Soulstone Survivors News

Welcome to the fifth Soulstone Survivors Devlog! Today we are breaking the rules!! We are always working on quite a few things at the same time, and we usually avoid showing stuff that is still very early or experimental or super placeholder, but today in addition to the usual stuff, we wanted to share a little something we have been working on in the background, so if you are interested in learning more, this devlog is for you!

[h3]Next major update is already getting closer and closer, so we also invite you to sign up to our new mailing list and be among the first to find out when its released![/h3]

[h2]Performance Improvements[/h2]
But first… let’s talk a bit about the boring but crucial stuff! As you might know we have been putting a lot of effort into improving the game’s overall performance and we believe most of you will notice a considerable difference with the next update! Let’s take a look at the numbers we got so far.

[h3]Build sizes[/h3]
Improving the memory footprint of the game has been a big focus for us. It helps the game run faster, prevents crashes related to memory, and has one extra benefit: much smaller build sizes! Here is a comparison of what Update 11 vs Update 13 (the next update) looks like:



As you can see, a zipped build of our game went from 3.46GB to 1.44GB. This means that downloading the game is faster and it takes less space on your machine. And this includes a bunch of new content we’ve added to the game since!

[h3]Memory footprint[/h3]
Now lets take a look at the actual memory being used shall we? All of the data was captured running at native 4k, all graphics maxed out:

Before: After:

The images above show a profile capture of 2 runs. These captures show 2000 frames worth of data captured at around the 10 min mark into a curse 62 run with the Engineer. The total memory usage went down from 3.09GB to 2.55GB, approximately 20% less memory than before. As the match progresses deeper and deeper into endless, that difference is greater and greater since a lot of the optimizations have been made with crazy scenarios in mind.

[h3]Frame-time performance[/h3]
We have also made some frame-time improvements that will hopefully make a noticeable different when we release the next update. Here’s a comparison of what’ve accomplished so far on the perf side:

Capture 1 Specs: i9-14900HX (32 cpus) 2.2ghz, 64gb ram | RTX 4090 Laptop 16gb vrm

Capture 2 Specs: Ryzen 9 3900XT 8 CPUs 3.8ghz, 32gb ram | RX 7900 XT 20gb vram

To read the data above, Left Median represents the median time in milliseconds per frame on the previous update, and Right Median the time on the next update. Each image represents the comparison between two runs with the same build, in very similar gameplay scenarios.

As you can see from the data, in a very high end spec PC the game ran 13.06% faster, while in another, still very good PC, the game ran 38.75% faster. Since the game can be very taxing on your CPU, the improvements you will see will depend a lot on your specs, especially on your processor, and will also vary between characters and builds, but you can expect to see double-digit frame-time improvements in general.

Once Update 13 is live, we’d love to hear your experience regarding performance, so if you see improvements — or lack thereof — we’d love to hear from you on steam forums or discord.

[h3]Player skill target area[/h3]
A new quality of life improvement that has been requested many, many times is also making it’s way into the game. We now hide the player’s skill target areas (the blue circles) in endless and overlord cycles. While these markers are useful in the beginning of a match when you are trying to make the most of your skills, they get redundant later on when you are pretty much blowing the whole map at once, so this change should improve overall visibility. Check out this comparison clip down below:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]And finally…[/h2]
… the new, experimental and STILL IN DEVELOPMENT thing we are working on! As you may know from our previous videos and devlogs, new game modes are something we have been working on for a while, with the Unholy Cathedral being the first one to appear… but definitely not the only one in the works!

The clip below doesn’t show much and might look a bit boring haha, but don’t be fooled by its simplicity! What we are developing is essentially a tool that allows us to create structured, hand made content, not just for one, but possibly different game modes in the future.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
It’s still VERY EARLY and in an experimental stage, changing a little every day as we develop new maps and challenges, but if you pay attention to the little details in the video you might get some ideas of the type of stuff that is in the works. We often say there is still a lot coming to the game, and trust me when I say its not just characters and skills! We are excited about all the possibilities that this system is already opening up, and who knows, maybe we will share some more sneak peeks at a later date of the sort of stuff we are creating with it!

This was all we had to show for today’s Devlog! Performance has been a big priority for us recently, but we also have been working on some pretty cool new stuff... Let us know what you would like us to talk about next and what you are currently excited to get your hands on!

We hope you all have a lovely day or night,



~Soulstone Team

Welcome to our fourth Soulstone Survivors Devlog! As we continue to work on delivering the next major update, In this devlog you are going to catch a glimpse of some exciting sneak peeks and some stuff we have been working on.

[h3]Next major update is already getting closer and closer, so we also invite you to sign up to our new mailing list and be among the first to find out when its released![/h3]

[h2]Sneak Peek: New character[/h2]
Alex, one of our artists has been working on some pretty amazing new concept art for our next upcoming character… we don't want to spoil the surprise too much at this stage but... check these new weapons out! What do you reckon this character could be?

[h2]Sneak Peek: New projectile skill behavior[/h2]
Fellipe just finished creating some new projectile behaviors, that you may or may not see soon with some new content that is coming... PS, visuals are placeholder!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]Performance: Stuttering and fps issues[/h2]
Our last update brought with it a few performance improvements specially around memory, but some players noticed a decrease in performance. We have been hard at work using every tool at our disposal to investigate, replicate and fix these issues, and for the next update we already have a few major changes that should bring considerable performance improvements, we will talk more about those in the next devlog!

However, one curious issue we finally addressed that could cause a bit of "random" stuttering, is related to the destructible objects in the scenario and minerals. To alleviate this, we considerably simplified their colliders and fragments, and made the code controlling those parts a lot simpler, making those essentially free during gameplay. Here is a before and after image of what this looks like.

Here you can check out a video of how it was before and how it is now in-game.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]Quality of life: Locked power ups[/h2]
Lucas has been working on something that the players have been asking for. Your locked skills and power ups will no longer be consumed by replacing your choices with passive power-ups (but will still be consumed in every other scenario, like rerolls, etc). You can check that out in the video below:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]The Unholy Cathedral soundtrack[/h2]
Now that the Unholy Cathedral is released, Gama, our sound expert, wanted to share a few more details about everything that went into its creation, so here are a few words directly from Gama:

"The Cathedral music theme was defined to be an obscure kind of “church music”, filled with organs and voices. Here is a little video to illustrate these:"
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
"As we have 5 different cycles before facing the final boss, we created 5 different music arrangements. With each cycle the music grows in complexity, to try and help convey the idea that the stakes are getting higher. Here’s a small sample of the dynamic music for the normal music working:"
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
"For the first time we also played with a spacial soundtrack, with an extra organ layer which is attached to the actual organ located inside the cathedral, so if you walk around the scenario and into the altar, you will hear more and more of this layer."
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
"We got plenty of other ideas to explore for the new content we are developing and Im excited to see how those will turn out!"

Pssss, too soon to be sharing stuff about that Gama! Ahem... I guess it's better we finish this devlog here! Is there anything you would like us to talk about? Let us know in the comments below! There is still a ton of exciting stuff coming and I personally think it's going to be legendary!

We hope you all have a lovely day or night,

~Soulstone Team

Hey everyone!

We just released EA Update 12h, which should address any remaining crashing issues. As you may imagine by now, these are not trivial issues and not easy to detect, as they do not affect most of the player base and we ourselves are not able to reproduce them consistently, so we would appreciate the continued feedback if you are still experiencing crashes with the latest build.

[h3]If you do still have problems, please contact us at [email protected] or directly on our Discord, as we will need more details such as log and save files to try and reproduce these problems locally.[/h3]

We appreciate the help and the patience and apologise for the repeated updated, trust me when I say it is not a pleasant experience for us either haha but we will keep working until we root out any remaining problems.

Hope you have a great day,



~Soulstone Team

Hey everyone!

Once again we have just released EA Update 12g, another small hotfix update for the Unholy Cathedral update released this Monday. This is a small update that addresses the following:

[h3]- Fixed issue with certain enemies, bosses and effects causing stutters in certain situations (that could seem random);[/h3]
- Fixed issue that would cause the game to crash in specific scenarios related to Poison effects (would also seem very random, not happen every time you use poison, but from our tests should be the issue some of you are having);
- Fixed an issue where you could lock an active skill in the Unholy Cathedral, and end up not being able to equip it if you were full of skills already;
- Fixed a small issue with Explosive Goblins causing errors;

Once again this version should greatly increase the performance issues some of you are feeling. This time around the culprit were configuration issues in very specific prefabs, which is why they wouldnt happen reliably depending on map and time of a match. If you still experience issues after playing on this version, please do let us know!

Hope you have a great day,



~Soulstone Team

Hey everyone!

We have just released EA Update 12d this time around, which is yet another small hotfix update for the Unholy Cathedral update released last night. This is a small update that addresses the following:

[h3]- Fixed issue with abnormal effects causing stutters in certain situations;[/h3]

This version should greatly increase the performance issues some of you are feeling, which was related to untimely memory allocations. If you still experience issues after playing on this version, please do let us know!

Hope you have a great day,



~Soulstone Team