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Official Announcements

Witchfire 0.9.6 Hotfix has gone live

Jul 15

HOTFIX 0.9.6 (74201)

(2026.07.15)

Removed an invalid Shadow Cube item that accidentally slipped into the Drowned Captain’s loot pool.
Tweaked the requirements for unlocking enemies in the Summoning Circle.
Increased the effectiveness of Superior Bulwark Incense by 5%.
Improved rendering performance and fixed several lighting and shadow issues across multiple locations.

We have seen the reports about the graphics settings not being applied correctly after yesterday’s update. Toggling the graphics preset a few times appears to resolve the issue, but we haven’t been able to reproduce it yet - it is, after all, a hotfix.

Witchfire

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Witchfire 0.9.6 has been deployed

Jul 14

PATCH 0.9.6 (74187)

(2026.07.14)

We tracked down another performance offender on Marshland and got rid of it to improve the experience. While we were at it, we also made a handful of other tweaks.

Performance improvements.
Localization fixes.
Marshland level boundaries improvements.
Added a missing Superior Transmutation Incense recipe to the loot pool.
Fixed a bug that stopped two Rosary Bead environmental pickups from spawning on the Marshland.
Fixed Shadow Orb requirements - Marshland enemies now correctly count towards Shadow Orb quests.

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Witchfire 0.9.5 has gone live.

Jul 8

PATCH 0.9.5 (74161)

(2026.07.08)

Improved performance of atmospheric changes when traversing between arenas, spawning enemies, and triggering calamities.
Fixed a bug that prevented the Duel event from spawning enemies on Marshland.
Duel event enemies should now stay closer to the event location.
Cricket now displays correct clip size on the inspect screen.
Hypnosis now displays correct base damage on the inspect screen.
Fixed a bug that caused Anointer to drop lower-tier loot than intended.
Fixed a bug causing the Divine Essence to not be consumed when activating a turret.
Fixed streaming issues in the Hermitorium Torment Study.

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Witchfire 0.9.4 is now live.

Jul 7

PATCH 0.9.4 (74146)

(2026.07.07)

This is - most likely - the final patch for Revelations, and quite an important one, as version 0.9.4 will represent Witchfire until 1.0 lands.

(unless a hotfix or a rollback of some features is needed, that is)

0.9.4 doesn’t just bring the usual swathe of fixes and improvements, but introduces a very meaningful change to the way weapons feel as we have tinkered with the damage fall-off. It was well-received among the testers, but we want to hear the thoughts of the wider audience as well, so please don't hesitate to let us know what you think.

We added an option to launch the game in Safe mode on Steam. Using this feature deactivates the module responsible for super sampling - it has been known to cause crashes on hardware that does not support it.

Damage drop-off rebalance:

The distance over which all weapons lose full effectiveness has been doubled (base ranges have not been changed). For example, a gun that dealt full damage at 10m range, and then steadily lost all effectiveness over the 10-14m range, now will do so over 10-18m range.
Base pellet spread of shotguns has been tightened.
Pellet spread reduction on aiming down sights and crouching has been reduced.
Recoil reduction on aiming down sights and crouching for Machine Pistols have been reduced
Maximum range gains from Arsenal have been slightly reduced across the board (10 to 15%, depending on the weapon type).

Designer notes: sharp damage drop-off with range has been a pain point for many new players as long as Witchfire has been playable. It has been implemented for multiple reasons, but as time went on, it became increasingly clear: while most people didn't mind it, people who disliked it really hated it. As with all common quality of life issues, we decided to examine it, and see if it could be resolved without compromising the core vision of the game.

We experimented and playtested a version that was less punishing, and after more deliberation and additional playtesting over our Beta branch, we decided to go forward with the rebalance. We believe this change has a positive influence on gameplay, and added an interesting strategic layer to the game. The rest of the changes in that paragraph have been introduced to keep the effectiveness of specific weapon classes relatively the same - this is meant to be mostly a quality of life/game feel change, not a difficulty change.

Keep in mind that the reasons why we initially implemented such a short damage drop off range are still there, and prolonged playtesting might prove that the tradeoffs are too severe, and we roll back the changes.

Early game levelling:

Reduced the amount of witchfire it takes to Ascend before the player hits level 30.
Increased witchfire gains multiplier on the Island of the Damned and Scarlet Coast.

Designer notes: we're balancing the levelling experience not around retention time, but player satisfaction. Level-ups are meant to be rare enough to feel earned and valuable, without feeling grindy. It seems that right now the balance is slightly off, so we'll be looking at witchfire acquisition rate through the game before 1.0. That, however, will be quite a lengthy process, so for now we decided to focus on the early game experience. This is when players have the least objectives to work towards, so gathering witchfire is in the spotlight, and early game buildcrafting opportunities don't really open up until you get a few levels under your belt.

Melee weapons:

Added a Zweihander melee weapon to the game. It has to be found to be unlocked.
Changed Sacring Bell charged attack animation - it has intentionally longer windup, to balance out the Bell's powerful Special attack.

Changes to spells:

Burning Stake:

Reduced base duration from 30 to 25 seconds

Miasma:

Increased base decay tick from 4 to 6.
Decay damage now increases every 2.5 seconds instead of every 3 seconds
Increased base duration from 20 to 30 seconds.

Changes to weapons:

Increased Nemesis ammo reserves from 65 to 88.

Traps and events:

Flytraps and Festers can now spawn in the Marshland.
Removed numerous events and traps that could spawn underwater in the Marshland.
The Mine Attractor event reward treasures are no longer cursed.

Enemies:

Lament:

Fixed Lament crying triggering at too long distance from the player.
Laments will now stop crying if they get too far from the player for too long.
Laments will only cry if they are targeting the player now.
Laments' deafening cry effect will now scale with distance from the player. Cry effect intensity is now proportionate to the distance to the player:
- Upon going out of range, the ability will be interrupted.
- Ability will not be used against foes other than the Preyer.

Spore-head:

Reduced bombardment total area and lowered the randomization of target locations.
Reduced projectiles lifetime post landing to 10s at maximum.
Fixed a bug that caused the projectiles destroyed by the player to damage the player.
Projectile explosions no longer push the player upwards.
Fixed a bug that was preventing the enemy from using melee attacks.

Concelebrant:

Concelebrants chase logic tweaked - it is now easier to avoid the skirmish.

Changes to World Corruption:

Stone Golem:

Drastically reduced the chance for Stone Golem to spawn due to World Corruption, as it was never intended to be a guaranteed encounter (in World Corruption).

Unstable rifts:

Reworked the way unstable rifts spawn; all portals should feel less crowded, rifts will spawn mostly in empty areas, with only a few reinforcing the remaining dangerous areas.
Total amount of rifts has been slightly increased.
Decreased the number of stronger unstable rifts spawning at higher World Corruption.

Spires:

Spires gained a new physical mesh, they feel way more "shootable" now.

Madness orbs:

Madness orbs have been limited to fewer arenas, in order to make room, but also to eliminate spaces where they were the sole obstacle. In the current iteration, they should have more of an additional area modifier feel, instead of disrupting the flow of play across the whole maps.

World corruption - known issues:

World Corruption Spawn Particles can sometimes show in unintended areas - we’re investigating this issue.

UI:

Letters Screen improvements:

Better layout on 16:10 screens.
Added animation when sending a letter.
The thread automatically scrolls to the bottom after sending a letter.
Added information about thread status, making it clear whether the current thread is finished or we're currently awaiting a reply from the Vatican.
Threads on the left side of the screen now display icons depicting their status.
Finished threads are now displayed at the bottom of the list. This isn't very noticeable right now, but will be more useful when more correspondence is added to the game.
Tweaked Letters appearance in the Workshop screen.

Other:

Added support for in-text icons in popups which let us display better key binding conflict message in controls settings.
Improved threads appearance on the left side of the Letters screen.
Dossier: fixed an issue with quest name overlapping other UI elements in some languages.

Audio:

Designed new sounds for the Sacring Bell.
Restored the volume slider for Dialogues in the audio settings.

Other improvements and changes:

Captain's log and scout note on Marshland got a unique camera placement, they should now look nicer.
Tweaked animation timing for Grenadier Kick ability.
Husk and Cultist overhead melee animation timing adjustments.
Performance tweaks for Iron Cross and Cursed Bell spells (backend tweaks for these spells to be less resource-hungry).
Added trail VFX to indicate Fallen Preyers' teleport location after quest ambushes
Temptations should now disappear from map instantly after being picked up.
Story texts/VO updates & corrections.
Changed the turret activation cost to 1000 Witchfire + 1 Divine essence.
Tears of whispering god has a new prompt: open instead of disarm.
Corrupted turrets HP lowered.
A new, surprise addition to World Corruption: Madness heads, which - upon detecting the player - slightly rise the Calamity meter.
Marshland mini-boss difficulty tweaks.
Turret corruption distance tweaks.
Madness orbs balancing.
Removed multiple Proximity Mine spawn points that were too close to the entry portals on Marshlands
Performance optimizations for Miasma and Frost Cone (backend improvements).
Increased the Witchfire multiplier for Witch Mountain to 200%.

Bug fixes:

Fixed the timing on the most problematic Swordsman/Buckler/Maceman/Axeman/Wretch melee attack.
Fixed Maceman lightnings possibly stripping the player of all shield charges and dealing damage on top of that, as well as tweaked its tracking.
Fixed missing recoil for weapons when they had their magazine sizes increased.
Fixed range of interaction with garden plants in the Hermitorium.
Fixed a bug that caused the enemy to freeze after killing a frozen enemy with Blessed Fire bead equipped.
Fixed Tainted Coin inventory category.
Fixed "..." interaction prompt bug.
Incense ingredients are now consumed correctly.
Fixed Zweihander consuming two charges.
Fixed Zweihander not taking into account lowered crosshair.
Fixed Soul Eater not showing soul sigils in fall off range.
Fixed a bug that caused Divine Essence to drop from mini-bosses and calamities before World Corruption becomes unlocked.
Fixed all melee weapons being visible in the background of some screens (e.g Gnosis) when the weapon is extended.
Removed the extra mini-boss from Marshland.
Various text fixes.
Fixed an incorrect RoF value displayed on Vulture's inspect screen.
Fixed exploding barrels behaviour, damage and chaining.
Fixed a bug that was causing homing projectiles to not follow Bloaters and Creepers.

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Post-Revelations - Questions, Answers & The Future

Jul 1

Preyers!

It’s been a short while since Revelations was released and the dust is slowly settling, but we’re not quite done yet as there is at least one more patch coming. Before we talk about what the future holds, let’s take a moment to talk about the update itself - it generated quite a lot of movement, we have seen the highest player count since the Early Access launch with over 4000 of you playing simultaneously, and we already know that the Revelations launch week was one of the strongest we have ever had, sales-wise. We’re not going to reveal numbers, but you can take our word for it - it was a success, and each and every one of the new players is to be thanked for that, so… thank you.

We also have to thank you for a torrent of feedback - luckily, it wasn’t as harsh as the feedback we received during the Reckoning days (although, again, the criticism back then was valid), but it was abundant nevertheless. We received over 1100 new reviews in the past 30 days - 86% of them positive, which is very heartwarming, but it also tells us that there is quite a lot of room for improvement, so we got to work.

There are core elements of the game which are being criticised quite widely in the aforementioned 14%, and these are not going to change, because, well, they are core to the game: we will not include multiplayer or co-op, we will not remove stamina, and we will not turn it into a game that plays itself. Being challenging is kind of what this game is all about - and we’re creating a game, not a toy.

That said, we’re reading you and we’re having another look at some of the most heavily criticised aspects of Witchfire, while simultaneously testing them with some of the most experienced players we know. It’s still too early to say whether the changes we’re testing as I type these words will make it into 0.9.4 - due to be released next week - but if they do, they may prove to be quite a game-changer for the Witchfire's balance. If you're curious, stay tuned and watch our usual space for patch notes[www.theastronauts.com] - we will surely mention it there.

We're also very aware of your comments about the performance - all the threads reporting performance issues are being read.

And I mean all of them.

As you may know, Witchfire is Steam Deck Verified, so the game already runs very well on a wide range of hardware and has been tested by literally hundreds of thousands of players. That’s not to say there isn’t still work to do - there absolutely is - but optimisation is something we’ve been treating seriously for a long time and we’ll continue to improve it with every patch.

When someone experiences severe performance issues, it often turns out to be something specific to that particular PC - outdated drivers, unstable overclocks, background software eating up resources, hardware instability, and so on. That doesn’t mean we assume every report falls into that category, but it’s always worth checking the basics first.

We know what the hardware distribution on Steam looks like (thanks, Steam Hardware Survey), and we also know that the percentage of people rocking GPUs capable of simulating weather patterns over Europe is… rather small. We want everyone with reasonable hardware to be able to enjoy the game.

In fact, one of us is on a personal quest to make it playable on a laptop that’s a decade old, and his findings may have an impact on Witchfire. That’s not to say we’re going to lower the system requirements, but it’s just one of the many fronts on which we’re trying to make the game better.

Marshland is quite demanding - it has a tonne of foliage, which in itself requires a lot of resources to look as good as it does, and we’re deep in the optimisation process, so the current performance profile is not final by any means. We’re really trying our best here because there is a lot on the table - the more we’re able to squeeze out now, the better your experience will be and the less optimisation work we’ll need to do for the console versions.

Yes, the console versions - they’re among the most frequently requested things across all the channels where we’re present. Last year, in one of the previous dev diaries, we mentioned that we made a new hire with consoles in mind, and his expertise has proven to be invaluable on more than one occasion. We may have also taken delivery of some devkits, but I won’t spoil anything else or talk about dates and/or target platforms - just be aware that things are very much in motion.

Things are, and have been, in motion as well when it comes to 1.0. It’s not like we’re working on patches and putting the finishing touches on 0.9, only to begin work on 1.0 once we’re done - there are a lot of things happening simultaneously. We’re not ready to talk about the launch date just yet, so, for now, “2026” remains the official statement. We know it’s vague, but we’ll give you a more precise time window once we’re ready - giving a date just for the sake of giving one wouldn’t really make sense.

In one of the earlier blog posts I wrote that 0.9 is extremely important to us - well, 1.0 trumps it in every possible way and makes it look like peanuts in comparison. It will be the culmination of almost a decade of work - making the game “shippable” is one thing, but we want to release release something that’s as close to perfect as we can. And there is the whole thing of also making sure it lives up to our own expectations is another, so, you know, no internal pressure.

We also had a bit of a rethink regarding a demo, but after discussing it we arrived at the same conclusion - it just wouldn’t make sense. We’re too small of a team to maintain one more product, so our stance remains unchanged.

One more important thing that comes up every now and then is the question of pricing - some among you were curious whether the current $40 price point (actually $32 at the moment, as we’re part of the Steam Summer Sale) will change, and the honest answer is that it remains to be seen. We may change it, we may keep it as it is and prepare some sort of special edition alongside the base game - there are some bits and bobs of extra content which neither you nor the dataminers (we’re much more cautious after the Marshland map leak) have seen yet, and it deserves to be seen, so… We will see (pun intended) how we decide to share it with you.

There’s also some controversy surrounding the fact that we may need to wipe your saves for 1.0, so let’s make things clear. We will recommend starting anew for the best experience, but we will not force anyone to do it unless there is a technical reason for it. Some of you asked what “the best experience” means, and… Witchfire is a game which is not meant to be easy (at least not from the get-go) - you’re playing as a reformed sinner who is fuelled with aether and on a mission to kill a Witch who decimated armies before you. Waltzing onto the Island of the Damned with a level 541 character and blowing everyone to smithereens hardly spells challenge.

We managed to shield you from the need to wipe saves thus far and - hopefully - we will be able to do so again with 1.0, but there’s no guarantee of that. Development is an iterative and dynamic process - we may need (or feel the need) to redesign something so deep in the back end that your saves stop working. Such is the charm of Early Access titles: things may change. Admittedly, we’re in the Late Early Access, but it can still happen. You know what I mean.

We will share more about the future of Witchfire when the time comes. We also remain active on our social media, Steam forums, Reddit and - of course - our Discord[discord.com]. Feel free to pop in and chat with us and our growing community.

And since the community has been mentioned…

Hermitorium Archives

Quite a lot has been happening in the past two weeks - you have been very active and generated about this much (I am stretching my hands as wide as I can) content, so there is no hope in hell we can have a look at it all, but let’s have a look at a small selection of stuff.

Makes a designer smile.

Original Steam thread

Original Reddit thread

The Outskirts Vault was supposed to be included in the Reckoning Update, but we decided to delay it to make it extra polished and give it a bit of TLC on a whole new level. That’s not to say that we didn’t care about the previous ones, but we wanted this one to feel even more special (specialer?). Seems that it paid off, and that placing a puzzle (even if it is a bit crude) at the entrance was a bullseye. It was fantastic to read about your investigations and the challenge the vault itself posed. I won’t say “expect more”, but we can certainly draw conclusions from our previous experiences…

I cast Iron Cross.

Original Reddit thread

There are certain spells in the game which get used far more than others. While Winter Nail has become one of my personal favourites, Iron Cross is firmly planted in the S-tier, and this post perfectly illustrates why.

Warning system - the early days.

Original Steam thread.

Since the game is still in Early Access, there is a chance that we’ll get the warning system onto the workbench and tweak it sometime between now and 1.0 (or maybe even beyond that point), but I wanted to use this post as a pretext to show you something from the very early days of development. Here’s how it looked before all the fancy arrows and cues became a thing.

Isn’t it marvellous? Very old-school arcade racer, all that is (or rather was) missing is the enemy range indicator a'la the one from Most Wanted Anno Domini 2005. So, people who are still demanding Witchfire Karting - watch out, we may have already had some assets prepared before you were even aware of our game existence.

Look how they massacr… Oh, hang on, it’s a work in progress.

Original Steam thread.

The post is quite harsh, but the first comment is absolutely right and we’re working on bringing more life to the creature. The animations are being crafted and while they may not make it into the upcoming patch (all will be revealed here once the update drops), we recognise their absence as an immersion breaker and it won’t stay that way forever. Also, please be kind to her - she is very lost and is trying to help.

World Corruption is also a work in progress.

Original Reddit thread.

While we don’t exactly agree with the “buggy mess” part, we know that it requires work - maybe not “again” so much as continuously. We have already outlined the plan in the patch notes for 0.9.3[www.theastronauts.com], so stay tuned - it’s still evolving.

Probably the shortest Hermitorium Archives segment ever.

Original Reddit thread.

[F]

The New Key Art

Some of you already expressed your appreciation for the new key art and we have posted it to Twitter and Reddit a while ago, but we know that not everyone frequents these parts of the internet, so we’re also uploading it here for your convenience and viewing pleasure, since Dave Rapoza has done a fantastic job. We’re also adding the artwork that graced the cover of PC Gamer, because why not. Enjoy!

That’s it for now - we will surely be back with more behind the scenes and news from the Witchfire world soon.

Cheers!

Witchfire

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132

Witchfire 0.9.3 is now available.

Jun 25

EDIT:

HOTFIX 0.9.3 (73812)

(2026.06.25)

Fixed a critical visual bug on the Marshland.

Some of you spotted and reported a visual bug that made the Cathedral in the Marshland look like it had turned into an art installation - or was in the middle of becoming The Marshland Museum of Contemporary Art. We’ve just (22:45 CET) deployed a hotfix that restores it to its proper (and much less... avant-garde) state.

Thanks for reporting it!

----------------------------

Original post:

PATCH 0.9.3 (73811)

(2026.06.25)

Changes to Weapons, Spells and Gear:
Changed Corpse Eater and Heart Eater ammo reserves to be in line with other hand cannons.

Heart Eater:
Reduced weakspot lifetime to 5 seconds.
Increased weakspot damage by 15%.
Increased Mysterium III charged shot damage by 20%.
Increased the power of Mysterium III lightning strike.

Changes to The Velmorne Welcome:
Initial Velmorne map seed has been changed, dangerous arenas are further from the start now.
Watch Commander now spawns in different place, and patrols a slightly bigger area, slightly slower. It’s possible now to miss/avoid him completely instead of having to fight him at the start every time.

Changes to Marshland:
Fixed Carrier launching at the player instantly upon spawning, before the materialization is fully complete.
Nerfed Marshland arena tier mods by 200 HP.
Changed default seed to a one which fits the Marshland mood better.
Nerfed blank resistance on Marshland enemies, they should be way less bullet-spongy now.
Adjusted HP cost and physical resistances of all new non-flying enemies to compensate for the above.
Wings are now critical zones on the Marrowfly, making it far more vulnerable to shotguns.
Slightly reduced HP on both the Marrowfly and the Bloater.
Added Stag-head and Spore-head back to the default level enemy pool.
Lowered several damage abilities across Marshland enemies - from values that multiplied to a clean 100 down to uneven numbers, so players are left with a sliver of health more often.
Rebuilt preset costs in the Director to accommodate these changes, so dangerous areas will have a slightly different feel than before.
Added mushroom spawn points to Marshland.
Added Torch Turrets to Marshlands.
Removed Spriggans and Mercenaries from Marshlands enemy pool.
Increased the number of proximity mines that spawn on Marshlands.
Fixed the prompts for Marshland quest objects (they should now should fade in nicely, while player approaches and be invisible during dialogues).
Fixed a bug that could prevent traps from spawning on Marshland.
Ongoing Marshlands level polish and optimizations.
Fixed a bug that was causing Concelebrant not to re-emerge correctly in some cases.
Fixed Concelebrant health bar disappearing and boss fight music stopping in wrong moments.
Fixed Marrowfly, Stag-head and Bloater movement logic.
Bloater attack should now only trigger attack warning notifications if it poses real danger to the player.
Fixed a bug that caused a huge amount of enemies to spawn in the Marshland Cathedral.
Fixed post processes on Marshland sometimes causing it to be extremely green or black and white.

Changes to World Corruption:

While investigating why Unstable Rifts weren’t appearing at Irongate Castle, we discovered a broader issue with the World Corruption system.

Until now, each run randomly selected five World Corruptions that would scale throughout the expedition, with the selection tied to the map seed. Unfortunately, that seed binding was broken - regardless of the map seed, the World Corruption seed was always identical. As a result, the same set of World Corruptions was selected every time.

Temporary changes:

To address this while we continue working on a permanent solution:
World Corruption is no longer tied to the map seed. Even if the map seed is locked, the selected corruptions will now vary between runs.
In future updates, we plan to restore deterministic World Corruption generation while maintaining a varied and consistent difficulty progression.
We are also considering removing the current limit of five World Corruptions per run.
We’ll continue adding new World Corruptions over time and increasing the presence of existing ones as the World Corruption percentage rises.
Randomness will primarily affect where World Corruptions appear, rather than which ones appear.

World Corruption Spire changes:

We’ve also continued refining the World Corruption Spire event:
The total number of Spires has been restored to five.
They now arrive in three waves (+1, +2, +2) instead of five individual waves.
Each Spire fires a single salvo by default, gaining one additional shot for every 20% increase in World Corruption.
Their maximum firing range has been reduced to 350 meters (roughly 1-2.5 combat arenas). Previously, they could target the player from anywhere on the map.
Their accuracy has been reduced by half, doubling the area in which their shots can land around the player.
The interval between salvos has increased from 30 seconds to 120 seconds. This interval gradually decreases as World Corruption rises. Spires will also fire in tighter groups, creating longer periods of relative safety between bombardments.
All Spires now spawn within the same area to reduce unnecessary traversal.
A new tremor effect, along with a log message 10 seconds before impact, now warns you of an incoming salvo.
Approaching a Spire now causes it to summon three weak Witchfire Wretches to defend it, making destroying them a more engaging encounter.

Ammo-related changes:
Fixed a bug that caused patrols to drop twice the ammo they were supposed to. 

Designer notes: this threw off playtesting of new weapon maximum reserves, so these will be adjusted in the near future
 
Instead of always dropping ammo, Hunt enemies now have a chance to drop it, but each drop grants more ammunition. Major enemies have increased drop chance. Providence now can trigger on these drops. 
The resulting re-balance should result in around 25% decrease of ammunition granted by the Hunt.

Designer notes: Hunt ammo pickups were introducing too much noise on the battlefield, and picking up all these tiny drops of ammo was more of a chore than a satisfying looting experience. Moreover, ammunition economy was always meant to be a real concern in Witchfire, but slowly that aspect of planning disappeared as time went on. That change is a step towards making it once again something you have to think about during expeditions.

Non-level/gear-specific fixes and balance changes:
Dialogue subtitles corrections & fixes.
Moved Mesel a little bit backwards, so that she won't block player's path before Sefer's judgement.
You can now open the Profane Study at Gnosis III, instead of Gnosis V. All Torments now require at least Gnosis V to start.
Fixed an issue with Drowned Captain not spawning on Gnosis 0-3.
Fixed Statue of the Priest objective display if the player died after restoring it with the Scepter.
Fixed extra elixir slots granted by Temptation.
Electro obelisks now correctly take damage from Tribunal.
Fixed Elias’ sometimes not vanishing after picking up the Healer's Cloth in the Velmorne Vault.
Nerfed Cleansing Bell budgets (equivalent of 2 swordsmen per wave).
Fixed an issue where ship log ambush triggered every time (even if finished or when player is not there).
Fixed friendly characters (i.e. Rotten Fiend) attacking Cleansing Bells and friendly turrets.
Spire tremor added - it notifies that a spire assault is coming.
Fixed an issue which caused the inspect body objective on Marshland to autocomplete.
Added new effects to better visualize Concelebrant bossfight mechanics.
Fixed the hitbox of Buckler projectile - it will now be easier to hit.
Added a patrol spawn timeout - to fix an issue where backlog of scheduled patrols would cause a seemingly never-ending battle near itinerant portal. Now spawn of a patrol wave grants you a guaranteed 60 sec grace period until next one spawns
Fixed some gameplay events - e.g. spires and skull traps - firing during cinematics and dialogues.
Fixed Scaring Bell pickup being visible through walls in some scenarios.
Improved performance of some environment lighting transitions.
Fixed weapon swapping when using CTRL as the Crouch key.
Optimized Burning Stake spell (backend, performance tweak - does not impact its effectiveness in-game).
Fixed incorrect inventory category for garden-related items.

Witchfire

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Hotfix 0.9.2 has been deployed.

Jun 20

HOTFIX 0.9.2 (73618)

2026.06.20

Fixed an issue with interaction prompts occurring while playing on the controller.

Witchfire

602

Patch 0.9.1 is out now.

Jun 19

PATCH 0.9.1 (73613)

2026.06.19

The first patch with various fixes and balancing changes for Revelations.

Changes to Weapons, Spells and Gear

Cricket:

Increased magazine size from 20 to 30.

Designer notes: while magazine size isn't that important for Cricket due to its Mysteria, its viability as Slayer's starting gun got hit pretty hard by the decision to lock Soul Sigils behind Gnosis I. This should make it more viable, while not impacting its overall usefulness too much.

Heart Eater:

Reduced ammo reserves from 90 to 60.

Corpse Eater:

Reduced the amount of Mysterium I activations needed to reach Mysterium II from 150 to 100.
Reduced the amount of Mysterium II activations needed to reach Mysterium III from 200 to 100.

Iron Cross:

Increased base duration by 4 seconds.

Changes to patrols on Marshland

Slightly reduced the enemy budgets for marshland dangerous areas (equivalent to 1-2 less swordsmen per each).
Removed holy sister from patrol enemy list on marsh (no random majors spamming extra larvas).
Patrol strength also slightly lowered on marshland (equivalent to 1-2 less swordsmen per patrol wave).

Various fixes and balance changes

Fixed trimmed VO lines in Cain's quests.
Fixed an issue with Concelebrant's health bar being hidden for too long.
Fixed Shieldbearer health bar appearing in the Hermitorium.
Fixed Workshop mirror animation triggering twice.
Fixed Mesel invisible during dialogue when player starts the Collector's questline with Mesel absent.
Slightly increased probability of Mesel's absence.
Fixed Fallen Preyers speaking simultaneously on approach in the "Judge..." quest step.
Added missing keyboard icons to binding menu.
Changes the Stag-head lightning VFX location.
Reduced the Carrier plunge activation distance.
Reduced the Spore-head mine's health by 33%.
Increased the Spore-head mine's projectiles' activation range by 40% (to allow escaping them post-activation, as their damage radius remains the same).
Lowered the frequency of Concelebrant hiding underground.
Reduced Concelebrant's direct projectile attack speed by 25%.
Fixed a bug that caused Concelebrants tracking attack to behave incorrectly.
Added padding between Concelebrant different attacks.
Added missing torment modifiers to the random pool.
Fixed an issue with interaction prompts producing screen shake and continuous sound being played.
Fixed Sacring Bell's shockwave not working through the walls - it now does.
Fixed Koschei quest item pickup - grants the note correctly.
Visual tweaks and bugfix in the Cathedral and Belltower zones on Marshland.
Fixed text typos in item descriptions.
Updated credits.

Witchfire

753

Witchfire Revelations Update is out!

Jun 18

UPDATE 0.9.0 – The Revelations Update (73567)

2026.06.18

We’ve reached the next milestone on our way to 1.0 - Revelations is the last major content update before we focus on the final release, and it’s aptly packed. The key features of the 0.9 are:

Marshland - a brand new, giant level - the ruins of a sunken cathedral surrounded by a bog etched with forest, hiding new dangers, enemies, and secrets.
Support for 14 new languages.
Outskirts Vault - a brand new dungeon containing dangers and rewards.
Garden - a new area of the Hermitorium, in which you can relax and grow resources required for incenses.
Dialogue system - a new way to interact with NPCs, laying groundwork and narrative foundation for the full story reveal in version 1.0.
Fallen Preyers (3.0) rework - story quests revealing their past, leading to you deciding their future.
World Corruption 2.0 - a rework of the mechanic, the more bold and brash you are, the harsher the world around you becomes.
Nine new enemies.
Four new weapons.
Two new spells.
Twelve new Rosary Beads.
Two new torments.

Gameplay

Story Content, 1st batch:

The Collector: narrative introduction to the mysterious Hermitorium trader.
The Severance: narrative introduction to Fallen Preyers.
The Fallen Preyers: interact with them, fight alongside them, learn their unique stories, and decide their fate.
and yet another quest, introducing a new character.

Class Selection update:

All players start with the same class; class selection happens a bit later in the game.
Class selection is preceded by an additional event.
All class loadouts now also include Hunger.

World Corruption:

Carried out a rework of the mechanic
Added one more event, with several other being worked - to be included in the future updates.

World Corruption balancing changes (not final yet):

Altered the spawning rates for most World Corruption events to make them more consistent/interesting/fun across runs.
Madness orbs, madness influence range halved.
New type of interactable torch and other turrets are now present across the maps.
New cleansing bell event.
Temptations - new mechanic available from Gnosis III.
Locked chests can be forced open without a supply key - available from Gnosis III.
Divine intervention on cursed treasures has been dialled down.

Changes to weapons, spells and gear

Buckler:

Quickened shield lowering and parry animation.
Lowered blocking/parry cost for more powerful hits.
Increased parry stun damage and damage.
Added a small stamina cost to blocking.

Twinshade:

Rework of all mysteria:

Mysterium I: Summon the Sword when enemy is below X health (Sword deals increased damage, and always kills its target when summoned by Mysterium I)
Mysterium II: Summon the Sword and deal double damage when the enemy is stunned
Mysterium III: If the spell kills an enemy, part of the charge is refunded

Additional changes:

Lowered charge count from 3 to 2.
Shortened casting time and weapon drop speed.

Kirfane:

Added short Shock status effect to the initial lightning bolt target

Echo:

Designer notes: Echo has been a performance outlier among Witchfire weapons for a while, while also not requiring you to engage with its Mysteria to get the most bang for your buck. We tried reining its effectiveness in a bit, especially against Familiars and Faithfuls, and making it more desirable to trigger its Mysteria.

Base stun damage lowered by 20%%
Base damage: lowered by 15%
Mysterium I: Pellet explosions now deal Physical damage instead of Fire damage.
Mysterium II: greatly increased range, significantly buffed damage and stun damage. Damage type changed from Physical to Fire.

Judgement:

Charge time lowered by 0,3 sec
Charging up your shots now also increased stun damage

Tribunal:

Increased base stun damage
Increased base damage (from 135 to 160)
Increased power of the summoned lightning by 25%

Nemesis:

Improved stability (it was always meant to be an easier to use bolt action rifle)
Increased clip size from 6 to 8 bullets

Martyr:

Added new effect to Mysterium III: "Ripping out nails damages the enemy they are stuck in."

Whisper:

Lowered ammo reserves (bugfix)

Bittersweet Nightshade:

Shockwave now triggers on all damage. Mysterium III stun still only triggers below 40% health

Baleworth:

Healing orbs now drop regardless of health, but the drop chance and healing power increases the lower your health is.

Philosopher's Stone:

Instead of healing, now grants a healing elixir.
Lowered the use requirements from 3 to 2 treasures.
Increased inventory cap from 1 to 2.
Lowered Collector price from 5000 to 3000 witchfire.

Alchemy:

Recipes for new, more powerful, but also much costlier versions of existing Incenses added to the game.
Lowered the effectiveness of some of the basic Incenses.
Rebalanced recipe costs, including what and how many resources are needed.
Lowered drop chances of Charred Bone.
Charged melee attacks no longer spawn Charred Bones.
Lowered spawn chances of Angelica and Eryngium by 20%.

Other:

Streamlined the quest obtained from statues near the tower entrance on the Island of the Damned.
Added a new Gnosis level.
Added a Marshland quest.

Dialogue Screen

Designed and implemented completely new Dialogue Screen.
Modified text layout logic in order to accomplish hanging indent in Dialogue Screens.
Added two different button styles for Absolve and Condemn buttons.

Letters

Designed and implemented completely new Letters Screen.
Letters in the Workshop screen are now clickable and open the new aforementioned screen.
When there's at least one unread letter, the Workshop now displays sealed letter image.
When all the letters are read, the Workshop now displays the beginning of the last received letter contents.

Workshop

Enabled last research category -- it's called Examination and lets you send some items to Vatican for analysis.

Dossier

Designed and implemented completely new Dossier Screen.
Dossier allows you to inspect items related to quests.

Active Quests

You're now able to set any quest in Dossier as 'tracked' -- it will be then shown in Active Quests window.
Active Quests are now automatically displayed for a few seconds at the beginning of each expedition.

HUD Notifications

Reworked gameplay notifications system. They are now queued and support different types of notifications to be displayed.
Designed and implemented new types of notifications: New Quest, Quest Updated, Dossier Updated, Quest Completed.
When a new objective is added at the top-left corner of the screen, it plays a highlight animation, making it easier to spot.
Notifications visibility can now be controlled by a separate group in Gameplay -> User Interface Settings ("Gameplay & Quest Notifications").

Rosary Screen

Added transition animation when opening Rosary screen.
Added proper UI support for multiline bead descriptions.
Active beads list now correctly adjusts its size in all cases (beads with multiline descriptions, all gnosis levels, all text sizes). Resizing is smoothly animated. The cross adjusts its position as well. If cross ends up being too low, it starts to fade out from the bottom using smooth gradient.

Stats Screen

Added transition animation when opening Stats screen.

Map Screen

Added new Marshland map.
Added World Corruption meter to the Map Screen.
Added info about active Torment when World Corruption meter is displayed (Torments modify World Corruption value).
Made 'likely spoils' icons wrap into multiple lines if necessary.

Level Select ('Start New Expedition' screen)

Added Outskirts to Level Select, you no longer need to go back to the rope in order to go to Outskirts.
Added Marshland to Level Select.
Level Select's navigation bar: indicating on which levels there are some quests active (displaying quest icon under level's name).

Inspect Screen

Long properties descriptions of Spells, Relics, Fetishes, and Rings are now properly wrapped into multiple lines.
Reworked Inspect Screens to enable scrolling when the content overflows designated area.

Gnosis Screen

Set up new Gnosis level support in Gnosis Screen.
Disabled cursor when 'Gnosis increased' animation is played.

Game Intro

Removed Class Selection from Game Intro.
Disabled cursor during Game Intro.

Tutorial Popups

Tutorial popups now play their own, distinct sound on open.
Tutorial popups don't show cursor (until it's moved). This should fix the issue with distracting moving cursor in Prologue when playing the game using gamepad.

Credits

Updated credits.
Changed italics font for consistency.
Disabled cursor in credits screen.

Localization

Fixed inconsistencies in used fonts across the whole game.
Added Cyrillic font support, for both Russian and Ukrainian languages.
Set up fallback fonts to be used in Chinese, Korean and Japanese languages.
Added Turkish "i" support for correctly displaying both dotted and dotless "i" in Turkish.
Made texts in startup loading screen (i.e. Bible quotes) to be localizable.
Changed transform policy of various texts across the board to be correctly displayed in all languages, especially German.
Reworked all two-line headers used in multiple windows for consistency and proper localization support.
Increased line spacing in a few places when language is set to Chinese, Korean, or Japanese, in order to increase readability.
Removed 'More to come after Early Access' text under language setting. They have arrived now.
Fixed multiple texts which were previously not set up properly in localization system.
LOTS of changes, tweaks, and fixes (in virtually EVERY UI screen and window) of texts not fitting on the screen, being truncated, overlapping each other, or overflowing a designated space, in languages other than English.

Other

Menu tabs are now hidden until unlocked. This should make new players be less overwhelmed - tabs such as Workshop, Stats, or Rosary are not displayed at the beginning of the game.
Arcana Screen: long Charismata descriptions are now properly wrapped into multiple lines.
Changed Loading Screen layout on ultrawide screens.
Fixed an issue with Gunroom's equipment list being incorrectly positioned on ultra-wide screens.
Tweaked Vestal Flame screen behavior when changing Text Size.
Added icons support to Interaction Widget. Costs in witchfire or Divine Essence are now nicely displayed as icons.
Multiple interaction prompts are now laid out horizontally.
Fixed Player having two icons on the Mini-Map.

Audio

Improvements:

Polished the sounds for the Iron Cross spell.
Polished the sounds of the Firebreath spell.
Designed new sounds for the Vestal Flame and all the interactions associated with it.
Added a custom sound that plays when you pick up gold.
Polished the sonic aspect of some in-game transitions (when traveling from the Hermitorium to the Outskirts and from the Hermitorium to the Class Selection screen, on the 1st playthrough).
Polished the sounds for some of the World Corruption elements.
Designed new sounds for some of the Tutorial's pop-ups.

Others:

Implemented the audio portals' system in Velmorne.
Added alternative footstep sounds when the Preyer moves on water (this feature is in very early stages of development).
Imported some additional new enemy voices.
Implemented new music tracks by Mikołaj Stroiński.
Implemented new voice lines for many NPCs.

Fixes:

Solved an issue that could prevent the Mission Complete stinger from triggering.
Fixed an edge case in which in-game sounds remained audible while browsing game menus.
Removed an artifact from one of the reload assets for Midas.
Made portal sounds a bit more present in the game's mix.
Made the UI sound for "action unavailable" more prominent in the mix.

Designed sounds for the following content additions:

New available areas: Marshland, the Hermitorium's garden, and the Outskirt's Vault.
New enemies.
New weapons and spells.
New UI elements (correspondence and dialogue screens, etc.).
New gameplay elements (associated to World Corruption, the new Vault, etc.).

Bugfixes and QoL changes

Fixed some weapon pickups being visible through walls when weapon flattening was in effect.
Fixed cinematic props sometimes not being visible.
Fixed Echo third mysterium activating when stamina is exhausted.
Martyr's nails now also deal damage to enemy from which the nails are being torn out of.
Improved gameplay pausing systems when cinematics and dialogues are active.
Modified "Skip" prompt on cinematics to hide and reappear when anything is pressed.
Fixed soul sigils being possible to appear on dead enemies.
Fixed sniper rifles scopes visuals being cut off on wide screens.
Fixed sniper rifles sometimes having black scopes.
Fixed Stormball not shooting thunder strikes at non-character damageables.
Stormball spell now deals damage not only to enemies, but also to damageable objects.
Picking up 7 manifestations is not required to mark level as fully completed, clearing 7 arenas and spawning those manifestations will suffice.
Added a few safeguards in low-level gameplay systems which should prevent some (rare) crashes.
Fixed incorrect item offerings in interaction prompts on Irongate Castle.
Fixed Velmorne's mirage and vault gate requiring payment each time.
Opening menu while standing within an interaction no longer enables the player to cast spells and interact at the same time.
Fixed interaction and progression saving for tunnel mirage on Scarlet Cost.
Fixed interaction and progression saving for vault entry gate on Irongate Castle.
Fixed Irongate Castle Vault gates that were not interactable.
Killing Anointer now correctly counts towards "Irongate Castle: Kill a Faithful" Gnosis objective.
Kirfane no longer triggers from Echo's bullet explosions.
Various prompts, such as "You need higher Gnosis to see it clearly", will now be displayed in red to make them more visible.
Decay damage over time can no longer critical.
Fixed starting ammo for weapons while having ammo-modifying beads equipped.
Reduced Calamity Vortex Stabilizer health by 40%.

Strictly technical:

Added support for UI global invalidation - this should lower the base frame cost by a couple percent for everyone.
Disabled FPP flattening for the duration of cinematics.
Optimized spawning of clothing actors.
Fixed landscape LOD issue present when field of view value is set at more than 90.
Improved game assets packing - patches should be smaller and apply quicker.
Game should now pause on focus lost and when gamepad is disconnected.
Game should now start (for the first ever start on the system) in user detected language. It should also inform returning player that their system detected language is available.
Fixed graphics preset displaying in the options menu.
Fixed water disappearing when changing graphics presets too quickly.
Several improvements in binding options.
Added subtitles setting.

Witchfire

3,405

203

Road to Revelations - A Guide to the 0.9 Update

Jun 17

Preyers!

The arrival of the Revelations Update is nearly upon us - we’re planning to release it at 6 PM CET on the 18th of June, so if you’re reading this on the day of the blog post publication, it’s tomorrow. The work doesn’t stop until the very last minute, so while we’re polishing the build and making our final pre-flight checks, here’s a bite-sized summary of everything you’ll be able to experience very soon.

Marshland

The map selection screen is about to have no placeholders left - the destination on the far left is yours to explore, as soon as - as usual - you find the chart for it and reach the required Gnosis level. If you meet these conditions, you’re welcome to dip your toes in the bog, venture through the bushes and trees surrounding the ruins of a Cathedral, and try to solve the mystery of a place considered one of the Vatican’s failures.

Strange new creatures roam these lands, accompanied by monsters you already know. Your old foe, the Gravedigger, loves to hang around, as Marshland is the final resting place of many. Marrowflies, Carriers, Laments, and Bloaters are - on the other hand - nothing but words to you for now, but that will change very soon. And those of you who happen upon the new Familiar (who some players have already identified) will hopefully live to tell the tale.

Bonus: Outskirts region is now available from the map selection portal, too.

Narrative Foundations

We’re setting the stage for the story reveal in 1.0, and new pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. You’ll finally be able to interact with NPCs via the newly introduced dialogue system.

We love old-school RPGs and took our time crafting this feature, but we believe the result is an easy-to-use, comprehensive, and readable solution that pays homage to some of our favourites, such as Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, Disco Elysium, and Planescape: Torment.

It’s obviously for you to judge, but bear in mind that we will continue developing it, and the characters you encounter in Revelations are far from the full roster. We’re still keeping plenty of things in reserve for 1.0.

Fallen Preyers

But since Fallen Preyers have been mentioned - until now, they haven’t played as large a role as we’d hoped. They’ve been available as help during battles, but we know many players haven’t paid them much attention. To be honest, we mentioned in one of the earlier diaries that they are among the most underutilised features in the game. The most hardcore crowd sometimes forgets they even have a demonic weapon equipped, so a handful of characters running around isn’t exactly what they remember in the heat of battle.

We hope you’ll become more invested in them now that you’ll be interacting with them directly - not only collecting fragments of their masks, but also learning their stories, why they perished, what their sins were, and ultimately rendering judgement over them.

Will you condemn them or absolve them? Each choice will have consequences, so tread lightly.

Support for 14 New Languages

The barrier to entry has been quite high until now. While we’re crafting a difficult but fair gameplay experience, we know that one of the biggest obstacles stems from the so-called Babel Incident, after which humans found it much harder to communicate.

We recognise the efforts of the community and the various language mods created during Witchfire’s long period as an English-only game, but that changes with Revelations.

We’re adding support for 14 new languages, and we’re hoping this will broaden the game’s accessibility and appeal. We hired experts, asked for your help testing the localisation, and we’re hopeful that this expansion will bring new people to the game. The full list of newly added languages can be found in the handy image below.

New Vault

Last year we promised to bring you two new vaults. One of them has been available since December - you can enter it via the gate atop Velmorne. The second one has been MIA, but not for much longer.

The Outskirts Vault is about to open, but you won't be buying your way in. Reaching the door is a puzzle in itself, and the Vault gives up nothing to those who haven't earned the way through. Solve it, and there's plenty of shooting on the other side, with a prize that should make it worth the trouble.

The challenge has already been put through its paces by some players invited to the Revelations closed beta, and they seem to agree that it’s one of the best Witch Vaults in the game. We’re waiting to hear from more of you, so don’t hesitate to share your thoughts if you manage to conquer the dungeon.

World Corruption 2.0

This feature was supposed to be one of the main attractions of the previous update, Reckoning. Sadly, we dialled the difficulty up a bit too much and turned the game into a festival of pain.

While that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for some of you, the lion’s share of the feedback was rather damning: we had gone too far and made the game feel unfair.

Even before the release of Reckoning, we started redesigning the system, but we needed more time - and that’s exactly what we got between the previous and upcoming major patch.

We’re handing the steering wheel back to you. You decide whether you want to engage with it and enter the fight, rather than having it forced upon you. But you still need to be wary.

Your choices will shape the world around you. The more brash and loud you are, the more corruption will spread around you. Force open locked chests, pick up cursed treasures, give in to too many Temptations scattered throughout the map, or commit the final offence and get your hands on the Latent Orb, and the world will not watch idly.

We’re sure many of you will do it on purpose (much like causing Calamities or riding tornadoes in the original version of World Corruption), but this time it’s your choice.

Garden

And when it’s finally time to retreat to the safe walls of the Hermitorium, we’re giving you a chance to wind down in a new area - one that some members of our community have already correctly guessed lies behind the gate marked with the Early Access stamp.

The Garden has been built so that you may grow resources required for incenses on your own terms, rather than collecting them between expeditions. You’ll need to plant each resource in its dedicated spot and wait for it to grow, but you now have an alternative that doesn’t require you to traverse the maps.

We’ve also placed a wooden bench there for those moments when you feel like admiring the vista of the bay, with the sinister Witch Mountain visible in the distance. From the Hermitorium it looks peaceful and tranquil - a polar opposite to what lies beneath it, as those of you who’ve already been there know.

New Gearpack

To round out Revelations, we have a new set of toys for you: three new revolvers, a raygun, and two new spells.

We’ve already covered them in greater detail in this post (revolvers and spells)[www.theastronauts.com] and this post (Tempest)[www.theastronauts.com], so if you’d like to learn more before getting your hands on them, follow the links.

We also mentioned new melee weapons. We currently have three working prototypes (well, four if you count the pan), but as of this moment only one has been deemed polished enough to be worthy of inclusion in the game.

To the disappointment of some of you (sorry!), it won’t be the zweihander making its debut in Revelations, but something entirely different: a cursed bell.

Where to find it and how it works is for you to discover. And don’t worry - the other two (yes, t-w-o) are still coming. We’ll do our best to include them in future Revelations patches.

You may already know the drill: we release huge updates, then go back into our caves to continue crafting, experimenting, and building things away from your eyes.

That won’t happen immediately. First, we’ll be watching closely, reading your feedback, patching, tweaking, and improving things until we’re confident that what we’re leaving you with is worthy of your time.

Then we’ll set sail toward 1.0.

We’ve accomplished a lot, but there’s still much more to do. The future is bright, but it’s not quite here yet.

For now, enjoy Revelations. Explore the new map, investigate and judge the Fallen Preyers, conquer new challenges, fight new enemies, and tell us all about it.

Tomorrow, the next chapter begins. Buckle up and have fun!

Witchfire

1,522

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