Starlight Re:Volver News

It's a videogame story that's all too common these days. "Despite a strong number of wishlists and a strong community of early playtesters," the roguelite action RPG Starlight Re:Volver failed to catch fire after its release in August, and developer Pahto Labs has laid off half its team and says the game will receive no further updates...
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[p]Hi, everyone - this post has some major updates regarding Starlight Re:Volver, Pahdo Labs’s future priorities as a studio, and what this means to our players.[/p][p][/p][h2]Our Current Situation is Difficult[/h2][p][/p][p]To begin with some context to be as honest as possible to our community, Starlight Re:Volver did not sell well enough to sustain our studio operations.[/p][p]We had a lackluster launch despite a strong number of wishlists and a strong community of early playtesters. We acknowledge a large part of this was due to the quality of the game itself; we had ambitious goals of making a bustling social hub with a robust roguelite gameplay system, but we spread ourselves too thin. Our sales numbers are a reflection that the game wasn’t fun enough to sustain a consistent, healthy player base.[/p][p]Consequently, we recently had to cut half of our development team, shift the entire team to working remotely, and had numerous discussions on how to best move forward with the game and what could realistically save our studio from shutting down.[/p][p]That brings us to the present day: we concluded that incremental, monthly changes to Starlight Re:Volver wouldn’t move the needle enough for us to “save” this game or our studio. Maintaining Starlight Re:Volver as we have done is not a viable path forward, business-wise for our studio, and we need to go back to the drawing board to ultimately make something our community will enjoy.[/p][p]We understand we disappointed many Divers throughout this process and cannot overstate how much we appreciate everyone who played the game regardless of the outcome. If the opportunity comes, we promise to return the generosity in the future by rewarding our existing players (sorry…we need to be vague on the details but for those who bought the game, we promise it won’t be for nothing if we survive).[/p][p][/p][h2]Starlight Re:Volver will still be available to play[/h2][p][/p][p]Starlight Re:Volver will still be available to all users who purchased the game and will continue to be available for purchase. However, the game will no longer receive updates and will transition to be an offline game.[/p][p]Our online servers take a significant amount of money and resources to maintain on top of regular updates, and we cannot sustainably keep up this cadence with our team size with the returns we are getting.[/p][p]While the game will still be playable, the following changes will take effect:[/p]

• [p]Starlight Re:Volver will no longer be hosted on online servers and will be offline (solo) by early December[/p]
• [p]All players who purchase or purchased Starlight Re:Volver automatically unlock all dekos (cosmetics) ever made by default[/p]
• [p]We will continue to fix major bugs and make technical and infrastructure improvements on occasion[/p]
• [p]We do not plan on offering Japanese, Chinese, etc. localization unless we see greater player counts from those regions[/p]

[p][/p][h2]What to Expect Next[/h2][p][/p][p]As mentioned above, we’ll be keeping our heads down with prioritizing our plans for next steps and will share more when we feel we are ready to do so. The next time you hear any major updates from us will probably be around February. We understand that this is a disappointment to our existing community, but we hope to eventually regain the love and trust we’ve received in the future.[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you, Divers.[/p][p]-Pahdo Labs[/p]

[p]Servers are expected to shut down for approximately ~2 hours starting around 12:30 PM / 3:30 PM ET on 10/23/25 while we redeploy some fixes. Sorry for the inconvenience![/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]It's 👻 spooky season 👻 and what better way to celebrate than with our October monthly game updates![/p][p]In case you missed our first devlog post, here is an overview of what's included in this patch:[/p]

• [p]Key rebinding ⌨️[/p]
• [p]Cosmetic (deko) re:runs plus a bunch of fun Halloween dekos! 🎃[/p]
• [p]Networking updates 🛜[/p]

[p]Full patch notes are available at the bottom of this post.[/p][p]Additionally, Starlight Re:Volver is on sale for 25% off for a total price of $9.74 until 10/27, 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET![/p][p]We can't wait to see all our Divers rock their new Halloween dekos in NIM! See you there~[/p][p][/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]10/22/25 Patch Notes[/h2][p][/p][h3]Unity Version[/h3]

• [p]Updated the Unity Engine version to prevent a security flaw with the previous version we were on[/p]
  • [p]Please let us know if there are any bugs or issues you run into![/p]

[h3]NIM[/h3]

• [p]Fall Photo Op[/p]
  • [p]Added a fall themed cutout photo area in the park[/p]
  • [p]Grab your favorite ghosts and ghouls and snap away[/p]
• [p]Cosmetics[/p]
  • [p]Added a spooky batch of Halloween Dekos to Counterweight and Bowline[/p]
  • [p]Added Re:work Getups to Counterweight[/p]
  • [p]Added variants of our swimsuit Getups to Bowline[/p]
  • [p]Added “Flower Power” Kira Getup to Bowline[/p]
• [p]Change Character[/p]
  • [p]Added an option to change characters in the ESC menu[/p]
• [p]NPCs[/p]
  • [p]Most shopkeepers now have voice over when interacting with them, this includes Clover + Atlas stickers[/p]
  • [p]Frankie and Linyan are now always around! Work life balance begone![/p]
  • [p]Pawdos now come in different colors. Find your favorite fuzzy friend![/p]
  • [p]NIM’s birds are all dressed up for Halloween![/p]
  • [p]Added “Ghost Vivi” to Vivi Sticker Pack 1 at Clover’s[/p]

[h3]So Mi[/h3]

• [p]Matchmaking[/p]
  • [p]Improvements have been made with our networking[/p]
  • [p]Desync / rubberbanding should be less frequent[/p]
  • [p]“Bad states” should clear themselves after room transitioning[/p]
• [p]NO-GO[/p]
  • [p]No-go’s loot drops have been updated[/p]
• [p]Damage Reduction[/p]
  • [p]Changed damage reduction to stack multiplicatively rather than additively[/p]

[h3]UI[/h3]

• [p]Rebinding[/p]
  • [p]Players can now bind controls to different inputs on Mouse and Keyboard AND Gamepad! Have fun finding what control scheme feels best for you![/p]
  • [p]Be careful that this is a NEW feature that could potentially get you into a weird state if you bind controls to multiple inputs and vice versa.[/p]
  • [p]There is a reset all button in case things go awry[/p]
• [p]Thread Select Screen[/p]
  • [p]We have a new thread select screen that should be easier to utilize[/p]
  • [p]Toggling Party Fill OFF will have you be able to pick the specific biome and difficulty you and your party will go into[/p]
  • [p]Toggling Party Fill ON will allow you to matchmake for multiple threads and difficulties[/p]
• [p]Thread Report Quality Updates[/p]
  • [p]Added a voting option to Return to NIM or Dive Again! Divers can hop straight back into the thread without needing to return to NIM[/p]
  • [p]Parties should now stay grouped with one another after Thread End[/p]
• [p]Cursor Scaling[/p]
  • [p]Added a cursor size option in the settings menu[/p]
• [p]Gamepad[/p]
  • [p]Removed hold to bind functionality due to confusing edge cases with Cancel Button[/p]
  • [p]Pop Pop Bunny can now be played with a controller[/p]
  • [p]Action Wheel functions on gamepad[/p]

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• [p]NIM[/p]
  • [p]Fixed a bug where memory fragment rewards can be earned each time on log in[/p]
• [p]So Mi[/p]
  • [p]Players should no longer see chat messages whilst in the tutorial[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an exploit where certain passive powers could persist on characters if they were swapped[/p]
• [p]UI[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where chat would scroll back up to previous messages[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where area banners would display wrong information[/p]
  • [p]Fixed a bug where Queen of Swords was not showing her Codex entry[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where some items were incorrectly categorized between NIM / So Mi[/p]
  • [p]Fixed some navigation issues with scroll bars[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where character icons were not appearing next to their respective dekos[/p]
  • [p]Removed area countdown in Solo Play[/p]
  • [p]Added secret rarity to fishing bar UI[/p]
  • [p]Removed toast notifications in the tutorial[/p]
• [p]Gamepad[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where players could not select “Surface to NIM” on Gamepad[/p]
  • [p]Fishing lure screen should now be navigable with gamepad[/p]
• [p]Characters[/p]
  • [p]Fixed a bug where Vivi’s “Violet to Black” was healing enemies[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where character’s stool emotes would vanish[/p]
  • [p]Revived players are restored with max mana[/p]
• [p]Trinkets/Charms/Talismans[/p]
  • [p]Fixed a bug where Bon Bon’s Keychain was not healing players at certain levels[/p]
• [p]Audio[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where Vivi stickers could be heard from anywhere (scary)[/p]
  • [p]Added sfx to party pack stickers[/p]
• [p]Art[/p]
  • [p]Several improvements have been made towards outlines, shadows, shaders, and character models[/p]

[p]Hi Divers, [/p][p]As part of our efforts to consolidate the player base, and due to low player-count on Starlight Re:Volver’s South America server, our team has made the decision to spin down our South America server today at 5pm ET. Affected players will be able to connect to our North America or Europe servers, and next week's networking improvements should help provide a smoother experience even with increased latency.[/p][p]-Pahdo Labs[/p]