The Ghoulag Update is Now Live!

After months of development, testing, iteration, and feedback, The Ghoulag Update has officially arrived.

This is by far the biggest update we’ve released yet for Raiders of Blackveil, introducing an entirely new biome, Champion Talents, the Perk+ system, Offline Mode, Steam Cloud integration, new items, major balance changes, UI improvements, bug fixes, and a huge amount of overall polish across the game.

The Ghoulag Update is a major step forward for Raiders of Blackveil and touches nearly every part of the game, from progression and build variety to replayability, balance, stability, and overall player experience.

A huge focus for this update was addressing many of the concerns and feedback we’ve seen from the community throughout Early Access so far. A lot of time has gone into improving the overall gameplay loop, expanding build depth, improving reward pacing, reducing frustrating systems, and creating more long-term replayability across runs.

There’s a lot packed into this update, so let’s get straight into the update notes:

New Features

The Ghoulag Biome

The Ghoulag biome has officially arrived in Raiders of Blackveil.

Hidden beneath ancient haunted ruins lies a Blackveil interrogation site overrun by twisted enemies, and a brand new biome mechanic centered around the Ghoulag boss watching over your run.

The Ghoulag introduces:

• A brand new biome boss

• A new mini boss

• New enemies and encounters

• New biome exclusive equipment

• New atmosphere, visuals, and environmental design

• A unique biome mechanic that changes how players approach rooms and positioning

This biome was built to feel darker, more dangerous, and more intense than anything currently in the game.

Champion Talents

Champion Talents are one of the largest new systems added to Raiders of Blackveil so far. view As you level up during a raid, you’ll now reach milestone levels where you can choose between powerful champion specific talents that can drastically alter how your champion plays.

Some talents focus on empowering existing abilities, while others completely change how abilities function entirely.

Added:

• 11 new Champion Talents for Ironhorn, Draskyl, and Jaméra

• 12 new Champion Talents for Beatrice

Perk+ System

The new Perk+ system has officially been added. view Perk+ allows players to upgrade perks they already own during a run, creating much stronger scaling opportunities and giving players more control over how they build their character throughout a raid.

Instead of simply stacking more perks, players can now invest further into existing perks to heavily specialize builds and create stronger late game combinations.

Offline Mode

Offline Mode has officially been added to Raiders of Blackveil.

Players can now play runs offline without requiring an online connection, allowing for a smoother and more accessible solo experience.

This was one of the most requested features from the community following launch, and we’re excited to finally get it into players’ hands.

Steam Cloud Integration

Steam Cloud support has now been added.

Your progression and saves can now sync through Steam Cloud, helping protect progress and improve accessibility between systems.

Atlas Upgrades

Added 2 new Atlas upgrades:

• All Classes available in the first Perk Chest

• 3 Perk Classes appearing in all Perk Chests

These upgrades are aimed at improving build flexibility and reducing frustrating early run perk RNG.

New Items

This update adds:

• 5 new Ghoulag specific items

• 7 new world drop items

UI and UX

• Added a Chaos icon for Chaos Items

• Added a New Item icon for recently picked-up items

• Added a new Raid map

• Ability upgrades now require holding Alt, and the upgrade flow has been visually updated

• You can now sort the Stash and Inventory

• Difficulty is now displayed next to Alarm Level

• Danger Modifiers are now displayed next to Alarm Level

• The Merchant UI has been visually updated

• The Atlas UI has been visually updated

• The Smuggler UI has been visually updated

• Player and enemy health bars have been visually updated

• Several icons have been updated

• The Escape Menu has been visually updated

• The Options Menu has been visually updated

• Removed Abandon Raid menu option from clients, since only the host was intended to have access to it

• Added a description for Punch on the Monk class

• Removed button prompts to switch between players in the post-run stats when playing solo

• Updated the Revive UI to work with 3 players

Balance Changes

Loot

• Significantly increased the chance of Epic equipment dropping on Raider and Liberator difficulties

• Increased the amount of loot dropped by Elite and Super Elite enemies

• Improved Bad Luck Protection for Epic items

• Improved Bad Luck Protection for Legendary items

• Increased the chance for higher rarity loot from bosses and mini-bosses

• Locked containers now drop more loot

• Legendary containers now drop significantly more loot

Alarm Level and Enemy Budget

• Reduced the amount of Movement Speed enemies gain when looping or continuing

• Reduced the number of extra enemies added per additional player from 35% to 25%

• Reduced the number of extra enemies that appear after each loop from 50% to 40%

• Reduced the number of extra enemies on Raider difficulty from 20% to 15%

• Reduced the number of extra enemies on Liberator difficulty from 40% to 25%

• Reduced the overall number of enemies in Elite and Super Elite rooms

• Elite enemies’ Protected Health now scales appropriately with Alarm Level

• Enemy damage scaling from Alarm Level is now slower

• Boss health scaling from Alarm Level is now slower

• Alarm Level now scales less exponentially

• Elite Room only choices can now appear, with a higher chance on higher difficulties

Enemies

• Decreased movement speed for most Harvest Operation enemies, especially Super Elite variants

• Increased enemy idle time in Harvest Operation, making them slightly less aggressive

• Reduced the chance for the Mine Deployer enemy to spawn in Harvest Operation

• In Harvest Operation, enemies now aggro immediately when the base takes damage

Champions

• Raised the level cap from 20 to 30

• Raised the maximum level for Champion abilities

• Standard abilities can now reach Level 10

• Ultimates can now reach Level 6

• Increased Ironhorn’s Offensive damage from 120 to 180

• Reduced Ironhorn’s damage reduction trait from 20% to 15%

Perks

• Changed Offensive Dodge to only give increased damage for 2 seconds

General

• All Champions now share the same Loot Inventory and Safe Pockets

• Equipped items remain individual to each Champion

• Reduced Bleed’s initial hit damage bonus from 25% to 15%

• Reduced max Chill stacks before freezing an enemy from 4 to 3

• Increased price of Key at merchant

• Increased price of Bandage at merchant

• Reduced the Fast enemy modifier from 50% to 30%

• Reduced the reroll token price from 100 Glitter and 1500 Scrap to 50 Glitter and 1000 Scrap

• Increased Scrap stack size from 3000 to 6000

• Increased Glitter stack size from 200 to 400

• Perk Weight now has a cap, reducing the chance of repeatedly being offered the same perk classes

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Warlock minions wouldn’t attack Otis

• Fixed a chest spawn in Harvest Operation

• Fixed several perks that could be progressed, but didn’t show the progress, including Frost Master, Fire Master, Pyroslapper, and Naturalist

• Fixed an issue with the Goliath’s Pull ability that could cause softlocks in rare cases

• Fixed Merchant Restock not being available for clients that had unlocked the upgrade in a multiplayer lobby

• Fixed a crash related to having a lot of perks and attacking the training dummies

• Changed it so multiplayer games end immediately when all players are knocked out

• Fixed an issue where the wrong difficulty icon would be shown for clients

• Fixed an issue where minions could spawn outside of the NavMesh in the Harvest Operation Boss level

• Fixed an issue where Basehearts could spawn enemies out of bounds

• Fixed an issue where getting the Life Tap perk while at high injury would set your HP to 0 and prevent you from healing

• Corrected some spelling errors in the Merchant 3 and 4 unlocks

• Fixed an issue where the Druid Rank 8 bonus would show as a temporary buff

• Fixed the descriptions for Freeze Damage and Crit Damage stat boosters not being displayed correctly

• Fixed being able to dismiss the Perk Already Owned prompt

• Fixed an exploit where players could enter the lobby training area after starting a raid

• Fixed an issue with the perk weighting system that would cause the same classes to loop when rerolling perk chests

• Fixed Stat increase perks appearing before all valid perks had been exhausted

• Fixed being able to craft recipes while hovering them over the crafting grid

• Fixed an issue where the Atlas upgrade menu wouldn’t reset properly

• Fixed Bashers being able to jump attack from one end of the room to the other

• Fixed an issue where different Souvenir items could be stacked together

• Fixed an issue where bosses and mini bosses would become unresponsive if they lost their current target

• Fixed enemies in Mystery Ambush rooms not being paused when the game was paused

• Fixed an exploit where Armor gained in the lobby training area would carry over into raids

• Fixed explosive barrels flashing white when entering a room

• Fixed an issue where the Verminlord minion would get stuck outside of the Meat Factory Boss arena

• Fixed an issue where the Spinning Poison Dagger effect wouldn’t display correctly for clients

• Fixed an issue where the burning missiles from Candle Wax Slippers could hit submerged enemies

• Fixed an issue where opening menus during room selection would break the menu logic

• Fixed the Frostball perk not always firing the intended number of Chilling Missiles

• Fixed an issue where Armor Plates on submerged enemies would be displayed above ground

• Fixed an issue where raising Critical Chance too high would set it to 0

• Fixed the Grace perk not healing as much as intended

• Fixed an issue where holding down Alt and clicking anywhere on the screen would assign all ability points to Basic Attack

• Fixed several crashes related to Warlock minions

• Fixed an issue where Ironhorn’s Rocket Stampede would never release the enemies it hit

• Fixed kills from Beatrice’s Venus Rex Ultimate ability not counting towards “on kill” perks

• Fixed an issue where Champion ability telegraphs were only partially drawn

• Fixed the cooldown on the Chained Footguards item

• Fixed Priest rank 2 bonus only being able to bless one player at a time

• Fixed Priest rank 8 bonus only applying to allies

• Fixed Mage rank 8 bonus only applying to allies

• Fixed Intellect Blessing only granting AP to allies

• Fixed Divine Presence only granting bonuses to allies

• Fixed Holy Presence only blessing allies

• Fixed Holy Barrier only being able to bless one player at a time

• Fixed Grace only blessing allies

• Fixed Sanctuary only being able to grant Barrier to one player at a time

• Fixed Barrier only being able to grant Barrier to one player at a time

• Fixed an issue where hitting the Esc key during room transitions would break the UI

• Fixed an issue where killing the Harvest Operation Boss too quickly could softlock the game

• Fixed an issue where Ironhorn’s Rocket Charge would go towards the mouse cursor’s last position when playing with a controller

• Fixed an issue where recasting Jamera’s Ultimate would spend charges from perks or equipment

• Fixed an issue where certain Main Menu items would overflow in Spanish

Thank You

The Ghoulag Update is a big step forward for Raiders of Blackveil, and we’re excited to finally get it into your hands.

We wanted to give a special thank you to our community playtesters who helped us test this update leading up to release. Your reports, feedback, and time helped us catch issues, improve the experience, and get this update into a much stronger place before launch. Thank you for taking the time to help us out!

We also want to thank everyone who’s continued providing feedback throughout Early Access so far. A lot of the systems, balance changes, fixes, and improvements included in this update were heavily shaped by community feedback along the way.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on feedback following release, so please continue sharing your thoughts, reports, and experiences with us as you jump into the update.

We’ll see you in the Ghoulag!

❤️ Wombo Games