HELLBREAK News

[h2] Major Update + Boomstock 2025! 🔥💀[/h2]


The wait is over, this is our largest update so far, packed with new content, a brutal new difficulty, performance improvements, and more. And we’re launching it alongside Boomstock 2025 on Steam!

To celebrate, HELLBREAK is 30% off throughout the event. If you’ve been waiting to dive in or bring a friend, now’s the perfect time.

Before we jump into the details:
💀 Thank you to everyone who’s supported us so far! We’re closing in on 100 reviews with 85% positive. If you’ve been enjoying the game, leaving a positive review really helps us grow and keep making HELLBREAK even better.

[h2]🏰 New Content[/h2]


[h3]New Arena – Gravehold[/h3]
"The shattered ruins of a forsaken stronghold, where corruption spreads upward from the depths below."
Our largest arena to date! Gravehold dynamically expands as you fight against demon waves, opening new rooms and areas as the slaughter continues.





[h3]New Weapon – Heretic’s Maw[/h3]
A demonic skull of a heretic will aid you in battle, firing unholy fireballs against the horde. Its upgrades let you gain stacks to increase its power, turning it into an incredibly potent tool for clearing out hordes, especially when combined with the Inferno curse.



[h3]New Spell – Onslaught[/h3]
"Charge forward with unstoppable momentum, ramming through enemies to damage and hurl them aside. The charge also deflects any projectiles in your path, sending them crashing back toward their sources."
Mow down the horde with unstoppable force.



[h3]4th Difficulty – Abyss[/h3]
Our hardest challenge yet. Abyss is now available for all arenas, complete with its own new difficulty modifiers and a 50% increased score bonus. Make sure your weapons and perks are upgraded, there will be no mercy. With the new difficulty and new map combined, you can earn 25 more Hellshards if you can beat them!

[h2]⚙️ Changes[/h2]

• Bloodfang base damage per pellet: 66 → 70
• Viper base damage: 140 → 147
• Shredder base damage: 330→295
• Shredder reflect upgrade, damage bonus after reflecting off surfaces: 25% → 10%
• Shredder penetration upgrade, number of enemies penetrated: +3->+1
• Cinderheart cooldown per kill upgrade, cooldown per kill: 2s → 1s

[h2]🛠 Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an important issue that was causing some waves to spawn duplicated enemies (introduced last patch), making the game much harder at certain times.
  
• Fixed an issue causing bosses and some enemies to spawn incorrectly at rare instances.
  
• Fixed multiple issues related to specific spell-related blessings that were triggering for or with unintended spells.
  
• Fixed an issue with the damage reduction perk where it was not working as intended (reducing much less damage than what was displayed).
  
• Fixed multiple UI-related issues.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing some blessings to reduce the total ammo count of weapons with no magazines (Maelstrom, Splinter, etc.). There may still be blessings/upgrades that have this issue, so please let us know if you run into it again.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing the game to end even when a boss was still alive.
  
• Fixed an issue where assigning side mouse keys to inputs would display a missing key icon.
  

[h2]⚡ Performance[/h2]

• Implemented changes to reduce stutters that happen randomly throughout a trial.
  
• Implemented AI-related optimizations.
  
• We’re working on pre-shader compilation to eliminate the majority of stutters entirely. This is currently in testing, and we’re also trying to make it optional since enabling it increases RAM usage.
  

[h2]📝 What’s Next[/h2]

We’re not slowing down, next patches will continue introducing quality-of-life improvements, community-suggested features, and more performance updates and options.

We’re incredibly grateful for your feedback and support so far, keep sharing your thoughts and bug reports on Steam Discussions and Discord to help us shape HELLBREAK’s future.

💀 Enjoy the update, and if you’ve been having a blast, please consider leaving a positive review on Steam, it truly helps us out!

[h2]⚔️ Content Update – Tutorial, Splinter & Bloodspire! ⚔️[/h2]

We’re back with a brand-new content update packed with fresh features for both new and veteran players!

[h2]🧭 Tutorial[/h2]

HELLBREAK now has a tutorial to introduce the core mechanics and features to new players. Even if you’re already familiar with the game, we recommend giving it a run—you might discover details you’ve missed before.

[h2]🔪 New Weapon – Splinter[/h2]


A deadly throwing dagger made of bone has joined the armory! Splinter shines against groups of enemies, especially when upgraded. Better yet, it’s unlocked by default, so you can jump right in and try it out.





[h2]🩸 New Spell – Bloodspire[/h2]


“Conjure a spear of blood that homes in on your foes, piercing through them and siphoning life back to you.”
Bloodspire lets you hurl a blood-forged spear that homes in on enemies, pierces through them, and heals you for each enemy hit. It also comes with its own 4 new blessings to expand its damage and healing potential.




[h2]✨ 4 New Blessings[/h2]

• Flameborne – Entering an inferno zone grants +10% damage for 5s (stacks).
  
• Ice Skin – Entering a frostbind zone grants +8% damage reduction for 5s (stacks).
  
• Corrupted Feast – Entering a blighted zone restores 2 health.
  
• Voltstride – Entering a shocked zone grants +10% movement speed for 5s (stacks).

[h2]🔮 What’s Next?[/h2]

We’re not slowing down, there’s much more content on the way! Upcoming updates will bring a new arena, a 4th difficulty tier, new weapons, spells, blessings, and improvements to existing arenas.

We’ll share more details in a separate announcement soon, but here’s a heads-up: HELLBREAK will be part of the Boomstock 2025 Steam Event in September, where we’ll also launch a major update.

🔥 As always, thank you for fighting, surviving, and giving us your feedback. It helps shape HELLBREAK into the best experience possible. Keep them coming through our Discord and Steam Discussions!

It’s been a little while since our last patch, but we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes. Today’s update brings a much-requested feature and sets the stage for what’s coming next!

[h2]☁️ Steam Cloud Save is Now Enabled![/h2]


You can now sync your save data across devices using Steam Cloud Save.
We’ve tested this feature thoroughly, and it should work without issues. That said, we highly recommend backing up your local save file before syncing just in case. You can find your save files in this location:
AppData/Local/HELLBREAK/Saved/SaveGames/HELLBREAKSave
If you’ve uninstalled the game before this patch and lost your data, reach out to us on Discord and we’ll help you recover your save files.

[h2]🖥️ UI & Font Improvements[/h2]

• Improved legibility across menus by increasing font and UI sizes
  
• Fixed incorrectly sized input icons for both keyboard and controller users
  

[h2]🐛 Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a rare crash that could happen after killing a boss for the first time
  
• Fixed multiple text wrapping issues that caused overflow or unnecessary line breaks
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented leaderboards from functioning on Steam Deck
  
• Fixed an issue where connecting an external controller on Deck disabled the internal one until restart
  
• Fixed an issue where Hellshard tooltips appeared empty when using a controller
  

[h2]🕹️ Steam Deck Verification[/h2]


Due to the issues mentioned above, Steam had temporarily marked the game as unsupported on Steam Deck. With these fixes now in place, this status should be updated soon.

[h2]🔮 What’s Next[/h2]


We know it’s been a bit quiet this month, but big things are on the way!
We’re working on:

• A new arena
  New spells and weapons
  A 4th difficulty tier

The next patch is coming soon and will introduce:
A playable tutorial, especially for new players, to help ease into the chaos of HELLBREAK

Here’s a teaser from one of the new weapons we’ve been working on:
💀 Hint: it’s not a melee weapon…

While we’re working on new content, today’s patch brings a set of smaller improvements, performance tweaks, and balance updates based on your feedback.

[h2]⚙️ Improvements[/h2]
Further optimization of visual effects, helping improve performance on more systems.

Gamepad users: You can now adjust slider settings using the sticks, not just the D-pad.

[h2]⚖️ Balance Changes[/h2]

• Shredder Upgrade – Damage increase per enemy sliced: 35% → 20%
• Shredder Upgrade – Ricochet damage bonus: 50% → 25%
• Virulent Decay (Blessing) – Blight spread damage: 75 → 100
• Doombringer’s Retribution – Headshot explosion damage: 200 → 300

[h2]🐛 Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed multiple issues that caused the total ammo count of weapons to be incorrectly reduced in some cases.
  
• Fixed an issue where the movement speed upgrade of Omen would not always activate correctly

More updates are on the way as we continue improving HELLBREAK. Thanks for all your support, bug reports, and feedback. Keep them coming through Steam Discussions or Discord! 💀

Today’s patch brings some important improvements aimed at making HELLBREAK run smoother across a wider range of systems. This is one of several upcoming updates focused on performance and polish.

• Optimized lighting, visual effects, and overall map performance in both Necropit and Courtyard.
• Reduced stutters caused by curse effects, especially when multiple enemies are affected at once.
• Optimized the visual effects of each curse.
• Reduced stuttering caused by certain enemy attacks.
• Motion Blur and Bloom effects have been disabled to improve clarity and performance.

These changes should result in a 10–30% performance improvement depending on hardware and settings. You may also notice fewer sudden frame drops and more consistent framerate across different graphics settings, especially between Medium and High.

This is not the end of our optimization work, more adjustments and improvements are already planned.

[h2]🔊 Other Changes[/h2]
Adjusted the volume of several sound effects for better in-game clarity.

[h2]🐛 Fixes[/h2]
Fixed a rare issue where banishing all upgrades of a weapon could cause the game to freeze during blessing selection.


We’ll continue working on both performance improvements and general polish while also preparing new features like weapons, spells, and progression systems. Next patch will focus on balance changes and some more optimization work.

Thank you for all the feedback and bug reports, keep them coming via Steam Discussions or Discord!