HELLSEED News

Hello everyone,
Today, October 31, 2024, after four years of intense work, we are thrilled to announce that HELLSEED 1.0 is finally here!
It has been a journey filled with every emotion: from the excitement of the demo’s success (Chapter 1) to the challenges of Early Access, marked by hard sacrifices, late nights, countless bugs, highs and lows, and moments of doubt—yet fueled by our unbreakable passion to see this game through.

Creating a game is incredibly difficult, especially for a small team. But with persistence, we have achieved what once seemed impossible: two developers building an 8-9 hour game on a custom-built engine (yes, I created the engine myself!), just like in the old days!

Today, we celebrate a major milestone on our journey as game developers.
We want to extend our deepest gratitude to everyone who has given us feedback, both positive and constructive—your reviews inspired us to keep improving, polishing, and, ultimately, completing this project.

This is just the beginning. We will continue to support HELLSEED with new languages, any necessary fixes (nothing is perfect, after all :)), and much more.

Enjoy the game and stay tuned;
the journey is far from over.
PROFENIX STUDIO

On October 31, HELLSEED: All Chapters will be officially released. We have worked tirelessly for over four years to bring this game to life.

Recently, we revisited one of the first Early Access builds to compare it to the current version. The difference is remarkable, and we want to share this journey of improvement with you.

Below is a timeline of the major enhancements we’ve made since the initial Early Access launch:

[h3]November 30, 2022: Early Access Launch[/h3]

The game was released but full of issues. Load times were long, and often led to crashes, performance was poor even on high-end GPUs, and Radeon drivers sometimes rendered the game unplayable due to graphics glitches and black screens. There were also game-breaking bugs: missing collisions, characters stuck in T-poses, and malfunctioning mechanics that blocked progression, like possession bugs disabling key triggers.
The player control system was rough and lacked polish; for instance, it didn’t allow running and crouching simultaneously. The audio system was completely broken, with stereo sound issues, glitches, missing sounds, and noise artifacts. The inventory interface was confusing, requiring too many steps for simple actions. Poor texture streaming caused severe slowdowns after prolonged gameplay, and loading a saved game would often make items disappear. Difficulty balancing, especially in action scenes, was off, and the default camera movement was uncomfortable for many players. There was no support for languages other than English, controller support was incomplete, and this was just part of the long list of issues (we’re aware it was extensive).

[h3]Patches and Fixes: December 2022 to March 2023[/h3]

Over the next few months, we released numerous patches that addressed many (though not all) of these issues. We refined the player controls, enabling players to run and crouch at the same time, and introduced new camera options for a more comfortable experience. Other settings allowed for easier gameplay with flashing pick-ups, text-based hints, and automatic item use. We adjusted action sequences by increasing quick-time event durations and reducing enemy speed. Blocking issues like T-pose characters, collision bugs, and save/load issues were resolved, and we tackled compatibility issues with Radeon cards. This series of patches improved the game’s stability.
Despite these improvements, core issues remained: performance was still sluggish, load times were excessive, the audio system was unstable, and texture streaming still caused severe slowdowns. Additionally, the game still lacked multi-language support, complete controller support, and a finished story.

[h3]The Game Changer Update: June 2024[/h3]

In June 2024, after a year of work on performance and optimization, we rolled out a major update that addressed most of the issues that had plagued the game since 2022. Previously, the entire game was loaded at once, causing prolonged loading times, high memory usage, and CPU bottlenecks due to the sheer number of objects. We restructured the game into multiple levels, dividing it into chapters. For Early Access, this meant five chapters, and it was one of the best decisions we made: the game became significantly faster, with reduced memory usage.
Alongside this, we overhauled the rendering system, improving the texture streaming and GPU memory consumption and adopting a technique that greatly reduced CPU demands and effectively doubled the average rendering speed. We also revamped the audio system, eliminating the glitches and performance issues that had troubled earlier versions. Finally, we streamlined the inventory UI, reducing the number of inputs required for basic operations, like exiting examination mode.

[h3]June 2024 to October 2024: Refinements and Completion[/h3]

Since June, we’ve continued refining the game, adding six to seven new chapters, and creating the final scene. We implemented a multi-language support system, launching with Chinese and Italian, and plan to add more languages starting in November 2024. Controller support is now complete, allowing players to use a controller seamlessly from start to finish, including in the menus. In the final month, we also added additional features, like the red saturation shader and controller feedback, while conducting extensive testing.


After two years of intense development, HELLSEED is now ready for its full release, and you can finally experience the completed game.

Make this Halloween unforgettable—HELLSEED calls you into darkness on October 31st. Don’t miss it.

PROFENIX STUDIO

We’re thrilled to announce that HELLSEED will be part of Steam’s Scream Fest 2024 with a 30% discount!

Dive into a truly terrifying experience as HELLSEED unleashes its full horror on Halloween when it officially leaves Early Access and launches as a complete version—HELLSEED: All Chapters—still at 30% off until the end of Scream Fest.



Don’t miss out—experience the full nightmare with HELLSEED starting October 31st!
Prepare yourself... and remember, you are about to embark on a terrifying and unforgettable journey!

Hi guys,

Today I want to share a new Gameplay Trailer of HELLSEED - All Chapters.

It is similar to the Early Access version gameplay trailer of 2 years ago but it has been remade with the current iteration of the game and it includes some scenes from new content that will be available in the upcoming full game.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Enjoy and stay tuned,
PROFENIX STUDIO

Hi guys,
One of the things I'm most satisfied with in HELLSEED is its atmosphere.
The screen colorization, a kind of desaturated green, is perfect for creating a creepy and horrific mood.
However, the drawback of using these colors is that red, when desaturated, appears more like a pale pink than a real, vivid red.

This is especially noticeable in scenes where red is the dominant color.
From the moment I conceived the idea of the game, I imagined red in all its power and intensity—a dramatic way to emphasize the color of blood, both figuratively and literally.
That pale pink was far from what I envisioned for a horror game.

So, in this final stage of development, I did some research to find a way to preserve the original saturation of red without sacrificing the game's green/grey colorization.
In the end, I implemented a shader that does exactly what I had in mind: maintaining the atmosphere of the game while enhancing the red tones.

Below are some comparison screenshots showing the results of the new shader:


And following are screenshots showing how the blood appears with the new colorization:


The countdown is started.
Stay tuned!

PROFENIX STUDIO