Hello Lost Souls,

We gathered all of your amazing feedback, and suggestions, shared across different platforms. Over the past weeks, we’ve been working on implementing them, and we hope these changes will make your playthrough smoother and even more enjoyable!

Check out the full changelog below.

BALANCE:

• Totem buffs:

  • ‘Adder Stone’ has a new effect: each turn it transforms all curses into random cards.

  • ‘Engraved Antlers’ only discards one card now.

  • ‘Squirrel's Tail’ - increased from 3 to 4 extra health to Fylge.

  • ‘Thorns’ - increased damage from 1 to 2.

  • ‘Thick Fur’ keeps your current health when saving you from a fatal strike instead of setting your health to 1.

• Totem nerfs:

  • ‘Red Rock’ gives 1 mana instead of 2.

  • ‘Skull Cap’ gives 1 card instead of 2.

  • ‘Ox Heart’: heals 2 instead of 3.

• Card buffs:

  • ‘Bug’ Fylge occasionally bites for 1 dmg, nomnom

  • ‘Branch’ Fylge can now move 1 to get into position before firing.

  • ‘Bonfire’ gives a card instantly when spawned.

  • ‘Hatchling’ no longer has Exhaust.

• Card nerfs

  • ‘Blood Sacrifice’ now gives only 1 mana and has Exhaust. 

  • ‘Devour’ draws one card less.

  • ‘Tainted Memories’ can't be reduced to 0 mana anymore.

  • ‘A Sight to Behold’ costs 1 mana instead of 0.

  • ‘Shield of Torment’ no longer draws a card on Plague.

  • ‘Focus’ costs 3 mana now instead of 2, but gives one mana back if played First.

  • ‘Crushed from Above’ has no Echo effect, and the player loses half of their current Block. The range has been increased.

  • ‘Consume Spores’ no longer causes health loss and has Exhaust.

  • ‘Catch Prey’ costs one more mana but has increased damage.

  • ‘Extract Thoughts’ costs one more mana but has increased damage.

  • ‘Fearless’ buffs only next attack this round.

• Enemy changes:

  • Elite Sunless Hollow movement reduced from 5 to 4.

  • Frost Growl’s bark now heals itself 2 instead of buffing damage.

  • Burning Voids transform into Jellyfish more rarely than into other enemies and are safer to hug

  • The Soother (mini boss) no longer gives you spirit cards.

• Overwhelmed

  • Overwhelmed level 3 in Realm of Gloomy Waters heals 9 instead of 10.

COOL NEW STUFF AND POLISH:

• Snazzy new animated border on craftable cards.

• Added mouse scroll wheel support to the draw pile screen and discard pile screen.

• Crawling Terror enters combat from above (like a ninja). Also when spawned by the elite Crawling Terror.

• New animation for Frost Sling card.

• Trunkrot’s X disappears from the map in Dead Roots if you remove the quest card.

• Monolith Death howl symbol glows when you click the stone (miniboss cave entrance in The Hidden Vale).

• New audio when getting chilled.

• New event sounds in The Hidden Vale.

• Improved the AI of the Night Leech.

• New animation for branch style attacks. (Staff of Thorns card, Thorns totem, Blood card).

• Added a passage in Dead Roots to make it easier to traverse the parts near the western grove and the nest below it. (There is one more path now to get to the nest).

• UI background boxes have been polished. 

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed soft lock bug related to Horned Menace reviving frozen enemies.

• Fixed soft lock when fleeing character (Skull Fylge) dies in ooze.

• Fixed a blocker that happened when you walked away from the Sorg arena after dying.

• Cave Painter’s marker (X) is now correctly removed from the map upon completion.

• The bridge to the Creek of Spectral Falls is now crumbled on the map after it collapsed.

• Fixed bug with the visual effects from Shattering Ground / Infected Molar not disappearing after finishing combat.

• Sorg's eyes no longer trigger “Kill” effects.

• Fixed cases of crushed Chinese font.

• Fixes to the mini boss puzzle in The Breathing Chasm.

• Fixed bug resulting in overheal from Crystalized Ox Heart totem.

• Fixed bug where the keyword info box had the wrong color in the card manager (when playing with a controller)

• Fixed bug where Burning Void would fight against you even though you revived them with the Horned Menace spirit card (very safe to hug now)

• Fixed bug where damage text was not updated with the correct damage buff number on the ‘Oppression’ card.

• Removed loot drops from Soother and Trunkrot mini bosses.

• Fixed Distorted Hollows great spirit memory sequence.

• Added more Arrow Gill to the caves of Creek of Spectral Falls so all cards of the Realm of Distorted Hollows can be crafted.

ONBOARDING AND COMMUNICATION:

• Ro will now helpfully remind players to craft cards if that is something they have forgotten to do after a few battles in a new region. 

• Additionally, after dying in one of the elite battles before a Great Spirit, Ro might hint to players to git gud get stronger and return later if she senses they need to craft more region cards. Don’t worry, she will not nag.

• The overworld map button is highlighted if not used.

• Added a dedicated controller button to open the overworld map.

• Added 'scary roar' events (ooOOoo) when entering a Great Spirit area \[to communicate increased danger/difficulty].

• Added hover feedback and blinking on the 'new cards unlocked' pop-up notification.

• Improved system for the fold-out menu

  • When new cards or totems are unlocked, players will see an exclamation point (!) on their tabs and on the fold-out main tab. They disappear after opening the correct tab.

  • Whenever there are any teardrops to spend, players will see an exclamation mark on the progression tab.

We encourage you to continuously share your feedback in the comments, reviews, and across our community channels. Your suggestions constantly help us improve your experience in the game.

Stay tuned for the upcoming updates!

~ The Outer Zone and 11 bit studios Teams

Hello Everyone!

We’ve reached the end of the year, and honestly, we cannot wait for 2026! We’ve just released Death Howl, and we’re already preparing the console launch on February 19th, along with adjustments based on your feedback. Every day, we receive so many uplifting messages from you, and it truly means a lot to us. We also encourage you to leave the reviews if you haven’t done so yet!

Today, let’s take a moment to revisit where it all started, with our first Announcement Trailer at the beginning of the year and the debut of the demo in January:

At that stage, the game was already in a playable state, with most of the writing and artwork completed. As we mentioned earlier, Death Howl was created by a small team of just three of us in Copenhagen. The growing number of wishlists motivated us to push forward and refine the game as much as possible before launch.

Below, you’ll find some of the earliest sketches of ours, which eventually transformed into the pixel art featured in the game. We still keep this notebook safe, and I’m sure it will remain with us for a long time as a reminder of this beautiful journey, haha!

Later, we participated in the 2025 edition of our friends’ 11 bit studios Hands-On Event, where we met wonderful people and shared more insights about the development process of our game. Journalists and creators had the opportunity to play Death Howl on both PC and Steam Deck, and gave us a lot of valuable feedback that made us excited to develop the game further. We also invited Darkher band, who made music for our Announcement Trailer, and wow, what a show they did!:

@Darkher

Afterward, we continued refining the balance and improving the demo even further. We launched closed playtests and offered over 20 hours of content for players to explore. The amount of encouraging feedback we received made us incredibly happy, and it strengthened our determination to deliver the best possible experience at release.

And here we are now. Death Howl is out on Steam with an amazing 90% Positive rating and a growing number of reviews, I'm hoping you can help us out with! It is also verified on Steam Deck, and will be launching on consoles on February 19th.

If you haven’t tried Death Howl yet, you can grab it with a 10% launch discount until January 3rd on Steam. It’s a great chance to enjoy something new during the Holidays.

Thank you so much for everything. What keeps us working, improving, and growing is you, the players, and the entire community.

We wish you all the best in 2026.

Stay tuned and see you next year!

~ The Outer Zone and 11 bit studios Teams