The Last Spell News

[p]Hello Heroes,[/p][p]it's a very small blogpost today, but we've just launched the steam page for the final DLC of The Last Spell![/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]This DLC will add brand-new features to the game, that will add new challenges, bold and rewarding new objectives, and let you access to the most powerful new items and perks ever added to the game, as you meet a mysterious new god seeking to reclaim his lost memories.[/p]

• [p]Access the Altar, a new building that grants permanent bonuses known as Epiphanies, that you can get for a few precious Memories.[/p]
• [p]During each night, you will be challenged with additional objectives called Ordeals. Complete up to 3 of them to earn precious Memories and unlock rewards.[/p]
• [p]Every night, a Divergence will reshape the fights and twist the upcoming night with brutal new modifier that will also earn you precious Memories.[/p]
• [p]Meet a new God by completing up to 50 Eposes, tasks similar to the Favors in the main game, and unlock even more Epiphanies. Nearly 100 Epiphanies await to fully unleash your most ruthless builds.[/p]

[p]This final DLC will bring bloody new tools of savagery for newcomers and brutal new challenges for hardened players.[/p][p]And don't forget that the DLC will be released on February 5th, so don't forget to add the DLC to your wishlist to be among the first players to play it when it finally comes out! [/p][p][/p][p]Take care!

[p]Hello Heroes![/p][p]A new year is upon us, and so is the FINAL DLC of The Last Spell, called “Tales of Torment”. This shall be our final blogpost teasing the content of the DLC 😊[/p][p]As for us, this is the final lap before the end. We’ve JUST closed the last beta for the DLC yesterday. We had a LOT of feedback from players, so those last few weeks will be spent analyzing the results and balancing the DLC, as well as putting the last touches on it.[/p][p]We’re VERY happy to announce that Tales of Torment will be released VERY soon: the DLC will be available on February 5th 2026! So, only a few weeks to wait until the release![/p][p] [/p][p]But let’s not get too emotional (yet), for we still have a blogpost (and a DLC) to finish 😊 And once again, I’ll let Victor talk about it! Today, we’re focusing on the new God and the Eposes, introduced in Tales of Torment.[/p][p]Hello! Today, I’ll be talking mainly about what we call Eposes. Once again, here’s the diagram of the new systems to show you what I’ll be talking about:[/p][p][/p][p]To summarize everything : Divergences and Ordeals are in-run challenges that allow you to gain Memories, which are used to complete Epiphanies. Each epiphany grants you a unique bonus until the end of the run. As for Eposes, they unlock new Epiphanies between your runs.[/p][p]But before I talk about Eposes, I will be talking about who gives them to you, namely “Weltschmerz”.[/p][p]Players owning the DLC will have access to a new screen that has similarities to the Oraculum. A new, mysterious character will greet them, and later introduce themselves as “Weltschmerz” (yes, we do love our unpronounceable german words).[/p][p]Meet this enigmatic traveler, a disillusioned master whose power resonates all the way to the Havens through his Altar. While Weltschmerz's past is shrouded in mystery, his offer is clear: help him relive the glory of his Eposes, and he will reward you with forgotten powers, in the form of new Epiphanies. He is a warrior looking for an equal. Dive into his memories, unlock his ancient teachings, and forge your own path within your story.[/p][p][/p][p]Weltschmerz, like the goddesses, proposes a deal: re-enact his Eposes, and he will share with you his teachings from times immemorial, in the form of new epiphanies.[/p][p] [/p][p]Eposes are the equivalent to Favors in the Oraculum. Like Freude’s Favors, they require you to achieve specific deeds.[/p][p]The main differences from Favors are :[/p]

• [p]They specifically unlock Epiphanies, and nothing else[/p]
• [p]They all require a certain level of apocalypse[/p]

[p]Other than this, their requirements vary greatly, but have generally been designed as little challenges for the players. Here are a few examples (as usual, even though we are nearing the end of development, keep in mind that all values are still subject to change):[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]For players telling themselves, “I’m already struggling on the vanilla game, there is no way I will be able to complete any of the Eposes if they require you to play in Apocalypse!”, fret not! Eposes are designed to introduce players to Apocalypse modifiers, thus the vast majority of Eposes only require very low apocalypse levels, and do not require you to win a run. Here are a few examples:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p]Still, for players looking for a challenge or a reason to try out the new features from the DLC, there are a few Eposes than are more challenging:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]These have conditions that have to be completed in a single run, all together, which makes it a true “challenge run”.[/p][p]In total, there are 54 Eposes to complete just in this DLC. If you own all DLCs of The Last Spell, the number of Eposes goes up to 66, as a few Eposes will be exclusive to Dwarves of Runenberg and Elves of Amberwald.[/p][p] [/p][p]Lastly, one mechanic we have added following player feedback is the “Quickstart” option for the DLC. Some Eposes seemed a bit grindy for players who had already played a lot of the base game. However, we couldn’t just make all the Eposes super quick to unlock, as that would make the DLC experience way too fast on fresh saves, and overlap with the normal progression of the game.[/p][p]So, here’s how the quickstart works: after buying the DLC, if you load up a save that was last played without the DLC, and meeting Weltschmerz for the first time, you will be shown a “Quickstart” popup.[/p][p][/p][p]If you accept, some Eposes will be completed or advanced according to your base game meta progression. Some will progress even if you haven’t played yet in apoc, so you don’t have to do everything in apoc again.[/p][p]If you want the “true” experience of the DLC, you can of course refuse the quickstart.[/p][p] [/p][p]Like in every blogpost since we revealed Epiphanies, I’ll be showing you a few more Epiphanies:[/p][p] [/p][h2]Ghastly Energy[/h2][p]Ghastly Energy is an Epiphany that grants a perk with the same name to all of your Heroes. It reduces the mana cost of their skills depending on their Resistance Reduction attribute.[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p]Here, for example, we have a Hero with 46% Resistance Reduction, which reduces the cost of Fireball from 4 to 3 and the cost of Lightning Strike from 6 to 4. This Epiphany can be extremely useful if you are planning to use very mana-intensive weapons in your run, like the Tome of Magic.[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h2]Bonepull[/h2][p]Bonepull is the Unique version of the Spear. Like all unique weapons, it comes with a special perk, in this case “Gutting”.[/p][p]After hitting a certain number of enemies in a single turn, your “Impale” skill –the first one- will be upgraded with bonus AoE. The first upgrade adds 6 tiles, 3 on each side, and the second upgrade 6 additional ones, 3 on each side once again. You can see the fully upgraded version in the tooltip right here:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The bonus is reset at the end of each turn, but by carefully planning which skills to use in what order, you should be able to use the upgraded skill nearly every turn. Here’s what it looks like in action:[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h2]Broken Bell[/h2][p]Broken Bell is an Epiphany that grants a unique Trinket. This Trinket grants a very powerful skill called “Curse Wish”. It applies very powerful alterations to 2 targets, and these last for the entire night. As one of the alterations is Contagion, if you use the skill in the right way, you can propagate these alterations to a lot more enemies. This can be a very powerful item if one of your Heroes is running a debuff or poison build.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]And here’s the skill in action: [/p][p] [/p][p]As a reminder, there will be nearly a hundred epiphanies to uncover in Tales of Torment. As this is the last blogpost on the subject before release, these are the last ones we will tease before then. Thank you once again for reading through this blogpost and see you then![/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p]And this is it for this final blogpost of teasing before the release of the DLC. In three weeks (!) you’ll finally be able to play this last DLC for our little game. We hope you’ll enjoy playing it as much as we did making it.[/p][p]Take care, Heroes!

[p]Hello Heroes![/p][p]This year is finally coming to an end! This blogpost will be a little special as it's not a "DLC blogpost" like usual, but we still have one more blogpost dedicated to the DLC coming up in January 😉 So this time, we wanted to do a very special "Holidays" blogpost![/p][p]For The Last Blogpost (before 2026), we have a lot of things to discuss with you, so let’s go![/p][p] [/p][p] [/p][p]Some of you may know us from the Discord server (and if you haven’t already, join our awesome community), but we thought the holidays would be a cool time to know more about the people who’ve been working hard on the DLCs of the game 😉 So, everyone working on the DLCs of The Last Spell had a little something to share with you all![/p][p][/p][h2]Manon Fontaine, Producer:[/h2][p]My job is a bit of a mix between a happiness manager and a living reminder. I make sure everyone is in the right mindset to do their work: prioritizing certain tasks so we can make a trailer for marketing, postponing other parts because the game designers aren’t sure yet (to avoid changing everything fifteen times), and regularly reminding everyone about small details we had put aside. Basically, my goal is to offer the team a space where they can create calmly, without having to think about all of that. It’s not always easy, it’s real teamwork, with constant adjustments. I wasn’t there for the release of DLC 2 because I was busy creating a little baby, so I’m really excited to be part of the release of DLC 3! And during the holidays, between two snails (yes, I’m French…), I’ll probably finally finish Cult of the Lamb. Honestly, it’s a bit like my job when I think about it…[/p][p] [/p][h2]Victor Ternisien, Game Designer:[/h2][p]Hello! Victor here. You may remember me from the recent blogposts. I'm one of the Game Designers on the team, and I tend to focus a bit more on the balancing & numbers side of the game. I am currently hard at work trying to balance out all of the things we are adding in the new DLC, which represents... a LOT, given the vast amount of Epiphanies we have added. Beta testers have given us ample feedback, and the challenge is now to improve as many things as possible, while staying within the development schedule and keeping the content accessible to newer players.[/p][p]During the winter break, I plan on playing a bit of Victoria 3's newest DLC, and probably a lot of boardgames with friends and family - my favorite at the moment being "Earth", which I wholeheartedly recommend if you are a seasoned boardgame player.[/p][p] [/p][h2]Robin Fau, Game Designer[/h2][p]Hello! My name is Robin, aka Biggs, and I’m in charge of the GD team for the DLCs of The Last Spell. Thanks to the team, we were able to put in place the different features of this DLC (and the previous ones, of course)… And how cool was it to work on that![/p][p]I’m especially proud of having been able to experiment so much on this DLC and make it a bit more roguelike and unpredictable, while respecting the philosophy of the game.[/p][p]Offering systems like divergences and Ordeals was something complicated to put in place, but it turned out to be very fun to allow players to show their capacity to adapt and also try new strategies. And it’s all connected by the Epiphanies,  that really let you create your fantasy of overpowered hero saving what’s left of the world![/p][p]And outside the systemic design, I also work on the whole narrative parts and the localization of the DLCs. (Nothing better than a dwarf yelling on an elf!)[/p][p]During the holidays, I’ll probably play Sulfur (Hello Simon!), and probably find a hack & slash that I’ll play way too much during the holidays… (Let’s face it, we all know it’s going to be Path of Exile 2).[/p][p][/p][h2]Morgane Lainard, Game Designer[/h2][p]Hi there I'm Morgane, one of the game designers on the team. I focus on the user experience. I'm making sure that, when we are adding new content, all players, regardless of experience or play type, have the information needed to understand the new systems and that this info is delivered in an efficient manner for smooth and efficient decision making without sacrificing challenge or fun. [/p][p]Which is quite the challenge with a game like The Last Spell! [/p][p]By collecting and compiling feedback from the Discord and from the beta surveys, we could see that you all have very different play styles and wants and needs from the game. While making this DLC that affects a lot of game systems, it's been a fun juggling act for us to confront that feedback with our creative vision, while taking into consideration the experience of new and very experienced players alike.[/p][p] I also try to improve usability wherever possible within our dev constraints and budget. [/p][p]During the holidays, I will live my best dwarven life in the last DLC of Return to the Moria and prepare to GM the Tainted Grail tabletop RPG.[/p][p] [/p][h2]Simon Hembert, Programmer[/h2][p]This DLC is really different from its predecessors. As a programmer, I spent quite some time thinking about the architectures of the new features and create their foundations in the code. During the last few weeks, I’ve been working on improving the code and improving a million little things after the feedback we got during the previous betas.[/p][p]More generally, on The Last Spell and our other games, a big part of my work is about integrating the UIs because we have a LOOOT of UIs.[/p][p]During the holidays, I’ll probably keep playing Sulfur, an extract shooter (I blame my coworker Robin for introducing me to the game) and also Rocket League because I’m addicted to it 😊[/p][p][/p][h2]Frederic Durey, Programmer[/h2][p]Hi, I'm Frederic and one of the programmers of the DLCs! In this DLC I mainly worked on epiphanies, it was fun to implement different effects. [/p][p]I hope that with the content this dlc brings, it'll please a lot of players and that they will have fun in trying to play differently than they usually do. [/p][p]Regarding the holidays, i think I'll play "And roger" and maybe finish "Coffee talk episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly". And if I find the time, start a chaos dwarves campaign in Total War Warhammer 3".[/p][p][/p][h2]Adrien Feugere, Artist[/h2][p]Hi, I’m Adrien, I’m the main artist on the DLCs of The Last Spell! I also was in charge of the animations for the base game, so I’ve been working on the game for quite some time now![/p][p]I love working on the skills of the game, but I got to work on some of my favourite ones in this DLC! I’m very proud of the identity of the skills I was able to give to some of the weapons.[/p][p]As a small holiday present, here are some animations I worked on for the epiphanies of this DLC[/p][p] [/p][p][/p][h2]Bruno Laverny, Comms[/h2][p]And it’s my turn! I’ve been the main voice of Ishtar Games for quite some time now (almost 9 years!). I’m kind of multitask as I handle social media, community management, marketing, strategy, support… On this DLC specifically, I worked on organizing the beta sessions, oversaw the blogposts, pretty much everything related to the steam pages![/p][p]I had my birthday just a few days ago, so I know I’ll probably spend way too much time on JRPGs, this year I’ll play Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army, and I’ll take way too many pictures of my guinea pigs and my cat.[/p][p][/p][p]We’re aware that a lot of Steamdeck users had some feedback regarding The Last Spell on the deck. We know this one has been a long time coming, but we can officially say that an official Steamdeck support is coming to The Last Spell next month![/p][p]So, if you’re getting a steamdeck under the tree this year, you’re in for a very good time! (on top of all the amazing games verified on steamdeck!).[/p][p][/p][p]As you may remember, we included modding in our roadmap that we had released last year. Modding is something that we REALLY wanted to do for a LONG time, but with ambitious DLCs and not infinite resources, that’s something we haven’t been able to properly do.[/p][p]Unfortunately, we had to make the decision to cut our ambitions on modding for The Last Spell, at least for the time being.[/p][p]That being said, we do have a little thing you’ll be able to mod before the release of the DLC, so please look forward to it![/p][p] [/p][p]As you may remember, in May 2024 we added some analytics to the game to understand analyze players’ behaviors so we can have more data about the balancing of the game, for instance.[/p][p]For the first time, here are some fun numbers that we collected during that time:[/p]

• [p]Players launched more than 1 million runs[/p]
• [p]Most played maps: Lakeburg, Gildenberg, and then Elderlicht[/p]

[p]We also have the most used perks:[/p]

• [p]Mana Growth for tier 1[/p]
• [p]Magic Fuel for tier 2[/p]
• [p]Runic Gift for tier 3[/p]
• [p]Critical Master for tier 4[/p]
• [p]Big Game Hunter for tier 5[/p]

[p]Finally, we can talk about skills![/p]

• [p]The most used skill is Centipedes (Druidic Staff) with over 4 million (!) uses[/p]
• [p]The deadliest skill is Shred (Axe) that killed over 2 million enemies[/p]

[p] [/p][p]And with that final note this blogpost comes to an end![/p][p]Now, we’re going to take a well deserved rest, sleep and eat way too much.[/p][p]We can’t wait to launch Tales of Torment, coming early 2026! 😊  [/p]

[p]Hello Heroes![/p][p][/p][p]We hope you're doing okay. We're getting closer to the release of Tales of Torment DLC (like VERY SOON, and we will announce the release date BEFORE the holidays!), and next month, we're going to have the FINAL Beta of this DLC.[/p][p][/p][p]As you may know, we've done several closed betas prior to that one, with a small group of players who helped us very much in fine-tuning the new systems of the new DLC, and we can never thank them enough for giving us so many valuable feedback![/p][p][/p][p]As the release of Tales of Torment is soon upon us, we want to do one last closed Beta.[/p][p]IMPORTANT[/p][p]The goal of this beta is :[/p]

• [p]To collect feedback regarding the balancing of the DLC[/p]
• [p]And to chase all the bugs who managed to get past our devs[/p]

[p][/p][p]This Beta will take place from January 5th to January 12th, but all selected players will receive an invitation before December 23rd.[/p][p]As this will be a private Beta, you will be required to sign an NDA and you won't be able to share it online with other players outside the beta.[/p][p]Requirements: [/p]

• [p]Be on our discord server [/p]
• [p]Own The Last Spell on Steam[/p]

[p][/p][p]Submit your participation here: https://forms.gle/RngqxpusddaCkscu8[/p][p][/p][p]Take care!

[p]Hello everyone![/p][p]Phew, third blogpost already about the DLC! We’re getting closer to the release (early 2026!) and we’re making great progress on it.[/p][p]This month, we organized a private beta with some selected members of our community, and that beta allowed us to improve some of the new systems (more on that in the blogpost!). We want to thank our amazing beta players for their involvement and their many comments and feedback posts The Last Spell: Tales of Torment![/p][p]Today, we’re going to talk about another new mechanic of the DLC: Ordeals! And once again, I’ll let Victor, game designer on The Last Spell, take over this blogpost![/p][p][/p][p]Hello once again! I’m here to talk about Ordeals, the third new mechanic introduced in this DLC. If you recall the diagram from the last blogpost, here’s what I’m talking about:[/p][p][/p][p]So, what’s an ordeal ? Ordeals are short-term objectives that will appear during nights, and let you gain Memories if you complete their requirements. Here’s an example:[/p][p][/p][p]Ordeals are composed of:[/p]

• [p]A main action: dealing damage, killing enemies, using skills... it requires the player to do the following action a given amount of times.[/p]
• [p]One or two additional constraints: in this case, there are two. One is “Target has a Negative Alteration”, and the other is “Target is at full health”. This means that the player has to deal damage to enemies that have a negative alteration AND are at full health.[/p]
• [p]A time limit: the player has to complete the Ordeal within the time limit. After that, the ordeal will disappear. The time limit generally ranges between 1 and 4 turns.[/p]
• [p]A reward: how many memories the ordeal will grant if you complete it.[/p]

[p] [/p][p]We have a multitude of actions and constraints. The general idea of Ordeals is to force the player to do something they would not naturally do, so that it is an added challenge. Here are a few examples:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p]There are also Ordeals that require you NOT to do something for a given amount of turns:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p]Now that you know how an ordeal works and what it looks like, here’s a bit more about the system in its entirety, across a whole night.[/p][p]Each night, the player has a “quota” of 3 ordeals to accomplish. If that amount is reached, a certain amount of Memories is awarded as a bonus, which we call the Covenant Bonus. After that, all current ordeals disappear, and no other ordeals can be completed for the night.[/p][p][/p][p]For the record, this is a recent change we have made after feedback from our beta testers. Before, we had no limit on the amount of Ordeals players could complete during the night. This meant that, in order to maximize the Memories you obtained, you had to try and complete every single Ordeal that showed up. Because of this, Ordeals quickly turned into frustrating chores for our players.[/p][p]With the Covenant system, players just have to find 3 ordeals they want to complete every night, and can thus ignore the ones they dislike or find too difficult to achieve in their current situation. Generally speaking, during a night, 6 to 8 ordeals will show up, which means you have to complete -at best- 50% of them.[/p][p]Now, in terms of UI, here’s where the ordeals will show up during the night:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]To recapitulate our intentions: Ordeals are meant to break the repetitiveness you can sometimes encounter during runs, where every turn feels like it plays the same. These short-term challenges should change that, while making you progress toward the next Epiphany. They are also meant as a counterpart to Divergences. While Divergences can be planned for and are visible ahead of the night, Ordeals rely more on surprise and quick adaptation during the night.[/p][p]That’s it for Ordeals, but I’ll keep this blogpost going for just a bit longer to show you a few more epiphanies.[/p][p] [/p][p]As promised in the last Blogpost, here are a few more examples of Epiphanies that you will be able to activate in your runs. As a reminder, Epiphanies are bonuses that last for your entire run, and that can be obtained by collecting Memories (if you want more information on them, you can read the Blogpost here).[/p][h2]Less is more[/h2][p]Less is more is an epiphany that grants a perk to all heroes. It grants a LOT of experience gain, but this bonus is reduced for each Hero you have.[/p][p][/p][p]This is an epiphany you will want to take if you like to focus more on having a small number of very strong Heroes, instead of recruiting a lot of Heroes.[/p][p] [/p][h2]Extended Reach[/h2][p]Extended Reach is an Epiphany that increased the range of all melee skills, allowing them to reach one tile further.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h2]Holy Ground[/h2][p]And here we have Holy Ground, which grants a special perk to all your Heroes: as long as no enemies have entered the Haven during a night, the Hero gets +20% Damage.[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p]Lastly: in the previous Blogpost, I teased a screenshot of what looked like new versions of existing weapons. Today, I’ll be presenting you what they are: Unique Weapons.[/p][p]For each weapon, the DLC adds an Epiphany that grants the player a unique version of this weapon. Each of them also has a name.[/p][p][/p][p]These weapons have 3 main advantages:[/p]

• [p]Their damage automatically scales with the Hero’s level, so they will keep being relevant for the entire run[/p]
• [p]Their damage is adaptative[/p]
• [p]They have a unique new perk[/p]

[p]They are Unique Items, so, like other Unique items, you can only equip one per Hero.[/p][p]Here are two examples of what Unique Weapons look like:[/p][p] [/p][h2]Flayed[/h2][p]Flayed is the Unique version of the Tome of Magic. It comes with the unique perk “Eye of the Storm”, which will automatically cast Stray Lightning and random enemies every 3 Mana Spent.[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h2]Bloodtendon[/h2][p]Bloodtendon is the unique version of the Shortbow. It has upgraded AoEs on all of its skills.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]And this is just an extract of the many Epiphanies you’ll be able to play with in this DLC. Once again, we’ll show you a few more in the next Blogpost. See you next time![/p][p] [/p][p]As you may know, the Ishtar Games studio is made of two teams currently:[/p]

• [p]The “TLS” team, working on the DLCs and the post-release support of the game[/p]
• [p]The “Dead in Antares” team, working on the new game of the “Dead in” series[/p]

[p]And, we’re very happy to announce that Dead in Antares is releasing on February 19th 2025![/p][p](And don’t worry, we’ll have a release date for Tales of Torment DLC soon, and it’s coming out sooner than you may think).[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]The “Dead in” series and The Last Spell share a lot of the same DNA (complex, hard games with RPG elements), so if you liked The Last Spell, there’s a high chance you might find a lot to love in Dead in Antares! 😉[/p][p]There’s a free demo for Dead in Antares, so feel free to try it yourself![/p][p] [/p][p]Take care, heroes!