates.

Folder migration

• The first start of 0.3.0 finds the data and saves folders of earlier releases by their contents and renames them to OpenShao.
• Saves, settings, installed mods, the selected game and moved folders are kept, and their stored paths are updated.
• Nothing moves when a folder is in use or when more than one earlier folder matches.

Note

On Windows, saves are now in Saved Games\OpenShao and data in %LOCALAPPDATA%\OpenShao.

Survival Mode restoration

• Restored the hidden Survival Mode.
• Rebuilt the Survival 5 arena, whose Xbox scene data is incomplete.

In-game recompilation settings

• Added Konfigure Recompilation to the main menu, below Kontent.
• Added five settings categories: Display, Graphics, Controls, Audio and Language.
• Added Enhancements as a separate main-menu entry, below Konfigure Recompilation.
• Integrated the new menus with the game's original fonts, animations, sounds, selection effects and interface style.
• Added Save Changes and Discard and Return. Saving applies the settings and returns to the main menu.
• Added a 15-second confirmation for display changes, automatically restoring the previous settings if they are not confirmed.
• Added Exit to Desktop to the main menu, with a confirmation prompt.

Important

The original game's Audio, Brightness, Gameplay and other native options remain available.

In-game pause menu settings

• Added Konfigure Recompilation to the original gameplay pause menu, accessible through SELECT.
• Added five settings categories: Controls, Graphics, Video & Screen, Audio and Interface.
• Added live controller and keyboard remapping, mouse configuration, graphics adjustments, display settings, audio volume and FPS display controls.
• Settings apply and save immediately, without returning to the main menu.
• Added a 15-second confirmation for display changes, automatically reverting unconfirmed changes.
• Added Exit to Desktop to the gameplay pause menu, with confirmation and an unsaved-progress warning.
• The pause menu lists Continue, Options, Konfigure Recompilation, Exit Game and Exit to Desktop. Exit Game returns to the main menu.

Languages and localization

• Added independent Text Language and Voice Language settings.
• Added English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese voices, selectable independently of the interface language.
• Added an automatic game restart when the text or voice language changes.

Important

Language changes return directly to the main menu, skipping startup movies while preserving saved settings and game progress.

• Added localized recompilation settings, button hints, confirmations and system messages for all six supported languages.
• Updated PC-specific storage messages. The native storage prompt can open the configured saves folder.
• Language packs are installed and managed only through Mods, with Install, Enable, Disable, Update and Remove.
• When a selected text or voice language needs a missing or disabled pack, the launcher opens Mods before starting the game.
• Fixed language selection when choosing an unavailable language.
• Saved text and voice preferences are kept when enabling or disabling language packs.

Note

Brazilian Portuguese voices and translated resources require the installed and enabled language pack.

Scorpion Unfiltered

• Added the optional Scorpion Unfiltered enhancement.
• Increased the frequency of Scorpion's two rare, explicit voice lines during compatible combat voice events.
• Kept all four original recordings with these selection probabilities:
  • First rare variation: 50%.
  • Second rare variation: 40%.
  • First standard variation: 5%.
  • Second standard variation: 5%.
• Added voice previews in the Enhancements menu, so players can hear both variations of the selected pair.
• The original recordings and normal gameplay audio are unchanged when the enhancement is disabled.

Widescreen and ultrawide support

• Added Original (4:3), 16:9, 16:10, 21:9 and 32:9 aspect ratio modes.
• Added Automatic, which follows the window's actual aspect ratio, including formats such as 3:2.
• Adjusted the camera field of view for the selected aspect ratio.
• Adapted menus, HUD elements, tutorials, loading bars, transitions and screen overlays.
• The animated menu sky now fills widescreen displays with proportional scaling.
• Adjusted Raiden's tutorial panel, portrait and confirmation prompt.
• Aligned Kontent gallery thumbnails and selection outlines with their background frames.
• Kept gallery frame proportions and filled the surrounding space with mirrored decorative edges.
• Opened artwork shows the complete image while keeping navigation controls visible.
• Videos, including logos and Kontent movies, keep their proportions without stretching or cropping.
• Interface text and selection effects keep their proportions across display modes.

Note

Videos can keep black bars when needed to show the complete image.

Graphics fixes and improvements

• Fixed square or incorrectly rendered shadows on affected GPUs in the Direct3D 12 renderer.
• Improved shadow depth handling and clearing.
• Fixed missing or incorrectly oriented surfaces in campaign and extra maps, including the Shokan Shrine floor and Wasteland cliffs.
• Fixed portal effects that could appear edge-on, and a translucent light shaft that covered a portal.
• Kept the original order of sky layers without changing their culling or depth.
• Fixed the missing right edge of the frame on the brightness adjustment screen.
• Added Bloom Effect to the Graphics settings. It is disabled by default; enable it for the original Xbox glow.
• Improved preservation of the original rendering when Bloom Effect is disabled.
• Set the default brightness to 50% for new configurations and for the original brightness screen's Default action. Existing saved adjustments are kept.
• Vulkan: improved texture sampling at sprite edges, render-scale shadow bias and GPU synchronization. Pipeline caches from other drivers or devices are rejected.

Input remapping

• Added controller remapping for buttons, directional pads, triggers and individual analog stick directions.
• Added primary and alternate keyboard bindings for every supported game input.
• Expanded mouse settings with button and wheel remapping, sensitivity, horizontal and vertical inversion, and movement assignment.
• Added direct input capture for controller and keyboard bindings.
• Added shared-binding detection and conflict feedback.
• Added separate default restoration for controllers, keyboards and mice.
• Improved input handling when opening or leaving the recompilation settings.
• Custom mappings apply to menus and gameplay.
• Improved Ko-op player assignment with one or two controllers, and controller reconnection after Bluetooth drops.
• Extended Linux input support to the expanded keyboard and mouse mappings.

Cache and performance

• Added persistent shader and graphics pipeline caches to the Windows Direct3D 12 renderer, reducing repeated compilation across sessions.
• New cache entries are written in the background.
• Added integrity and compatibility checks. The renderer rebuilds data that cannot be used.
• Expanded diagnostic logs with cache statistics and compilation timings.
• F9 now shows the OpenShao version together with the frame rate and frame time.

Note

New scenes or effects can still need compilation on first use. Renderer, GPU or driver changes can require parts of the cache to be rebuilt.

Mods

• The mod catalog is now **Ope...