Wildkeepers Rising News

[p][/p][p]Greetings Wildkeepers,[/p][p][/p][p]Today is a HUGE day for us. This is the result of two years of hard work. Lyle and I have put everything we've got into Wildkeepers Rising, investing our time and our money trying to make the best possible game. It's been a relentlessly difficult, but also incredibly rewarding journey. But enough about us, what do you get from this release?[/p][p]We've really tried to push the bullet heaven genre forward in Wildkeepers Rising with the addition of Guardians and Sigils. Our goal was to provide enough variety (in both gameplay and visuals) to enable you to play however you wanted and develop favorite builds, but also to challenge you to make it work with what you've got.[/p][p]We've added a lot of content to this game:[/p]

• [p]5 fully playable Wildkeepers[/p]
• [p]29 Guardians, each with individual personalities, upgrades, supers and play styles[/p]
• [p]4 large environments, with unique layouts[/p]
• [p]65 different enemies, with distinct behaviors[/p]
• [p]4 tremendous bosses[/p]
• [p]50 Sigils, serving either as weapons, passives or game-changers[/p]
• [p]77 pieces of upgradeable and equippable Gear, which create a ridiculous amount of combinations[/p]

[p]All of this content serves as the foundation to create infinite possibilities and unique situations during gameplay. At the same time, we never intended for this to be a game where you're grinding for hours, playing the same content over and over, just to get 1% stronger, or to unlock a reskin of a character. Every enemy, every Sigil, every Guardian is designed to increase the amount of variety, to show you something you haven't seen yet. And after 15-20 hours, if you've completed all the content and you're satisfied, so are we.[/p][p]If you want more details about the changes between 1.0 and 0.4, I wrote about it here: [dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]We made the decision to maintain the Early Access price of $9.99 USD (regional prices may vary) because we wanted to make the game as accessible as possible to as many players as possible.[/p][p]Besides this, we're also launching with a 10% discount for 7 days.[/p][p]This truly is the best time to get Wildkeepers Rising:[/p][p]Steam has always been our primary platform, because of its flexibility, and the ability to connect with a knowledgeable audience full of discerning players like you.[/p][p]We will continue to have a strong presence here. Wildkeepers Rising is currently participating in the Roguelike Celebration (check them out here and here, it's really cool). And we're also going to be a part of the upcoming Bullet Heaven Fest 3.0 (Dec 4th) which I'm sure will be full of great games you'll enjoy if you like Wildkeepers Rising.[/p][p]But beyond Steam, we're also proud to be able to offer the game to audiences on console. We're in the process of getting everything finalized, but can announce that Wildkeepers Rising is coming to console (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S|X) on November 12th.[/p][p][/p][p]We're looking forward to all of you playing Wildkeepers Rising, and we'd love to hear about it. Please leave us a comment in the Steam Forums or join our Discord (I respond personally to all questions and comments). We hope to see you there.[/p][p][/p][p]Sergio.[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p][/p][p]Greetings Wildkeepers,[/p][p][/p][p]Today is a big day. After a long three and a half months of work, we're finally ready to announce that Wildkeepers Rising is very close to full release.[/p][p]We've prepared this trailer to celebrate the occasion. I hope you like it:[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]As you can see in the trailer, Wildkeepers Rising will go 1.0 on October 23rd. That's a bit over a week away![/p][p]We will have a launch discount of 10% and Steam has a 30-day cooldown after that when we're not allowed to discount the game, so make sure you pick it up that week![/p][p][/p][p]Before I give you details on what's in this release (hint: it's a BIG one), I thought it would be good to reflect a bit on our Early Access journey, and how you've helped made Wildkeepers Rising a better game.[/p][p][/p][p]From the beginning, our intention was to advance the bullet heaven genre with innovative gameplay. Besides covering the basics with a large variety of upgrades and enemies, we added many ingredients to the formula, such as autonomous Guardians, large and complex maps, custom missions, equippable powers (Sigils) and a bit of narrative.[/p][p]Both the most successful and the one we feel most passionate about is the Guardians. We worked hard to provide a large collection of creature looks as well as gameplay styles and personalities, so playing with the Guardians would feel unique and rewarding.[/p][p]A big emphasis during Early Access has been to reinforce the meta-game. We added a brand new mission type, Endless Mode, that removes the power cap and allows you to grow super-strong - but only if you can master the ever increasing challenge from the enemies. And in our latest release we also added gear, providing an incredible amount of possible configurations for your characters, and many choices on how to invest your hard-earned meta-currency.[/p][p][/p][p]The Early Access release shipped with three full environments, each with five new Guardians to unlock and a new Wildkeeper (the Chief and Milo), plus 10+ different enemy types and a boss. We've been consistently hearing from streamers and players that the game is much bigger than they expected, and we're very proud of having accomplished that (there's only two of us!)[/p][p]In 1.0 we've added a full new environment: Frostpyre Peak. Half lava volcano, half frozen mountain, the enemies there will either freeze you or make you catch fire, so you'll have to be extra careful. As before, there are five new Guardians to unlock and you'll get a new Wildkeeper (Ivy) at the beginning. Plus you'll end up playing the biggest and hardest boss fights we've ever designed![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]I won't spoil the surprise for what the new Guardians are, but they're pretty crazy! (you may spot some of them in the new trailer above...)[/p][p][/p][p]Besides the new environment, we've continued to polish, adjust balance and fix bugs. Here's a more comprehensive list:[/p]

• [p]Massive performance improvements to both CPU and GPU. Framerate is faster and more stable and ever before, reaching a solid 60fps on a Steam Deck.[/p]
• [p]Fix bug that was causing the game to save more frequently than necessary, causing performance issues.[/p]
• [p]Polish the look of the Map Screen. Now you can see the Guardians and the bosses associated to the missions.[/p]
• [p]You can now have 3 different save slots, no need to lose your progress if you want to start from the beginning.[/p]
• [p]Manual Attacks have been disabled. We felt this feature was not adding to the game, as it's best played in auto-attack mode.[/p]
• [p]Fix bug with enhancing Team Upgrades[/p]
• [p]New Achievements![/p]
• [p]Buff some sigils, including Landminer, Dragon's Breath, Toxic Trail and Floating Wither, that were underpowered. Nerf others, including Vampire[/p]
• [p]And some Guardian tweaks:[/p]
  • [p]Kifoo will now track the damage done by hypnotized enemies and update his DPS.[/p]
  • [p]Wally's super is now limited to an area (depending on his aggro).[/p]
  • [p]Reeza now has a separate indicator for hatchlings and eggs.[/p]
  • [p]Volcoy's gauge for calling a pack member can go to 3 - numbers changed to roman numerals[/p]
  • [p]Increase the value for freeze upgrades[/p]
• [p]Many other little polish items, bug fixes and balance tweaks[/p]

[p][/p][p]We couldn't be more excited to reach this point with all of you, after a long but rewarding journey.[/p][p]But a lot of the work that we did to improve performance and fix a lot of the bugs has also allowed us to prepare console ports. They are currently in certification and we hope to release them as soon as they are ready, so if you prefer to play Wildkeepers Rising on console you'll be able to do that very soon.[/p][p][/p][p]In the meantime, let us know on Discord what you think of this release. We hope to see you there![/p][p][/p][p]Sergio[/p][p][/p]