Originally, we planned on releasing Witchfire Early Access on Steam later this year—November, maybe even December.

But then we looked at the calendar and started having doubts. So many titles, so much competition from big AAA games, and the bane of any new release: holiday sales. Suddenly, we couldn’t find a good spot.

Then someone said, “Hey, why don’t we simply release in September? It has always been our month. The year of exclusivity with Epic ends on the 20th, and the game is in a really good spot.”

We looked at one another… Can we do that?

And we realized, yes, we can.

So that’s the whole story. It was as simple as that. Feels good to be able to shape your own fate.

Since the Steam release comes so soon after the recent Wailing Tower update, the upcoming one—codenamed High Stakes—isn’t heavy on content. Still, it’s an important update with some big changes to the core gameplay loops. Let’s dive into the details.

The Striga Stakegun

The founders of The Astronauts were also the founders of People Can Fly, the creative minds behind its first game, Painkiller. People usually remember three weapons from that game. The brutal Painkiller, the gun that Yahtzee famously described: “It shoots shurikens and lightning. It could only be more awesome if it had tits and was on fire.”, and the stake gun.

We wanted to give something special to all our Early Access players, and a stake gun felt like the perfect choice.

Striga is, in a way, an evolution of Painkiller‘s stake gun. It pins enemies to walls or tears them apart, and the projectile ignites mid-flight. But there are new elements, too—new Mysteria. We’ll let you discover these for yourselves.

Once the High Stakes update launches, you’ll find the weapon in The Collector’s room. Striga will be available in the final game, too, but much later. Thank you again for supporting Witchfire in Early Access and giving us this opportunity.

Island of the Damned’s Witch Vault

We’ve added a Witch Vault to the island. Chronologically, this is likely the first Vault a new player will attempt to raid, so it’s relatively the easiest. Still, it’s a challenge with a nice reward inside.

I won’t spoil what awaits you, but this is where your journey begins:

Stamina Revolution

There are major changes to how we handle Stamina in the game.

If you played Bulletstorm—the other shooter from The Astronauts’ founders—then you may recall the Head Hunter sniper rifle. It let you control the bullet mid-flight, slow down time, and detonate it inside the enemy for extra crowd control.

This weapon was the result of a fun design process: taking typical features of a thing and flipping them. For example, a sniper rifle usually has hitscan bullets and focuses on single kills. We flipped that with a slow-moving bullet capable of multikills.

I don’t know if Karol used the same method for redesigning Stamina, but it sure feels like it. Instead of starting with a regular Stamina bar that you build by killing enemies, Karol flipped the script: now you start each run with full Stamina and Focus.

This change sparked a lot of drama. Before the dust settled, someone even called it the biggest design mistake of all time. We were so used to how things were… Props to Karol for thinking outside the box—it’s a small but profound change.

Personally, I like it. It makes the game more dynamic and makes running around the Hermitorium much easier. But more importantly, it feels right that a preyer—someone who faces witches and lives—would begin powerful, with Stamina and Focus already in hand.

In other words, before the change you were fighting for your dear life to earn power. Now, you start with power—and it’s yours to lose.

Karol has written a detailed breakdown of the changes, which we might include in the High Stakes patch notes. For now, here are three other major changes to Stamina:

1. Taking damage no longer fully resets bonus Stamina. The amount lost depends on the source—traps take one charge, losing sanity costs five. It’s now easier to regain max Stamina and Focus by killing enemies.
   
   
2. The game got easier in some areas due to these changes, so we restored the balance by slightly increasing enemy attack damage. In other words, it’s now easier to evade enemy attacks but if you fail to do so, you are punished more severely than before. Every attack has been individually tested and tweaked.
   
   
3. Echo now consumes way less Stamina. In general, all Stamina-consuming Unwieldy Weapons—shotguns and sniper rifles—feel different with these changes.

Calamity Uprising

Calamities remain a hot topic. But the changes so far have been well-received, especially making Calamities more deterministic. In this update, we’ve pushed further in this direction.

The Calamity Bar now grows much slower from regular mistakes, and some Calamity-inducers have been removed altogether. The main sources of Calamity progression are now cursed items, traps, and the Warden (who’s also been nerfed).

In short, players should now feel like they’ve truly “earned” a Calamity.

And remember, you now have two ways to neutralize the threat: a vendor item and a certain Fallen Preyer.

Mysteria Forge

Previously, you equipped and enhanced gear in the Gunroom. Now, while you still equip gear there, a new station nearby—the Mysteria Forge—is where you upgrade it.

This makes unveiling Mysteria clearer and more impactful.

Visual Clarity

Witchfire is a moody game, but we went a bit too far, making battlefields a bit too hazy. We’ve tweaked postprocessing to improve visibility without sacrificing the atmosphere.

Click the image below to go to the before and after comparison.

Achievements

The Steam release of Witchfire Early Access is a great time to add achievements—both to Steam and EGS. Steam also gets its own perks like badges, cards, and emotes.

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The High Stakes update launches early for EGS players on Friday, September 20th (around 7pm CEST, though we may be a bit late due to ongoing work).

It will also be included in the Steam release on Monday, September 23rd (exact time to be announced soon on our X and Discord).

Question of the Week

We have just published an updated FAQ that covers topics like the language support, please check it out here.