New Content
- Explore two floors of The Ancients' Road, with distinct chambers, flooded passages and escalating encounters.
- Follow Corvain through a dungeon questline with voiced dialogue and portrait-led story moments.
- Discover 18 new plant varieties across the wilds of Act I, placed around the terrain while keeping roads clear.
- The Red Moor gains denser, more varied ground vegetation.
- Four Act I enemies have reworked combat and animation:
- Rotting Peasant attacks land faster with more committed sickle swings, a headbutt, improved movement and a more natural death collapse.
- Grave Brute raises its weapon higher before a heavier two-handed slam, with faster contact, a kick and improved death motion.
- Plague Rat has a more readable bite, retreat and pounce sequence.
- Wolf has fiercer bites and pounces, a pack-alert howl with a visible warning, and two distinct deaths with blood effects.
- The Bleeder combines a forceful pull, three quick dagger strikes and a knockback kick.
- The Bleeder's veil follows its body through combat, camouflage and reveal; wet skin, red veins and hit-driven blood effects sharpen its appearance.
- Damaging The Bleeder interrupts corpse feeding before it can restore health.
- Shadow Portal keeps its familiar appearance in a more compact, circular opening with branching lightning inside.
- Soft, low-lying portal mist replaces the visible square effects around the gate and during casting.
- The existing exit portal in Skugarth's Pit uses the same portal appearance.
Dungeons
- Rooms in The Ancients' Road have more deliberate prop placement, with clearer routes through camps, ruined halls and riverbanks.
- New stonework, wall ribs and plinths help the dungeon's architecture feel connected.
- A raised path makes the flooded chamber's route easier to see and follow.
- A dungeon objective tracks enemies defeated and enemies remaining, including encounter reinforcements.
- The descent to the next floor has a hover tooltip and requires a deliberate interaction before its transition animation begins.
- Daylight marks the exit toward the Red Moor, with an explicit interaction to leave the dungeon.
- The Mountain Mouth arrival has protective railings along exposed cliff edges.
- Layered rocks, scree and groundcover soften the sharp edges around the Mountain Mouth descent.
- The arrival camera opens the view toward the landscape and vegetation below.
- Blood rivers and flooded surfaces have richer reflections, moving ripples, wet shorelines and flowing detail.
- The town fountain's blood transformation and splash effects have received a visual pass.
Classes & Skills
- Ashen Priest gains one-handed caster swords and ritual offhands with bonuses suited to spell builds.
- Ritual offhands animate their pages, rings or chains and add subtle casting effects.
- New Ashen Priest equipment supports spell damage, fire damage, critical strikes, damage over time, penetration, barriers and life steal.
- Ash Shield has clearer absorption feedback, a translucent shield effect and a visible remaining shield value.
Items & Loot
- Six new Ashen Priest ritual offhands:
- Ashbound Psalter
- Cinder Vessel
- Mourning Reliquary
- Widow's Testament
- Eclipsed Eye
- Last Confession
- Three new Ashen Priest caster swords:
- Ashen Votive Sword
- Choir's Last Verse
- Covenant of Cinders
- New ritual equipment has dedicated icons, class-appropriate tooltips and entries in loot and shops.
- Lantern weapons are correctly identified as Staff in their item type and equipment requirements.
- The Bleeder's Tithe is a one-handed relic dagger for both classes, with class-appropriate stats and a permanent roll granting 30% more damage to one compatible damaging skill.
- The Bleeder's Tithe carries a persistent red edge glow when equipped or worn at the hip.
- The Bleeder's Due has a new ring icon.
- Set items use green names, frames and set-bonus text for easier recognition.
- Gold pickups display the amount gained beside the action.
- Loot pickups and potion drops have clearer visual presentation.
Character Creator
- An empty character roster now leads directly into character creation.
- Improved hair placement and appearance when character presets change.
User Interface
- Both floors of The Ancients' Road have a minimap, a detailed M map and a transparent Tab overlay.
- Dungeon maps follow the measured room and corridor layout, with detailed stone surfaces and landmarks matching their positions in the dungeon.
- The minimap aligns with the gameplay camera.
- M: Map and Tab: Overlay hints sit together beneath the minimap.
- Corvain's dialogue uses compact speech bubbles that grow to fit the text, with his portrait alongside.
- Menus use a more compact Obsidian presentation with more consistent tooltips.
- Added a HUD size option and clickable shortcuts for the main character panels.
- Hosts can approve or decline requests to join their party from the friends interface.
- Failed or declined join requests give clearer feedback instead of leaving the player waiting.
- Life and boss health displays have layered liquid, reflections and bubbles; Rage uses orange liquid and Ash uses grey smoke.
- The Bleeder has a smaller, clearer nameplate with a rare-monster label, threat text and a discreet purple skull that disappears during camouflage.
- The Book of Blood includes information about The Bleeder and its drops.
- Controller navigation reaches menu buttons, inventory equipment, skills, quests, maps, social panels, options and character creation.
- Controller confirmation follows the same interaction path as clicking a button or selecting an item.
- Controller movement stops when the stick returns to neutral, and open panels prevent unintended movement.
Audio
- The Ancients' Road has three music themes and spatial blood-river ambience.
- Corvain's dungeon dialogue uses his existing voiced performance.
- The Bleeder has heavier footsteps, stronger breathing and clearer vocal presence.
- Reworked Act I enemies have attack and movement sounds matched to their actions.
- Hollow, Set and Relic drops each have a distinctive loot sound.
Performance
- Landscape vegetation density follows the selected quality setting.
Bug Fixes
- One-handed weapons rest closer to the hip, with clearance adjusted to the character's clothing.
- Shields sit closer to the back and follow the spine while accounting for the worn outfit.
- Soft vegetation bends as the character moves through it, then returns to rest while its roots stay in place.
- The gameplay camera starts fully zoomed out.
- The Maligast encounter adjusts the camera for the arena and restores the previous view afterward.
- Closing a map or social panel with the controller no longer also uses a potion.
- Switching to a two-handed staff preserves the displaced ritual offhand.
- Ashen Priest equipment restrictions are applied consistently when equipping items, restoring a character, browsing shops and receiving loot.
- Life steal from the new equipment is based on health actually removed from an enemy.
- The Fill the flask prompt now appears only after the character has accepted its quest.
- The two braziers beside the Ashenmoor church steps sit symmetrically outside the stairway and block the character while keeping the stairs clear.
- Church brazier flames spread across the coals with a fuller base, lower tongues of fire and fewer embers.
- Town puddle ripples and splashes stay within the water's edge and are easier to see from the current gameplay camera.
Known Issues
- Physical USB and Bluetooth controller testing is still outstanding. Controller changes have automated coverage, but have not yet been fully tested with connected hardware.
- You can use a PS5 DualSense connected via USB for controller testing. Recognition by this build still needs physical verification; Steam Input may be required.