Update 12: The Beyond Update

Today’s update is a special one! To start with, we have revamped all of the enemies currently in the game to match the upgraded art for our weapons. With a shiny new coat of paint, the starving souls of the fallen will march toward you with renewed beauty, almost making you sad to destroy such artful renditions of the Old Ones’ will. But once you see the new Bosses barreling toward you, only then can you appreciate the power Their Will can grant upon a wayward soul.

Moving BEYOND the enemies, a new Tribulation has been revealed: BEYOND!! See what we did there? ;D This new Tribulation adds a new level of difficulty for our hungry Vessels. With steeper enemy scaling, we are introducing a new challenge, and are planning updates coming to add more depth to these brutal levels.

On another note, we have removed the Transmutations, as we felt their attainment relied too much on failing runs to improve them. As a result, we have rebalanced almost every stat in the game to reflect this change in mechanics. On top of this, we have streamlined collecting Runes to be attained as soon as they are unlocked. Oftentimes collecting runes seemed to discourage experimentation, and could even make players feel cheated if they didn’t get the “right” build to survive a Tribulation to unlock them. Now, as soon as you are notified of receiving the Rune, it is unlocked and added to your Armory for the next round.

An important update to the map and how we make them has occurred as well. Previously, we used infinite map tiles that looped around on each other via procedural generation. We have decided to aim for a better player experience with curated static maps with borders. This will enable us to better tune enemy abilities and movement abilities, as well as provide more unique and interesting map gameplay opportunities. You Exterminators will also have to adjust your strategy to account for a slightly more limited travel ability in any one direction so as not to get yourself boxed in.

These changes are a large part of an even larger update. There have been rebalancing, renaming, and performance fixes aplenty to help improve the overall experience. As always, we welcome feedback in our Discord, the Steam Discussion Forums, and through your reviews. You can find the finer details of our many updates below.

Until next time, E̷̘͔̪͒͝x̷̧͎̃͛͐̈ẗ̸͚̜̲̳̀̔̒e̶̛͇̓r̶̞̓̄̉̚ṃ̵̪̈́͑̈́͠ĩ̶̧̜͇n̸͓̠͌à̵̦̪̆̎t̷̛͈̋̊̄o̷̩̓r̷̞͇̭͉̉s̴̎̆͆̚͜ͅ

Major Changes

• Updated the art of all of the enemies

• AddedAdded the Beyond Dev NoteThe Beyond is a new tribulation level, going up to Beyond 99

• Removed Transmutations Dev Note: Over the time of the development we have been going back and forth on how to change it or improve it, but it felt more like, oh I have to fail X amount of runs before I get to have fun or a good run. We made tons of balance changes to reflect this change.

• Runes no longer have to be taken to victory to unlock Dev Note: Every rune requiring it be taken to victory was overly punishing, and led to a content draught, where you were not unlocking things as often as you should.

• Maps now are a static size Dev Note: Rather than an endless empty map, we opted to change to medium-sized curated static maps

Additions

• Added tooltips to Artifact Cards

• Added Regenerate Keyword

• Added Vulnerable Keyword

• Added Magnify Keyword

• Added Quicken Keyword

• Added Reach Keyword

• Added Precise Keyword

• Renamed Slow -> Frost

• Renamed