Fellow explorers,

Since launch, we’ve been reading a wide range of player feedback about Causal Loop, including discussions around how the game’s narrative pacing interacts with exploration and puzzle solving.

Causal Loop was always built as a narrative-driven puzzle adventure, with dialogue, character development, cinematics, and environmental storytelling as part of its core.

That being said, we’ve heard from some of you who prefer a more gameplay-focused experience with fewer narrative interruptions while you’re solving puzzles and exploring Tor Ulsat.

That’s why, with Update 1.0.5, we’re adding new ways to play the game so you can better choose what fits you best.

Starting a new game on a fresh save slot will now bring up a Mode Selection screen, where you can choose between the full narrative experience, a more streamlined narrative experience that keeps the focus tighter on gameplay flow, or a pure gameplay mode for repeat playthroughs, achievements, or speedrunning.

This took us a bit longer than planned because we didn’t want to just rush this. We wanted the different modes to still feel like Causal Loop, just tuned for different ways of playing.

We’ve also expanded the gameplay options so you can fine-tune things further at any point, no matter which mode you picked, continuing to build on the flexibility of options in the game many of you have already come to appreciate.

Whether you’re here for the story, the atmosphere, the puzzles, or all of it together, you’re welcome in Causal Loop and we hope you’ll enjoy exploring the new options.

Full patch notes below:

• A new Mode Selection screen has been added when starting a new game on a fresh save slot.

  Complete Narrative

  The original experience, featuring all dialogue, cutscenes, and story events.

  Streamlined Narrative

  A curated experience designed to keep a stronger focus on exploration and puzzle solving. Some Narrative elements such as dialogue, cutscenes, and certain events are significantly reduced, with no direct guidance during puzzles and exploration.

  Gameplay Only

  This mode was previously available via the “Skip Story Events” option in Gameplay Settings, but is now also selectable at the start of a new game. It is not recommended for first-time players, as it removes all story dialogues, cutscenes, and narrative events and is mainly intended for replaying, achievements, or speedrunning.

• The “Automatic Exit Vector” option has been renamed to “Goal Hints” to better reflect its function

• HDR brightness behavior has been corrected. Brightness settings are now disabled when HDR is active, as they have no effect in this mode

• Fixed an issue where the key charged throw audio could persist after the key was placed or removed

• Fixed an issue where audio ducking for music and sound effects would not properly reset in certain situations

• Fixed a rare issue with the player arm animation in Phase Rifts

• Adjusted scan range for the first Gateway in Chapter I to match tutorial guidance

• Improved consistency of keys interacting with antigravity streams at certain throw angles

• Improved reliability of Antigravity Lift behavior at start and end positions

• Various collision fixes across multiple chapters

• Various fixes for inconsistent emissive and shadow casting behavior across multiple chapters

• Additional gameplay stability improvements and fixes

Thank you for your continued feedback and support. We really appreciate it!

-Kai & The Mirebound Team

Fellow explorers,

We’re planning a special livestream on our Discord server to showcase a very early in-development alpha build of Causal Loop.

The build we’ll be showing is roughly three years old and comes from a much earlier stage of development, long before the final structure, visuals, pacing, and many of the gameplay systems had fully taken shape. A lot of what you’ll see is unfinished, experimental, placeholder-heavy, and in some cases completely different from what eventually made it into the final experience.

We’ll also talk a bit about the overall development journey of Causal Loop, how certain mechanics changed over time, as well as some of the challenges we faced while building the game.

The livestream will take place on:

Saturday, May 9th, 2026 - 10:30 PM CEST

Other time zones:
• Los Angeles (PDT): 1:30 PM
• New York (EDT): 4:30 PM
• London (BST): 9:30 PM
• Tokyo (JST): 5:30 AM (May 10th)
• Sydney (AEST): 6:30 AM (May 10th)

If you’d like to join us for the showcase, discussions, and future community events, make sure to join our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/zcPCGRmMYt?event=1501011710557950053

We hope to see you there!

-Kai & The Mirebound Team