Hello, survivors!

We've got a massive update for you this time and some great milestones to share: we've finally reached our goal of 50 different levels to play in, and we're one survivor away from our goal of 99 unique survivors to play as. The game has grown so much since we started it earlier this year. Although there's still a lot more to do, we're really proud of where it's at and how it's feeling now.

Okay, enough mush (thank you, everyone!)... lets get into what's new in this update!

New Characters

New Character: Alice

• Weapon: Vorpal Sword

• Ability: Curiouser - Constantly change your size between small (tiny hitbox and quick swings) and large (faster and larger projectiles).

• Unlocked by surviving 30 minutes in Wonderland

New Character: Tallow

• Weapon: Sloughed Shell

• Ability: Rendered Ward - Converts all Armor into Health Regeneration at 10x the rate (5 Armor becomes +50 HP/sec).

• Unlock by blocking 500,000 damage with Armor on other survivors

New Character: Judge

• Weapon: Hub Saws

• Ability: Pit Stop - Your crew runs in and repairs your health whenever you remain stationary.

• Unlock by traveling 500km in total with other survivors

New Character: Drusepth

• Weapon: Death's Return

• Ability: Masochism - Killing any enemy permanently grants enemies of that species either +1 health or +1 damage in all future runs, for every character.

• Unlock by killing 10,000,000 enemies across all runs

New Character Abilities

• Sariel: Reliquary - Equip up to 4 accessories instead of 2, with upgrade bonuses that make your accessories stronger.

• Elsbeth: Loyalty - Gain a loyalty counter every 10 seconds. Each counter grants +3% Might. Getting hit absorbs up to 10 damage per loyalty counter, and removes them. Upon reaching 10 counters, spend them all to unleash a powerful screen wipe.

• Kairos: Dilation - Slow nearby enemy projectiles by 70%.

Ability Changes

• Reworked Sproing's Junk Plating upgrade: Now grants +1% Armor per item in your inventory, instead of +1 Armor per item in your inventory.

• Vesper's Hollow Hour now also grants +20% Light Radius while active.

New Levels

New Level: The Tracks

• Follow the racetracks for huge bursts of bonus speed in this racing heaven!

• Unlocked by traveling 250km total in runs

New Level: Athanor

• Build and upgrade towers to protect your base in this tower-defense-inspired map, great in co-op!

• Unlocked by discovering an Arcane Tower in any level

New Level: Brimworld

• Survive against all odds in this desolate killbox.

• Discover the new Nutrient Paste Dispenser workstation.

• Unlocked by surviving 20 minutes in Char Wastes

New Level: Wonderland

• Navigate hedge mazes and overgrown gardens as you fight off whimsical creatures.

• Unlocked by surviving 30 minutes in Blooming Gardens

Existing Level Changes

• Reduced the spawn rate of crafting workstations in Blooming Gardens by 50% (they were everywhere... now you can enjoy the gardens!)

• Doubled the spawn rate of most gems and ores in the Quarry

• Redesigned The Lab level to spawn clumps of similar workstations, organized in repeated wings

• Arcane Towers in Genesis Rift now start with a Magic Wand instead of a Crossbow

• Enemies that push or pull the player with magnets (like most enemies in Gearworks) or other repositioning effects now properly show visuals showing what's happening

• Conveyor belts now properly show what direction they'll push you in if you step on them.

Crafting Improvements

New Crafting Station: Nutrient Paste Dispenser

• Put ANYTHING into this dispenser and it will crush it down into a consumable paste that heals you for 25 HP.

• Any affixes that were on the ingredient item will also be granted as a temporary buff when eating the paste.

New Crafting Station: Transmuter

• Put any item into this magical transmuter, pay a single coin, and pull the lever.

• Instantly converts any item into a random other item of the same type and rarity, keeping all affixes.

Crafting Changes

• Adjusted how workstations are placed throughout the world, to provide more variety and fewer instances of multiple copies of the same workstation spawning in the same area.

• Reduced the cost of using the Condenser from 3 gold to 1 gold.

• Redesigned every single crafting station UI and in-world VFX when used.

Enemy Changes

• Added a new enemy: the Aggregate - a large crystalline creature that spawns 4 animated fragments on death. Unless these fragments are killed quickly, they will re-form into a new Aggregate.

• Added level-wide magnetic push/pull effects to one of the Assembler boss's phases.

• Reduced the number of projectiles Treants fire from 5 to 2, and increased their projectile size by 30%.

• Increased Boar damage from 13 to 16.

• Increased Moss Giant's health from 90 to 180, damage from 22 to 44, and reduced movespeed by 50% (0.35 → 0.175).

• Increased Snowmother's health from 35 to 100.

New bosses

• Queen of Hearts - spawns in Wonderland at 17 minutes

• Jabberwock - spawns in Wonderland at 27 minutes

• The Cucco Lord - spawns in High Rule at 20 minutes

• The Gorewall - spawns in any level where a defeated enemy drops a Doll item onto any Lava pool

Item Changes

• Added 180 new pieces of equipment that can drop from enemies or be crafted at the Anvil.

• Added 158 new craftable items from the Alchemy Table.

• Added a new weapon affix: Execute - Hits instantly kills any non-boss below a certain health threshold.

• Items in your starting inventory now roll affixes as if they had been dropped, rather than always being bare.

• Added the Bulwark Orb, a rare auto-consumable (like Orb of Magnetism). It auto-uses on pickup and grants +15 Armor and 3 HP/s regeneration for 10 seconds.

Merchant Changes

• Merchants now generally carry at least 10 items for sale, rather than 3-5, and now sometimes carry multiple of the same items.

• Distributed all 338 of the new items in this update throughout merchant inventories (and enemy drop tables).

• Added many of the existing equipment and accessories to merchant inventories.

Weapon Changes

• Increased the size of the Pickaxe by 150% (1->2.5).

• Increased the size of Ring of Fire projectiles by 50% (1 -> 1.5), and increased damage from 12 to 13.

• Increased Shotgun damage from 6 to 8 per bullet (so +12 damage per attack if all 6 bullets hit their target).

• Rosary Beads can now roll +5%-+10% Light Radius as an upgrade option.

Survivor Changes

• Playing Titan now zooms the camera in 40% closer (he might be loud, but he's small!).

• Increased Titan's movespeed by ~23% (1.5 -> 1.85).

• Increased Vorth's movespeed by 50% (1 -> 1.5).

• Increased Nia's starting armor from 2 to 5.

• Increased Tara's max health from 100 to 120.

• Increased Finch's max health from 80 to 100.

• Reduced Guile's movespeed by 25% (2 -> 1.5).

• Reduced Skip's movespeed by ~23% (2.6 -> 2).

• Reduced Elfynn's starting armor from 5 to 3.

• Reduced Yuki's starting armor from 5 to 1.

• Reduced Scruff's max health from 240 to 200.

Gameplay Changes

• The Shrine of Darkness now also grants +25% Magic Find when used.

UI Changes

• While the pause menu is open, players using a controller can now pan around the minimap with the right analog stick, and recenter the map with R3.

• Added new screens to the codex for viewing workstation information - just select a workstation on the codex homepage to see what levels that workstation can be discovered in, and all the recipes you've discovered for it.

• Merchant screens now also include your equipped weapons/equipment in your inventory list. They are clearly marked as Equipped.

• Added a small slow-mo outro when you die, instead of just cutting immediately to the post-game screen.

• Redesigned the boss stage banner and repositioned it at the top of the screen so it stops blocking so much gameplay/visibility when it shows.

• After you've used any kind of shrine once, the next time you encounter that shrine there will be an extra line describing it.

• The character screen now has a Pacts & Boons list of every permanent stat bonus gained from shrines this run.

• Legendary-rarity shrines (like the Shrine of Powers) now have an off-screen indicator alerting you to their presence when you get near.

• Redesigned the character select screen.

• You can now mark specific survivors as Favorite, and filter to just your favorite survivors.

• Redesigned the location select screen.

• Redesigned the merchant screen.

• Redesigned the post-run review screen.

• Replaced placeholder sprites for Aaran, Adele, Anna, Ant, Brock, Buck, Cap, Char, Cinder, Clara, Crystal, David, Dr. B'back, Eira, Elfynn, Epoch, Father, Finch, Freddy, Grimer, Grog, Guile, Halcyon, Harle, Harold, Idessa, Kaine, Mamba, Mandy-1, Mira, Mire, Mortis, Naked Guy, Nez, Nyx, Orin, Pyke, Regina, Robin, Rosa, Roto, Sariel, Shrap, Sproing, Tara, Tellah, Titan, Tyrael, Volta, and Zahra.

Sound Changes

• A completely new set of sounds: every interface action, item pickup, player state, weapon family, status effect, boss moment, progression beat and crafting station has purpose-built sound with variants, replacing the mixed placeholder packs.

• Weapons no longer machine-gun the same audio clip over and over; fast-firing weapons now loop with occasional accents instead of a discrete sample per shot; running a half-dozen fast weapons produces a layered texture rather than a wall of identical hits competing for attention.

• Constant weapon loops fade toward the background over the first minute and audibly scale back up when something changes.

• Settings → Audio now has a Weapon Sound Intensity (Full / Reduced / Minimal) setting, alongside Ambience Volume and Interface Volume sliders (each with a mute).

• Added support for boss music. Boss spawn switches to the boss track and the level music resumes where it left off after the kill.

• Dying, running low on health and pausing each get their own sound treatment: a defeat sting, a heartbeat under a dimmed mix, and a muffled world while the pause menu stays crisp.

New Holiday-themed Daily Challenges

Added themed daily challenges for 10 more holidays:

• Good Friday (April 3)

• Mother's Day (May 10)

• Ascension Day (May 14)

• Pentecost (May 24)

• German Unity Day (Oct 3)

• Day of Repentance (Nov 18)

• First Advent (Nov 29)

• Christmas Eve (Dec 24)

• New Year's Eve (Dec 31)

• Clayton Buback Day (January 17)

Bugfixes

• Fixed a misalignment issue with shadows on some graphics settings that made some objects look like they were hovering off the ground.

• Fixed explosion effects displaying extra large shadows.

• Vesper's Hollow Hour ability now shows a buff icon while active.

• Alt-tabbing out of the game and back now resumes where you were in your current music track instead of skipping forward to the next one.

• Permanent shrine bonuses (Blood pact, Perseverance, Bulwark, Darkness, Light, Time Compression, etc) no longer vanish on Save & Quit or traveling to a new map.

• Co-op: a shrine or lootable used by one player is now used for everyone (each was previously usable once per player, and double-opened lootables duped loot); the Aegis and Bulwark shrines now affect the player who actually used them instead of always player 1; Shrine of Conflict no longer spawns a client-only ghost horde.

• Shrine of Prospects' ore ring no longer places veins inside terrain walls.

• Fixed a bug where ingredient affixes were sometimes dropped when re-crafting items you'd already discovered.

• Fixed the title screen music playing through MOBA matches and the co-op lobby.

• Fixed a faint pitch wobble on the start of enemy hits, pickups and explosions.

• Fixed a bug that caused a ton of lag when playing with X-ray mode on.

• Fixed the player's health bar overlapping the character sprite instead of being beneath it.