Darkstone Restoration - Update 2: Hardcore Mode

Hardcore mode is now live for everyone, along with a batch of fixes and improvements.

Hardcore (Permadeath) mode

A new option at character creation, for players who want the ultimate challenge: one life, no coming back. If your character dies, that run is over for good, so every fight matters. Saving happens in town only, which means no save-scumming your way out of a bad spot. The mode comes with its own leaderboards, ranking your longest survival time and the highest level a Hardcore character has reached, shown next to your name and character.

Fixes and improvements

• Right-clicking to cancel a spell you were aiming no longer casts it by mistake, and no longer freezes the camera.

• Fixed a crash and a cut-off character voice line on some level transitions.

• Fixed a rare crash that could happen when acting right at the edge of a level.

• Monsters free their tile the moment they die, so a corpse no longer blocks the way.

• On gamepad, the Steal skill can be aimed at NPCs, and ranged targeting with throwing weapons is fixed.

• Companion quick-spells work on rebound non-numeric keys.

• Shops: "Identify all" now scrolls through the reveal boxes, and you can bulk-buy stackable consumables.

• Inventory auto-sort no longer loses an item, and takes an item in instead of swapping it.

• Object tagging and locking, on keyboard (Ctrl+K) or gamepad (RT+X).

• Long dialogue lines now wrap correctly instead of running off the box.

• Gold stacks up to 100M in modern mode.

• The fireball trap tiles no longer spam their effect and tank the framerate.

• Reflected arrows now deal the damage of the monster that bounced them back.

• New camera option: a slider for the gamepad walk/run threshold.

• Options reliably survive game updates, and autosave no longer shows a false "no disk space" error.

• Music no longer ducks under sound effects.

• Leaderboard titles are now localized, and missing German, Spanish, Swedish and Italian text has been added.

Already cooking: try it now on the experimental branch

Development doesn't stop here. These features are already playable on the experimental branch:

• Online multiplayer (2 to 4 players, co-op or PvP).

• New ways to forge enchanted gear, with Spirit Bond and Symbiosis.

• Scriptable AI, to program your ideal companion.

• New lairs crawling with monsters and packed with treasure.

Instructions to join the experimental branch are on our Discord server. Thank you for playing, and please keep the feedback coming!