Dungeonborne News

Fantasy extraction game Dungeonborne was February's most played Steam Next Fest demo

February's Steam Next Fest demo bonanza officially concluded on Monday, and Valve have now revealed the 50 most played games you all tucked into across the week-long event. Ordered by the number of unique players that spent time with them during Next Fest proper (meaning all those early demo plays from earlier in the month haven't been counted), the most popular game of the lot was one that was only formally announced right at the end of January. So congratulations Dungeonborne - your blend of PvPvE dungeon crawling and fantasy skelly monsters clearly struck a chord with this year's Next Festers.

Dark and Darker rival Dungeonborne was the most played Steam Next Fest demo last week, as the dungeon crawler's developer Mithril Interactive says the recent playtest proves that the multiplayer experience is on the "right track," and set to deliver a "unique experience" whenever it finally comes to Steam.

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Playtest Has Concluded - Thank You for Playing the Demo!

Adventurers,

[h2]It's a wrap! The playtest has officially concluded, the servers have gone dark, and all progress has been wiped—thank you for joining us on this incredible journey![/h2]

Your boundless enthusiasm has truly inspired us. Seeing Dungeonborne skyrocket to #1 on the Next Fest charts, draw in over 19k concurrent players, hit a peak of 68k viewers on Twitch, and leap from the top 500 to the top 50 on Steam's most-wishlisted games—all within just two weeks—has been an absolutely mind-blowing experience. These phenomenal achievements are as much yours as they are ours. Together, we've crafted something special.

This playtest has affirmed that our vision for Dungeonborne is on the right track. It's clear we've created a dungeon crawler that delivers a unique experience—a game that we can all take pride in, one that stands tall on its own merits. Thank you so much for all the feedback and constructive criticism you've provided. Armed with your insights, we're prepared to address the challenges identified during this test, such as balancing classes and gear disparity, enhancing anti-cheat measures, and polishing other gameplay details. Rest assured, every piece of feedback will be thoroughly reviewed and combined with our data analysis to guide our future development plans and release strategy.

So, what's next? Veterans from our first alpha test will know that we are a team that lives by a 'heads-down, development-first' approach. After a brief moment to recharge, we'll be back on the grind, diving back into full-on development mode. Once we have substantial updates to share, you can expect a detailed roadmap and exciting new teasers. And while you wait, we'll keep the community spirit alive with some fun events, so stay tuned!

In closing, thank you again for your unwavering support—through every wishlist addition, every piece of feedback, and every playtest review post on Discord. Together, we have forged our own path in the dungeon extraction genre. We're honored to have such an amazing community alongside us in building the game. Let’s take pride in what we achieved together and celebrate Dungeonborne’s success!

See you soon, and here's to the journey ahead with Dungeonborne!

-Mithril

Playtest Patch Notes - February 7, 2024

@everyone Adventurers,

[h2]Please be aware that server maintenance is scheduled for February 7, 2024, from 10:30 to 13:00 (UTC+0). [/h2]
As a result, matchmaking queues will be closed starting at 10:00, 30 minutes prior to maintenance. Ongoing matches will not be affected.

[h3]Gameplay Changes[/h3] [h3]Character Balance[/h3] Cryomancer

Ice Storm: Freeze duration reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds
Shattering Ice passive: Freeze duration reduced from 3 seconds to 1 second
Permafrost Passive: Now doubles the freeze duration for Ice Storm and Shattering Ice, replacing the previous 2-second increase
○Before this patch: 5-second freeze for Ice Storm, 5-second freeze for Shattering Ice
○After this patch: 4-second freeze for Ice Storm, 2-second freeze for Shattering Ice

[h3]Gear Balance[/h3]

Adjusted the stats on various equipment
○Dev comment: We're keeping a close eye on how equipment stats scale. Our goal is to ensure that higher-rarity gear provides a tangible advantage without making opponents feel hopeless. In this patch, we've dialed back some of the stat rolls on equipment to keep the power of high-rarity items within our desired range. These changes will affect all existing items, but will NOT re-roll your equipment, just the modifier values will be reduced
Reduced attack damage and attack level of high-rarity weapons, especially those of Epic rarity or higher
Lowered the roll values for Physical and All Elemental Resistances while increasing the Max Life percentage roll values for lower-rarity equipment, to weaken the damage mitigation of resistance-stacking builds
Lowered the roll values for certain high-rarity equipment exclusive affixes: Life on Hit, Life Regen per second, Life on Kill, Life Steal, Target's Defense Level Ignored, and Resistance Penetration
●Increased the defense level of lower-rarity armor pieces

[h3]Others[/h3]

Added a 10-second cooldown to all throwable flasks
Optimized certain aspects of the game to reduce stuttering issues
Lowered monster defense levels to maintain a consistent PvE experience, compensating for the recent reductions in offensive modifiers
Added all-elemental penetration to all elite mobs and bosses to counteract excessively high player resistances. Elites and bosses in Hard Mode feature even higher penetration stats for a more challenging encounter

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

Fixed an issue where an incorrect popup would appear when purchasing Hard Mode tickets from the Merchant
Fixed an issue where chests in Hard Mode maps were yielding loot of lower rarity than intended

Thanks for playing, we’ll see you in the dungeons.

A year after Dark and Darker became one one of the biggest games on Steam, a newcomer is trying to steal its thunder

One year after the Steam Next Fest demo for Dark and Darker become one of the biggest games on Steam, another extraction-dungeon-crawler called Dungeonborne—first teased in September 2023 as Project Crawl—is replicating the feat with gameplay that looks a whole lot like its predecessor...
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