Last Vanguard's full release is coming on May 15th, 2025!

Hi there!

After five years of development and six months in Early Access, we are excited to announce that the full 1.0 release is coming on May 15th! 🎉

We want to thank everyone who supported us during this time by purchasing the game and providing feedback. Without your help, this final launch would not have been possible! 🙌

Last Vanguard 1.0 includes:

🏰 A new area: The Palace of the Absolute Leader, a new place that unlocks after completing the Tournament. (Now a total of 9 different biomes!)

⚔️ Two new final bosses: The Herald and The Absolute Leader — bringing the total to 28 bosses!

Three different difficulty modes:

🔹 Easy: Start with an extra life (from 5 to 8 maximum health with full progression), longer invulnerability time after taking a hit, and in the Tournament, you can charge energy to heal between each battle. 🌟

🔹Normal: The standard Last Vanguard experience. ⚔️

🔹Challenging: Thanks to suggestions from some of our players, we’re bringing back the mode originally introduced in the demo! 💀 In this mode, charging bullets consumes energy, meaning you’ll need to land melee attacks to regain energy and be able to shoot. If you run out of energy, you won’t be able to reload — so you can be left without bullets! 🔥

💀 Boss Life Indicators: Following community suggestions, we’ve added life indicators for bosses.

🚄 Redesigned Fast Travel: You can now fast travel to the base, the last checkpoint, or the train — whenever you wish! This allows you to quickly invest your collected money and continue your adventure without losing progress.

🎯 Aiming: Regarding aiming, we chose not to completely overhaul the system, as it would significantly alter the core gameplay experience we’ve built, which is based on a retro-inspired design. Instead, while enhancing the subtle bullet assistance feature to help you hit your targets more easily. Also, we've rebalanced and improved some weapons. For example, electric charges, which previously were interrupted by dash or double jump, can now be maintained without interruption as long as the button is held down.

✨ Along with everything new in the full release, thanks to player feedback, several improvements and changes made during Early Access have also been implemented:

🎮 Button Customization: You can customize your joystick and keyboard controls.

🛠️ General Optimization: Performance and stability have been improved across the board for a smoother experience.

🗺️ Map System Improvements:

🔹 Custom Markers: You can place personalized markers on the map, with a variety of models to choose from.

🌫️ Fog of War: Instead of revealing entire explored areas at once, the map now gradually uncovers small sections as you explore.

🗺️ Cartographer: A new character will appear at your main base once you’ve built five shelters. For a fee, he can mark hidden upgrades on your map to aid your journey.

💀 Boss Difficulty Indicators: Bosses now appear on the map with stars indicating their difficulty level, helping players decide which ones to face first.

Player movement improvements We’ve made player movement smoother and more responsive for a better gameplay feel.

⚖️ Balance, Bug Fixes, and Quality of Life Improvements: We’ve fixed various bugs, balanced gameplay, reduced the monetary penalty for death, and introduced several quality-of-life changes to enhance your overall experience.

Once again, we would like to thank all the users who have collaborated with us. Their contributions and suggestions are mentioned in a special section of the credits.

Regarding previous save files, they are compatible with the latest version. However, some features, like the Fog of War, will only appear in save files created after the update that introduced them.

Additionally, for players who have already completed the Tournament in their current playthrough, you will need to talk the Old Man at the Coliseum gates to unlock the new area.

About Steam Deck: Unfortunately, we haven't yet completed testing to determine if the game is fully compatible with the console. For now, Last Vanguard is listed as Unsupported on Steam Deck. At the time of this post, it is currently under review by the Steam team. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding. In the meantime, we’ll be focusing our efforts on improving optimization for the device. Please stay tuned for future updates.

What’s Next? After the launch of version 1.0, we plan to continue updating the game, addressing feedback, fixing bugs as needed, and—if the community’s support allows—expanding the game with free content in the future.