One Last Run Before the Playtest Ends - New Big Update Is Live 🔥

It's hard to believe, but our public playtests have now been running since May 28th.

Over the past few days, thousands of you have stepped into the world of Into The Fire, battled volcanic threats, rescued survivors, explored our systems, and most importantly, shared an incredible amount of feedback with us.

Whether you submitted bug reports, shared suggestions, posted screenshots, discussed mechanics on Steam and Discord, or simply spent time playing the game, every bit of feedback has helped us better understand what works, what doesn't, and where we should focus our efforts moving forward.

Today, we'd like to share an important update regarding the future of the current playtest and more information regarding a new content update!

The Open Playtest Will End on June 10th 📅

After reviewing the amount of feedback, reports, and data gathered throughout the playtest, we feel confident that we have achieved our primary goals for this testing phase. Overall, we got over 35 GB of data to analyze!

Because of that, we will be officially closing the current Into The Fire Open Playtest on June 10th, 2026.

This doesn't mean development is slowing down. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The information we've gathered during the last weeks has given us a much clearer picture of the improvements we want to make across the game. Many of the changes we've already discussed internally came directly from your feedback.

The playtest helped us validate ideas, identify pain points, and uncover issues that would have been impossible to discover through internal testing alone. Most importantly, it showed us which parts of Into The Fire resonate the most with players, and which areas need more work before the next stage of development.

While the current playtest is coming to an end, this is far from the end of the journey.

The next few weeks and months will be dedicated to implementing improvements, addressing the most common issues reported by the community, and preparing future updates for the game.

Your Feedback Already Shaped Into The Fire

Before the Open Playtests come to an end, we're releasing one final batch of improvements and changes for you to try.

One of the most common pieces of feedback we've received throughout the tests was that some systems could use better onboarding and clearer explanations, especially for new players experiencing Into The Fire for the first time.

Because of that, we've added a series of new contextual tutorials, reminders, and gameplay hints regarding extraction points, building mode, skill points, morale, fire extinguishers, and rescuing NPCs that should help players better understand the game's mechanics and progression.

However, before we decide how far to expand these systems in future builds, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Are these new tutorials and hints enough?

Do they help you understand the game better, or do you still feel that certain mechanics need additional explanation?

Since the playtests remain available until June 10th, this is the perfect opportunity to jump back in, try the latest changes, and let us know what you think.

Alongside the new onboarding improvements, here are some of the biggest changes we've introduced throughout the playtest period:

Skill Tree & Perks

• New Perk: Breacher – faster breaching and searching

• AdjustedNew PerkDurable – increased item durability
• AdjustedNew PerkKicker – increased kick and dodge roll impact force

• Added 4 new stamina-related perks

Performance & Optimization

• Loading screens are now approximately 5 seconds faster on average compared to the first playtest build

• The game size has already been reduced by 1 GB

• Multiple audio improvements and optimizations across the game

• Additional environment and performance optimizations

Gameplay & Balance

• Reworked stamina behavior and stamina distribution

• Multiple stamina balance improvements

• Difficulty adjustments based on player feedback

• Additional quality-of-life improvements across the game

Stability & Polish

• Numerous bug fixes

• UI improvements

• Description and localization fixes

• Telemetry and backend improvements

• General gameplay polish

Another Update For Into the Fire Playtests is Live! 🔥

Before we finish this announcement, we also wanted to let you know that along with the above-mentioned improvements and tutorials, a brand-new update just went live as well that deals with some of the pesky issues that have been reported by our awesome community. You can check the full patch notes below 👇

Fixed

• Exiting the survey on the final Wishlist Now screen

• Issues causing the player character to become blocked when opening the In-Game Menu or Pause Menu

• Various typos

• Watchers disappearing in the HUB

• Crafting food while having no available inventory space

Added

• Leaderboards now highlight your own position

• New contextual tutorial reminders related to building construction, these appear when you don't have a Campfire or Well built during the early quests

• Reworked stamina behavior, stamina is no longer tied to a fixed recovery timing model

• 4 new stamina-related perks

• Will's first quest is now displayed immediately when starting the game

• New extended tutorials for Extraction, Danger Level, and basic gear: Water Hose, Tank, and Backpack

• The option to exit the In-Game Menu by pressing F

• Overweight handling to stamina behavior

• Icons for challenges on the map

• Logbook entries for selected quests

• Tracked resource information

Improved

• Improved Accept and Finish button highlighting during quest selection

• Basic gear is now highlighted in the opening scene

• Improved Skill Tree descriptions

• UI hovers on buttons

• Building movement in the Camp

• Highlighting for dynamic items

• Windows now have correct backgrounds

• Further graphics and audio optimizations

• Improved telemetry systems

• Signs and markers no longer appear in SoulSight View once they have already been discovered

• Improved audio snapshots

• SoulSight View now displays missing NPCs even at Level 0

• Additional environment optimizations

Balance Changes

• Stamina Potions now restore more stamina:

  • Tier 1: 75 → 100

  • Tier 2: 85 → 200

  • Tier 3: 95 → 300

• Falling Rocks and Storm events now have slightly shorter durations on early levels

What's Next? 🤔

Over the coming days, we'll continue monitoring feedback and collecting final reports until the playtest closes.

We'll also be sharing additional insights from the test, including some statistics, lessons learned, and a closer look at what we've been working on behind the scenes.

If you haven't had a chance to jump in yet, there's still time to experience Into The Fire before the playtest ends on June 10th.

See you among the flames 🔥

Once again, thank you for your support, your feedback, and for helping us shape Into The Fire into a better game.

This playtest has been an incredibly important milestone for our team, and we couldn't have done it without you. Last but not least, make sure to wishlist Into the Fire if you want to stay up-to-date with future news.

Into The Fire

~Starward Industries Team