Witchfire News

• Increased the cumulative bonus chance to land (3x Element) after each (2x Element) roll.
  
• Decreased the chance to trigger elemental status effects on each bullet from 25% to 15%.
  
• Increased the duration of (3x Electro) and (3x Fire) buffs from 7 seconds to 10 seconds.
  
• Fixed counting non-enemy targets (e.g. traps) as kills.
  
• Fixed incorrect M1 visuals.
  

• Fixed Martyr nails throwing all physics bodies with power over 9000.
  

• Buckler can now be lowered down faster.
  
• Successful parries now restore stamina.
  
• Parried melee attacks now deal more stun damage.
  
• Lowered block and parry charge costs for weaker attacks, while slightly increasing costs for stronger attacks.
  

• Fixed Ice Sphere heavy spell failing to freeze enemies that teleported inside the bubble.
  
• Fixed Ice Sphere freezing enemies only temporarily (some enemies, such as bosses, may still resist being frozen).
  

• Light Spell Charge Bead: Blood 20 -> 15
  
• Ammo Preservation Bead: Arsenal 20 -> 15
  
• Melee Recharge Bead: Flesh 20 -> 15
  
• Healing Bead: Mind 20 -> 15
  
• Sanity Bead: Mind 20 -> 15
  
• Stamina Bead: Blood 20 -> 15
  
• Spell Recharge Bead: Witchery 20 -> 15
  
• Blessed Aim Bead: Faith 25 -> 20
  
• Adrenaline Bead: Blood 25 -> 20
  

• Restoration Incense: health threshold increased from 30% to 40%. Healing speed increased by 150%. Added a 7-second delay between receiving damage and healing starting.
  
• Bloodthirst Incense: increased trigger chance for weapons with larger magazines.
  
• Patience Incense: increased bonus healing from +30% to +100%. Increased healing duration from x4 to x8.
  
• Conjurer Incense: increased healing on light spell from 5 to 8, and on heavy spell from 8 to 13.
  
• Resilience Incense: increased damage resistance from -50% to -70%. Increased healing duration from x2 to x3.
  

• Triggering a World Corruption Rift no longer spawns a Calamity.
  
• Island of the Damned: World Corruption builds up faster on Gnosis 3, 4 and 5.
  
• Torments now allow for faster and higher World Corruption buildup.
  
• Torment Alpha allows full World Corruption buildup without picking up the Latent Orb, and doubles the quantity of patrol spawns.
  
• World Corruption now progresses faster and further while a Torment is active.
  
• Torment Alpha now progresses World Corruption much faster and doubles the intensity of the Hunt.
  
• Picking up the Latent Orb now strongly reinforces the Hunt.
  
• Stone Golem critical spot should now be easier to hit while it is disassembled.
  
• World Corruption events now stagger in time instead of spawning all at once.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused World Corruption events to spawn in the Irongate Castle Vault and at the entrance to the Velmourne Vault.
  
• Raising World Corruption to the maximum level now affects the atmosphere and triggers its own music.
  
• Balanced World Corruption sound cue volume based on its current level.
  
• Divine Essence: all sources not related to World Corruption are now worth much more. Costs in the Tower and Witch Mountain have been adjusted accordingly.
  
• Changed Madness Orb explosion range from 500 m to 40 m.
  
• Divine Essence can now drop from Cursed Chest events.
  

• Swapped gold for Volatile Witchfire in the Torment reward pool. Increased rewards for repeating already completed Torments and Torment Alpha.
  
• Fixed target acquisition of the Torment effect "Killed enemies explode with three homing Decay bombs".
  
• Torment Alpha effects should now be correctly applied during expeditions to affected regions.
  
• Torment effects dealing damage only to distant or close targets now affect enemies only.
  
• Torment effect "Only Critical Hits inflict damage" now only affects damage dealt to enemies.
  

• Lowered its HP so it can be destroyed with a default charged punch.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused an incorrect name to be displayed.
  

• Fixed a bug causing Warrior Priest projectiles not to deal damage.
  
• Fixed a bug causing Warrior Priest projectiles to float endlessly in the air.
  
• Adjusted projectile tracking to make them easier to dodge, and slowed them down by an additional 16% to slightly lengthen the dodge window.
  
• Fixed a bug causing Warrior Priest melee projections to appear choppy in certain circumstances.
  
• Increased the shared cooldown on the Warrior Priest respawn ability.
  

• Warden: fixed a bug causing the entity to spawn Elite Ascended Elite enemies.
  
• Grenadier: removed self-damage from all area-of-effect attacks, also fixing cases where a summoned Rotten Fiend could damage the player.
  

• Fixed a Divine Chest position in Velmourne so it is no longer inside the Vault area.
  
• Fixed a chest position on the Scarlet Coast so it will no longer float.
  
• Fixed all inactive gates in Velmourne.
  
• A Codex Maleficum page could previously be found both on the Scarlet Coast and inside a Latent Orb. The Scarlet Coast version has been replaced with a different page that was previously a random Veiled Chest drop. As a result, some players may now find a second page on the Scarlet Coast.
  

• Fixed a bug that made the rattling of the "Mirror Lock" event totems inaudible.
  
• Added a sound alert when the Gravedigger steals player remains.
  
• Objective Complete sound now triggers when fully charging a Latent Orb.
  
• Reworked some Surge-related audio notifications.
  
• Added new sounds that trigger when equipping melee weapons.
  
• Fixed small inconsistencies in Cricket's shooting sounds.
  
• Slightly lowered the loudness of Martyr nail base impact sounds.
  
• Fixed a remaining infinite sound loop after picking up a Surge.
  

• Replaced the old italics font with the new one in remaining UI elements.
  
• Fixed Torment descriptions in the Inventory using inconsistent text styles.
  
• Inventory item details now better support longer descriptions and lore, especially when text size is set to Large or Extra Large.
  
• Inventory item details now better support longer item names.
  
• Arcana details screen now better supports longer Arcana names.
  
• Melee weapons now display the number of kills in their inspect screens.
  
• Gnosis screen now displays a scroll indicator when text size is set to Large or Extra Large.
  
• Witch Portraits Collection now shows yellow diamonds indicating newly unlocked portraits.
  
• Fixed incorrect opacity of the Surge Display when activating a new Surge while the previous one was blinking.
  
• Removed the Latent Orbs counter from the HUD, as it is no longer necessary.
  
• Latent Orbs are now correctly assigned to Bound and Unbound categories in the Inventory.
  
• Added a map corruption animation when opening the map.
  
• Added a Latent Orb HUD objective.
  

• Fixed a bug preventing Arsenal from influencing some parameters of new weapons.
  
• Explosive Package: Exploding Head is no longer triggered by player movement.
  
• Fixed visual issues with player weapon projectiles in some scenarios (e.g. shooting Striga while looking down).
  
• Fixed the marker position on the Wishing Table.
  
• Patrols no longer drop Divine Essence before Gnosis 3.
  
• Fixed stun soul behavior for spiders.
  
• Optimized turrets.
  
• Mid-flight crossbow bolts no longer trigger danger indicators.
  
• Fixed Arcana power scaling with different Omen effects.
  
• Fixed Hypnosis zoom-in and zoom-out stutters after each shot.
  
• Fixed navigation issues affecting flying enemies and projectiles in areas with stacked navigation planes (e.g. Irongate Castle bridge and the river below).
  
• Increased repeatable rewards for Latent Orbs across the board.
  
• Fixed T-posing monk ghosts on the island after collecting the Scepter.
  

"Triple-A is in crisis," Astronauts and People Can Fly founder Adrian Chmielarz tells me. We're chatting Witchfire, and the gaming industry more generally, and how 2025 feels like the year where indie and double-A games owned the conversation more than ever. This year's GOTY pool was fairly evenly split between indie releases and big-budget blockbusters, and the same bears out over on Metacritic's highest-rated games of the year, where the likes of Hades 2, Expedition 33, and Blue Prince claim the top spots.

Read the rest of the story...

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We've counted. You wrote one thousand comments about the World Corruption feature in the latest update corrupting your experience.

The comments were of all kinds: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ll take that any day of the week over indifference. I’m happy people feel strong enough about the game to sacrifice their time to give feedback.

But also, you’re simply right. World Corruption was not just imbalanced. It made the game switch genres.

The gameplay philosophy of Witchfire is escalation, but only due to player mistakes. In other words, the player dictates the pacing as long as they’re in control. Inevitably, mistakes happen, and then chaos ensues.

Think of the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. As long as Indy controlled the situation, pointing out and disabling traps, things were fine. One mistake swapping the idol for sand, and then all hell broke loose.

World Corruption changed that dynamic. No matter your skill, no matter how smart you played - sooner or later the game interfered with your actions. You were unable to control the pacing. That works for some really great games, but that’s not Witchfire.

How did we miss it? Well, things obvious now weren’t that obvious yesterday. Also, Witchfire is still an Early Access game. There is no better time to experiment than now.

There is something really cool about World Corruption, so we will keep the feature… but in a new form. You can see the new approach in today’s patch. Until you pick up a Latent Orb, World Corruption is more of a spice than a dish. Just like patrols or minibosses before - something to mess with your plans just a bit.

The true hell unleashes only if you pick up the Latent Orb (which no longer slows you down). And Latent Orbs are optional; you do not need them to finish the game, even if they do offer some of the coolest rewards. But now - that is your choice.

This is a quick patch to remedy the most painful elements of World Corruption. We hope to have the final version of the feature later this week.

Thanks again for the feedback, and never stop being honest with us. It is the only way to make the game we all want to play.

Adrian

• Rifts are now much bigger, have lowered trigger range.
  
• Rifts' idle sound is louder and can be heard from further away.
  
• Disabled Corruption fog as it was causing visibility issues in many places.
  
• World Corruption now builds up slower with lower Gnosis and faster with higher.
  
• World Corruption now caps at a lower intensity depending on your Gnosis level.
  
• Witchfire Whirlwinds should now stay out of enclosed spaces and dissipate if they somehow make it into one.
  
• Reduced the amount of Madness Orbs.
  
• Latent Orb no longer slows the player down, but its pickup ramps up both World Corruption and its cap to the maximum possible value.
  
• World Corruption now affects Hunt intensity at a lower rate.
  
• Hunt now properly caps its spawns. Increasing World Corruption increases the number of waves, with a very significant increase at the highest possible World Corruption level.
  
• Removed Latent Orb slowdown effect.
  
• Added Latent Orb tutorial.
  

• Increased base damage by 25%.
  
• Decreased base ammo reserves by 20%.
  
• Increased M1 lightning power by 20%.
  
• Increased M3 explosion power from 25 to 50.
  

• Lowered nail snap chance while punching into the environment by 50%.
  
• Fixed nails affecting friendly characters.
  
• Reduced nail snap chance on the first two re-applies.
  
• Changed the maximum number of nails existing at the same time from 30 to 15.
  

• Improved damage by 25%.
  
• Improved charged hit range by 20%.
  
• Improved lunge range by 20%.
  
• Charged attack animation sped up by 30%.
  
• Lunge landing animation sped up by 30%.
  

• Greatly increased the amount of spell charge gained on crystallised Witchfire pickup across the board.
  

• Halved the stamina cost increase (from +50% to +25%).
  
• Reduced the immunity period duration from 0.5 sec to 0.3 sec.
  

• Increased the power of the Burn effect applied by the Blessed Fire bead.
  

• Increased stamina gained on sigil break from 25 to 50.
  

• Further decreased ailment duration, from -50% to -70%.
  

• Decreased uncharged melee damage bonus from 400% to 300%.
  
• Fixed Brawler bead only working with fists melee.
  

• Summoning Grounds: fixed Blunderbusser not unlocking.
  
• Summoning Grounds: Shieldbearer is now a Faithful (not Familiar).
  
• Summoning Grounds: Stone Golem is now a Major enemy (not Familiar).
  
• Fixed Witchfire Basin not regenerating all ammo.
  

• Lowered the amount of Madness inflicted by the statues in the Island of the Damned Vault.
  
• Inspect screen now displays correct values for new weapons.
  
• Fixed 'Unveil Mysterium' button being too wide.
  
• Fixed Irongate Castle Vault completion blocker.
  
• Fallen Preyer Sefer: improved trap detection.
  
• Updated the 'Calamities' page in the Handbook: it now reflects recent changes and correctly shows 'Madness' instead of 'Sanity'.
  
• Adjusted chest spawns to be better placed in the environment.
  
• Witch-corrupted turrets should now be easily identifiable from player-charged ones.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause stutters during World Corruption events.
  
• Changed idle sounds for Ammo Shrines in the Witch Mountain.
  
• Fixed disappearing Preyer Mask Shards in Outskirts.
  
• Fixed disappearing Gold pickups in Outskirts.
  

The new Witchfire Reckoning update has just landed, marking the second-to-last milestone on the dark fantasy FPS game's road to 1.0. There's a whole heap of additions to expand the progression and challenge, along with a range of powerful handheld weapons that let you get up close and personal. Ahead of the update, we spoke to The Astronauts CEO and founder Adrian Chmielarz about what the new melee options bring to the table, and why it's okay to shelve your lore bible for a bit and just hit things with a big morningstar.

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