Witchfire News

Let me begin by confirming what you already know—or at least suspect: this post is a bit different from the previous ones. Not only because it’s not strictly about Witchfire, but also because it’s written by someone other than Adrian—it’s written by me, Piotr (/Pete), your community manager. It was high time to say “Hi,” so here I am to do just that.

Hi.

And as much as I’d love to declare that I have achieved comedy and call it a day, I can’t shake the image of Kelly from The Office shaking her head in disapproval. The objection is valid, so, let’s get down to business.

My name is Piotr Modzelewski, and I’ve been working in gamedev for the past eight years in various roles, primarily handling community affairs for both large projects—developed by teams of over a hundred people—and smaller indie games made by just a handful.

I have also dipped my fingers into writing, PR, marketing, voice-over work, and even mustered the courage to wrestle with Unity every once in a while. After these adventures in teams big and small, I find myself being one of The Astronauts, and as I take a look around, I have to say: a team of 24 sounds damn fine to me. Not just because it's the same number as the astronauts who went on moon missions (though I love that), but because it means you actually get the chance to speak with the people you work with and know them beyond just their avatars in the company chat. You know, 24 just seems like a value in the sweet spot range (a goldilocks zone, if you will)—there are enough people to get a proper job done, but not so many that you end up confusing one with another.

As for my history with the medium, I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember. There are several franchises I’ve been (and still am) obsessed with, and while I could talk for hours about Mass Effect or Gran Turismo (please don’t get me started on them), the brightest star in my Witchfire-esque stellar neighbourhood is undoubtedly Destiny. Don’t get me wrong—many shooters have made me gasp (Resistance, Killzone, Project Snowblind, Halo, just to name a few)—but Destiny was something else on so many levels, which resulted in thousands of hours spent scouring the solar system, shooting, looting, jumping, and… well, shooting some more. Times change, and so do games—at some point, the shine wore off, and I was left with a bit of a gnawing hunger, an itch for a shooter that I couldn’t scratch. Coming across Witchfire, with its equally fantastic gunplay, sprinkled with a rich topping of magic and elemental combos, felt like striking gold.

I am—pardon the pun—bewitched by this game. That’s not to say I find it perfect—by no means—but there’s something amazing taking shape here. Working on something you're passionate about always gives you that extra bit of drive, so I see this whole situation as an absolute win. Even if it means I’ve been spending hours on end playing the game, I don’t think that will do any harm. In fact, I believe that knowing Witchfire inside and out is essential to doing this job well, as it allows me to better understand your feedback and relay it to the team with genuine insight.

And let’s not beat around the bush—it’s very important. Yes, there is a clear vision for the game, but your input can have a humongous impact, and at the same time, it’s great to see how many of you are enjoying what has been crafted so far. Our Discord is home to nearly fourteen thousand Preyers, and we just celebrated breaking the ten-thousand-member mark on our subreddit. There are a lot of you (as we mentioned on our X/Twitter last week), and that means a lot of potential feedback—we love all the buzz you’re generating about the game.

We’re observing your discussions on the Witchfire Discord, listening to your suggestions, and constantly being amazed by your ideas. It goes without saying that the feedback and bug-reporting channels on Discord, Steam, and Reddit aren’t just for decoration—we frequent them and read your thoughts. You’re helping us. The upcoming (promise) Witch Mountain Update will not only introduce a new, feverishly anticipated chapter in the game but also contain numerous bug fixes that wouldn’t have happened without you. The exact numbers are still unknown, but it’s already nearing triple digits, so by reporting back to us, you’re actively making the game better. I’d say that’s a win for everybody.

Speaking of Witch Mountain—we’ve seen the enthusiasm sparked by the recent PC Gamer article, and we absolutely love it. We understand that the plot is becoming quite thicc (just like our team, according to one member of our Discord), and the information regarding the new level has been somewhat confusing—to the point where some of you were asking whether the article was accurate.

Allow me to clarify, then: the source of that information is none other than Adrian himself, so it would be difficult to find anyone who knows more on the subject. Yes, The Labyrinth is coming, and it’s going to be absolutely huge—it’s by far the biggest level in the game (as mentioned in the previous post), though that wasn’t exactly intentional. We’re well aware that making bigger levels isn’t always the best approach—as has been proven on numerous occasions by quite a few games. So, we’re learning from the mistakes of others, but at the same time we’re on a journey of discovery—we can clearly see the destination, we’re just taking the time to make sure that the path is fun before we will let you scale the Witch Mountain.

And, seriously, don’t worry—we won’t make you wait much longer.

Those of you who’re here on regular basis know that posts usually end with Question of the Week, but it won’t be the case this time. Welcome to The Hermitorium Archives, a novum that will bring you a selection of what’s been hot in the community in the recent days and weeks.



[h3]Bullying the bully[/h3]
One of the greatest marks of community and the love it has for a game is how creative they can get in distorting something that has been designed to be a challenge. And, boy, have you delivered.

The Galley Slave duel was supposed to be a fight for your life, a struggle with an opponent who is, let me remind you:

1. a familiar of the witch;
   
2. a towering, hulking mass of muscle;
   
3. a disgusting, disfigured monster, weilding a freaking cannon.
   

He jumps out of a floating, ghostly galleon to spread destruction and strike fear into the hearts of those unwise enough to face him. Obviously, we knew that the shock and awe would fade over time, the more encounters you had with him, but it took you almost no time to make him—pardon my French—your bitch.

You turned a boss battle into a competition to see who could beat him not only the fastest but also with the least effort. Don’t get me wrong, it shows the mastery some of you have achieved over the mechanics and how crafty you can get in exploiting them. We’re gamers ourselves—we’ve spent our fair share of time hunting for exploits we could use against bosses in other games—but seeing you break out your ingenuity to dismantle something we created is both rewarding as hell and incredibly entertaining to watch. And just to illustrate what I’m talking about:

Can anyone do it faster?

Echo and Burn silliness.

Galley Slave fight but I planted 80 land mines on the beach.

Had he been a real entity, the therapy bills alone would be enough to bring the entirety of the G20 to its knees.

[h3]No 360, but scope[/h3]
Speaking of exploits—a while ago, it was rediscovered that the game allows for quickscoping, and while we’re not fans of players abusing mechanics to the point where they become boring, we have to admit… this one is unlikely to go away. Witchfire is not an online shooter where quickscoping would lead to rage quits, and let’s be honest—there are some hairy situations where you need every edge you can get. Perhaps I’m also looking fondly at this lack of a fix because Hailstorm is one of my weapons of choice. There is something disturbingly succulent about making sure yet another opponent’s neck is free of the burden of their head.

Found out that quickscoping is a thing in this game.

[h3]Look ma, one hand?[/h3]
Weapons are always a hot topic in the community, and few seem to get you more excited than the fanning revolver. Yes, the same one that was already mentioned and displayed in the previous post—please contain yourselves. I’m here to clarify something that’s been brought up several times, including once again after the PC Gamer article dropped:

One of these—one-handed revolver operation vs dual-wielding—is off the table. Mostly due to the low "work required" to "impact and fun factor" ratio. One is not. For now, I cannot say which is which.

[h3]They level up so fast...[/h3]
Oh, and it appears that some of you simply didn’t get the memo that that the grind is meant to be somewhat challenging…

541 is the maximum. You cannot go beyond this level, there is nothing more to do as of today - I wouldn't dare to ask "what now?", because Panther (a member of our discord, who achieved the level cap in December) would probably just come up with a way of achieving this level again, this time while playing blindfolded, or something. You lot are amazing.

[h3]Stop trying to make the "co-op" happen[/h3]
But no matter how amazing you get, the answer to this:

... Will still be a resounding "no". We have explained the reason why many times before and in detail but the TLDR is still that Witchfire is designed to be the best possible Single Player experience and laser-focused to deliver exactly that.

Oh, and before I go—we know that Witchfire has sparked creativity in many of you, and we absolutely love seeing what you come up with. So don’t hesitate to tag us in your Witchfire-related creations or share them on our Discord server. Whether it’s artwork, a fresh UI concept (yes, we’ve seen those before), a custom logo, or even just a perfectly crafted meme, we’re always happy to see the game through your eyes. And, let’s be honest—memes hold a special place in our hearts. We even have a channel dedicated solely to them.

And if you need to get in touch with me, your friendly neighborhood gestionnaire de communauté, feel free to reach out via our Twitter/X, Facebook, or our Discord, where you can find me @Spajk. Affectionately rechristened Spatch.

I am gazpacho, oh.

Apparently.

This has been the first transmission—I will see you around.

Cheers!

Witch Mountain looms in the distance but the road ahead is a bit more difficult than we anticipated.

We have some good news to share, but first, let’s rip the band-aid off on the painful one. The Witch Mountain update is still a few weeks away.

The last time I wrote about this, I said that the gameplay part of it is so new to us that we cannot quite predict the end of the prototyping period. We believe it’s going to be good for Witchfire, but we cannot be certain how much more work is needed for the feature to truly shine. Every day, the mountain is a bit more fun, and one of these days it will be fun enough to share it with the world — but not today.

Also, the gameplay is not the only thing that needs more time in the oven. We’re infusing the level with legions of opponents, new puzzles, new prophecies, and new mechanics… but “accidentally,” we’ve also made the level our biggest one yet. This does not necessarily mean there’s more gameplay to enjoy than, say, in the Castle, but certainly from the sheer size of it, Witch Mountain is a giant.

I am torn between wanting to thank you for your patience with some preview screenshots and not wanting to spoil the experience. I think I found a nice middle ground, and so here are a few shots that actually avoid showing the main feature of the level: a huge area with a set of gameplay mechanics previously unseen in Witchfire, one that will put your skills and reflexes to the test. We will keep that one hidden for now. But I think we can tease bits and pieces of other areas, so here goes…



Finally, someone might ask why we won’t release Witch Mountain in a work-in-progress state. Witchfire is still in Early Access, after all. But in our opinion, there is a rather unsettling trend in the gaming industry which causes more and more titles to be delivered in a somewhat incomplete state, and we don’t want to follow it. We know it sounds sort of overzealous in the case of an Early Access game, but we’d rather swallow a bitter pill and annoy you with a longer wait than deliver something half-baked.

Now for some good news. Since the update is taking longer than anticipated, we’ve decided to make it fatter.

[h2]Fallen Preyers 2.0[/h2]

Witchfire is a heist game in a dark fantasy skin, and Fallen Preyers are your crew. The Muscle, the Driver, the Safecracker, and so on. But while Fallen Preyers 1.0 turned out to be useful, they do not add a lot to the emotional layer of the game. They have such storytelling potential, but for now, all they are is icons on the map.

Also, we think they contribute to the issue of the overload of the cognitive buffer. Ever forgotten you have a Demonic Weapon? Not exclusively your fault. There are so many things to think about in Witchfire that the brain refuses to juggle them all. We love that aspect of the game; this is why we call it an RPG shooter, not just a shooter. But sometimes, too much is too much. Having to remember that a Fallen Preyer waits to be unleashed once during an expedition is a problem.

Also, it’s kind of an unnecessary thing anyway. If there’s a Fallen Preyer who can help you during a Calamity, hmmm, when would one want to call it? I don’t know, maybe during a Calamity?

So we’re changing Fallen Preyers from “nuke buttons” to semi-autonomous NPCs.

We give them shape, we give them life, we give them personalities.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This is a huge undertaking—e.g., seven (!) full new 3D characters—but we just want to do it. We do not compromise, and we treat the story and immersion as one of the unmovable fundamentals of the experience, and we hope Fallen Preyers 2.0 will contribute to that factor.

Not all of it might make it to the Witch Mountain update, but the core of the change will be there for sure.

[h2]New gear[/h2]

Two new weapons, two new spells, and a new item. If you have already played Witchfire, you already know that these may be – pardon the pun – literal gamechangers, as equipment has a huge impact on the way you deal with enemies and your survivability. The new stuff is no exception; both affect the playstyle and are just fun.

Let’s reveal one piece today: a new revolver. Yes, this one is for the fan fire lovers.



[h2]Shadow Orbs[/h2]

One of the brand new things that Witch Mountain is going to bring is the Shadow Orb—a magical combat-recording device that will give you challenges and reward you for meeting the requirements by granting you a piece of inventory or a resource that may prove crucial in the current and future runs. The reward will, obviously, depend on the scale of the challenge, but our community has already proven to be more hardcore and ambitious than we predicted, so we have to up the ante every now and then.



[h2]Under-the-hood improvements[/h2]

We’re reading your feedback loud and clear, and we’re constantly looking for ways to improve what we have delivered so far—the evidence is pretty much everywhere in the game, and the new update is not going to be any different. We have reworked the balance of Knight and Ogre, giving them new behavior and fighting patterns, and refreshed their introductory cutscenes, just to make them that extra bit more intimidating. We have spent quite a lot of time diving deep into Arcana, changing the way some of them work. We have already fixed over 70 bugs reported to us by our community (huge thank you for bringing them to our attention).

[h2]The shape of things to come[/h2]

Witchfire is very much an ongoing project, so the future is going to bring a lot more – while we’re prioritizing Witch Mountain right now, we’re working on several things at the same time and shaping the content for time beyond WMU. Another map is already playable(-ish) and being tested by the members of our dev team, new weapon concepts are being developed, new opponents are roaming the alleys of our UE Editors (and minds), and we’re in the planning stages of fleshing out a proper tutorial, addressing one of the main complaints you have been reporting in the past weeks and months. Thanks for your support; we appreciate your patience and understanding, and we’re working our hardest to bring you the game you want to play again and again.

To show how serious we are about this, we’ve grown twice in size in the last two years: from 12 to 24. Finally, we are the size of the team that made Painkiller in 2012-2014. We’re still a tiny team considering the standards and quality we aspire to, but we’re no longer minuscule. And we now have a Community Manager, too! See the #announcements channel on our Discord.

That’s it for today, but we will be back soon with new posts, trying to entertain you the best we can until the Witch Mountain drops. And then we’ll go into hiding because it is our hardest content yet, and we’re not sure we’ll survive the screams of the maimed…





Our witch would not be as pretty.

On a more serious note, right now Witchfire is mostly gameplay and pieces of lore. But there’s much more coming in the world/story department. Some of the things we want to say will be… controversial. We can afford to be fearless in our storytelling thanks to enough of you buying the game to keep us independent.

Patch 0.5.1 is out with a Frostbite buff and a couple of fixes. It seems like doing the preview was a good idea as the actual release of The Brewing update is relatively nice and clean. A bow to all who played and reported, seems like it might be something to repeat in the future.

There a few known tiny issues but nothing that should affect the witch hunting too much. We are taking a Christmas & New Year break and will be back in the trenches on January 7th, picking up the work on the Witch Mountain and its L########. Thank you all for buying and playing Witchfire and being a great and lively community that helps the newbies, exchanges protips and builds and experiences, and digs into the lore. Have a fantastic holidays 💝🎄🥳

[h2]Patch Notes:[/h2]

PATCH 0.5.1 (57565)

Frostbite:

• Reworded Mysterium II description to accurately describe its effects.
  
• Increased base damage by 10%

Designer Note: this makes bullets boosted by Mysterium I actually impactful, as they reach new damage breakpoints and require less bullets to kill most enemies

• Increased the maximum duration of Mysterium II freeze. The duration now increases much more for each bullet spent after the 3rd one
  
• Freeze duration boost increase from Mysterium II now also appllies to the frozen trail from Mysterium III
  
• Max magazine size have been decreased from 8 to 6 bullets, so it’s easier to maximize freeze duration

Designer Note: our plan for Frostbite was to make players choose between optimizing their damage and their freeze potential, based on when they decided to reload. Before, the freeze increases weren’t meaningful enough, and it rarely made sense not to reload after the boosted bullets were spent

[h3]Other updates and fixes:[/h3]

• Changed Stigma Diabolicum damage multiplier from 1.6/1.7/1.75 to 1.2/1.3/1.35

Designer Notes: Stigma Diabolicum was always meant to deal around 25% more damage than ordinary weakspot (crits) hits. However, until recently it dealt around 25% more damage than a bodyshot instead. We fixed that, but mistakenly we did so on two fronts – the damage multiplier was increased, and the damage multiplier started using weakspot damage instead of bodyshot damage as its base.

• Fixed an bug that caused Siren’s Shell not to work when used in certain scenarios
  
• Heavily optimized Vendor’s UI refresh logic. Buying multiple items in quick succession should no longer affect your framerate.
  
• Angelus’ shield now correctly processes pushback from enemy attacks starting from 1st Mysterium (was: only on 2nd and 3rd).
  
• Actually changed Incense costs, as indicated in yesterday’s patch
  
• Fixed incorrect Siren’s Shell pickup prompt
  
• Toll Collector in the Castle has extra collision around his legs now and shouldn’t kick the player upwards when approached
  

Folks, just like we promised in the previous news, the Brewing Update is out for all of you. Over the past two days we have taken a deep dive into the pool of bugs (both detected on our own and reported by you – thank you for that!) and did our best to squash as many of them as possible. We fought gallantly and got rid of all the nasties. That doesn’t mean we’re done, so expect the final patch for this year to drop tomorrow, dealing with a few smaller issues.

Before that happens however, you may be pleased to hear that no shenanigans are required to access the new content; you may need to restart your Steam client to trigger the update, but when the fresh files are present, you’re good to go.

That is, unless you’re one of the people who played the preview – if you did, you need to change the branch back to default one, effectively reversing the process you completed when you opted in:

• Right-click on the game in your library, select "Properties...",
  
• Navigate to Betas,
  
• Expand the drop-down menu next to "Beta Participation",
  
• Select "None" from the list,
  
• Close the properties window.
  

It's also a good practice to restart steam at this point. You know the drill.

Now, if you have been playing the preview and you want to keep the progress from the past two days, you will need to tinker with the saves – please bear in mind that you’re doing it at your own responsibility. If you want to proceed, please:

• Head over the folder with your save files, by default it can be found at to C:\Users\[YourWindowsUserName]\AppData\Local\Witchfire\Saved\SaveGames,
  
• Copy all the files in the folder and paste them somewhere else on your disk – better safe than sorry, a backup is always a good idea,
  
• Open the “Preview” folder and copy its contents,
  
• Paste the contents in the main SaveGames folder,
  
• Voila!
  

This should (and I cannot stress it enough, you were playing a preview of an update of an Early Access game, please bear this in mind) import the saves from preview into the main game and allow you to continue right were you left off last time you played the preview.

As mentioned above, we are planning to release one more patch with additional fixes tomorrow, but please do keep the bug reports coming – the more info we have, the more bugs we can get rid of.

Oh, and we’re also part of the Steam Winter Sale – it’s your chance to grab the game at 10% off. We're extremely happy with the high praise you have given us in the recent (95% positive reviews in the past 30 days) and not so recent times (93% positive reviews all-time), and this may be a good moment to let your friends know that they can own the game at reduced cost. Thank you ːdemonheartː

That's it for today -- have fun playing, and don't hesitate to let us know if you encounter any bugs -- and we'll see you again soon.

Good things come to those who wait - the impatient ones can reach out for them on their own.

As you may know from the previous news, we decided to split the upcoming Witch Mountain into two parts - The Brewing is going to be released on the 19th of December, and the second part will be released early next year. We've decided to accelerate things a little bit, at least for those among you who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, and thus a preview of The Brewing is available right now.

We will obviously be fixing bugs, with planned patches dropping tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and on the 19th we're going to make The Brewing available for every owner of the game without the need to change anything at your end. For now, however, The Brewing is in a bit of an experimental mode, so you may encounter an occasional bug here and there (more than usual), and we decided it should be an opt-in kind of an update.

[h2]BEFORE YOU PROCEED!...[/h2]

1. If you are on limited Internet, do not play the Preview. Opting in will download the patch, and going back will download the game again. No problem for those with fast unlimited net, but for everybody else, just please wait for the official patch on the 19th.
   
2. We are already aware of some bugs, so if you want the cleanest experience, just wait two days. Also, while you can clone and use your savegames from the main branch, anything you achieve when playing the Brewing Preview will NOT transfer back to the main game (at least not automatically, wink wink). So the Preview is just an early peek for fun, not an early release of The Brewing.
   

If you still want to play the Preview, in order to unlock it, please do the following:

• Restart Steam,
  
• Right-click on the game in your library, select "Properties...",
  
• Navigate to Betas,
  
• Expand the drop-down menu next to "Beta Participation",
  
• Select "preview - Public preview branch" from the list,
  
• Close the properties window.
  

Done! The game will update and you will be able to dive into the game and get your hands on Alchemy, new weapons and items, experience Hermitorium Moods and Boss Reshuffle. Here's a handy summary for those of you who would rather see things than read about them:



You can also wait and have a more polished experience this Thursday, but we know you like to be on the bleeding edge (Witchfire is in Early Access after all!), so... Have a blast!

P.S. We made a topic for the Preview feedback: https://steamcommunity.com/app/3156770/discussions/0/561358509790283810/