Shepherd of Horrors - Early Access update

Cultists, Rejoice!

The first Worship update has been summoned and is OUT NOW!

As promised on the Early Access roadmap, also visible on the Store page, Shepherd of Horror is our first minor update to make its way into the game. We've been hard at work at not only fixing bugs, but also bringing exciting new content to the world of Worship.

Asides from new upgrades/rituals and new things to encounter during your games, the update completely changes Hubryus' starting building, the Mutation Hatchery! This update also adds plenty of improvements to the summons and allies aspect of the game!

New Content

Gods-related Cult Abilities Rework

• Hubryus' Mutation Hatchery rework:

  • You can now sacrifice your followers and fuse them in death to summon Folhorrors allies to fight battles for you.

  • Sacrified followers bodies no longer stay behind. Their flesh and blood is used in the making of your subservient abominations.

• An-Ansgaidh's "Berserk Followers" starting upgrade is replaced with the newly introduced "Mercy Killing" upgrade. Mercy Killing gives you some blood back as you offer corpses to your god using the Tribute ritual.

New Upgrades & Rituals to acquire

New Ritual - Shadow leap

With this new ritual, you can leap to a nearby destination in immaterial shadow form while damaging every foes in your path.

New Ritual - Summon Rift Hydra

Invoke a mighty Rift Hydra, the apex predator from the Molewurm species. Legend says if you cut one head in the mortal realm, two regrow in the Unseen Depths and vice-versa. Unfortunately you don’t have a follower with shears at the ready in the other world.

Ritual Passive - Noxious shapes

Fumes from the Unseen Depths now seeps into ritual shapes you cast, poisoning the nonbelievers that breathe this cursed air. Your god shall spare the faithful from the noxious effects, but you’ll have to endure the stench.

Cultist Passive - Explosive Drinking

Syphoning blood now channels a growing explosion that detonates once you stop absorbing. The more blood absorbed, the deadliest the explosion gets. The perfect marriage of gluttony and wrath.

An-Ansgaidh's Starting Upgrade - Mercy killing

Apostles of An-Ansgaidh are rewarded for their acts of mercy, notably freeing mortals from their painful existence. Offering corpses as tribute give cultists some blood back.

New Encounters to spice up your exploration

• A mysterious Kessessa themed puzzle encounter.

• Eldritch Hatcheries to turn catalyst into a specific types, which can help cultists achieve their dream synergies.

• Akka blockades, standing their ground against the Last Church and holding precious godless prisoners.

We don't want to spoil all the fun for these so you'll have to scour the world while seeking devotion for you god to see what secret they hold!

New Enemy Variant

Inquisitor Variant - The Heretic Slayer

• This elite variant of the inquisitor can pose a real threat to your cult, starting at the 2nd zone.

• Be wary of his holy shockwave projectiles as well as his lunge combo attack that you should shieldbreak and cancel when you have the chance.

Changes & Optimization

• Summons and other cultist allies have been improved in the following ways:

  • Summons and allies now follow you as you head into a Test of Faith and when you are sent back to cult base.

  • You can now recall summons and allies to command them to disengage from combat for some time.

  • The amount of each summon you can command is now displayed in the ritual description section of grimoire when looking at summoning rituals.

  • If you try to summon more allies than your current limit, older summons above the cap are killed and new ones are summoned to take their place.

  • Killed summons no longer leave a corpse behind, and instead are burned away and returned to the Unseen Depths.

• Interacting with an upgrade buildings will now open the ritual menu to display said upgrade's description

• Adjusted catalysts types' random rates to favor ritual catalysts a little bit more

• A memory optimization that makes Worship considerably less memory hungry.

Bug Fixes

We tackled a ton of issues in the past few weeks, as you might've noticed with the 7 hotfix patches we released since Worship's release into Early Access. That said, this update also contains its own considerable pile of fixed bugs! In rapid fire:

• Fixed a navigation issue that made followers unable to path around some collisions.

• Fixed projectiles playing an impact feedback when colliding with allies.

• Prevented most instances of cultist being able to get to a unintended height.

• Fixed some visuals on tribute's VFX.

• Fixed some background scaling in the main menu.

• Fixed an invisible collision in the Untamed Borderlands.

• Fixed objects sometimes being impossible to lift or interact with, even with enough followers.

• Fixed controller issues that made the D-Pad Up close the grimoire menu.

• Fixed issues with liftables' pathing.

• Fixed an issue with followers audio and HUD counter when killed instantly.

• Fixed some errors in some displayed texts.

• Fixed throw not working in certain contexts.

• Fixed summons/allies sometimes stacking on the same point.

• Fixed UI not showing up if menu input was pressed during loading.

• Fixed a small visual asset on the map.

• Followers and allies are now able to properly path around upgrade monuments/buildings

• Fixed an interaction with the cultist that sometimes soft-locked the player.

Bugs we are actively working on

• We are looking at fixing objects being sometimes impossible to lift or interact with. We fixed this partially, as stated in the bug fix portion of the patch notes, but there are still some instances where this keeps on happening.

• We are looking at improving loading times in general.

• We are aware of an issue causing performance problems when swarming on destructible objects with a lot of followers.

• We are looking at a couple of more minor annoying bugs in the single player experience.

To be added to Worship's roadmap

This new section will now list features and improvements that we are adding to our roadmap planning following player feedback and/or issues that the team judged worth tackling. Keep on telling us how you feel about the game and we'll do our best to focus on what the community is asking for!

• (Community feedback) We heard the feedback regarding the save system and permadeath. We are looking at both short term and long terms improvements to address your issues in that regard.

• (Community feedback) We are looking at improvements for the symbol recognition, but these might have to wait for the bigger updates planned in the roadmap.

• (Community feedback) We will look at how we can add more gameplay differences and impact tied to the choice of god to Worship.

• (Community feedback) More resolutions and aspect ratio support.

What's Next?

This content update is the first of many for Worship! We are actively reading your feedback, some of which we addressed in this update, some other we have planned in upcoming updates. The next big thing we have planned on the roadmap is a major update planned for Fall 2025:

Aside from the updates planned on the roadmap, we will continue fixing bugs and releasing hotfix patches to make the game increasingly more stable and eventually bug free.

Now, what are you waiting for? Don your robes, summon forth forces from the Unseen Depths and plunge the mortal world into madness.

Thank you all so much for delving into the world of Worship!

See you next time for a new update!

• The Chasing Rats team