Developer posts and news about this game.
Hey everyone! Our new Critical Shift gameplay trailer is here, and the open playtest is now live. More importantly, you can download the playtest build and start playing right now from the Critical Shift Steam page . There are no forms, keys, invitations, or approval queues. The
Hey everyone! We’re starting a new round of the Critical Shift closed beta and inviting some of the players who previously requested access through Steam. We’re starting with a smaller group for now and will gradually invite more people. If you wanted to join but didn’t receive a
Hello, friends! We hope you're doing great and enjoying your summer days. And today, we'd like to tell you a little more about our secret base. ICE-1 might surprise you. Deep under the South Pole, its underground levels hide a real garden. This recreation area was meant to give t
Hello, agents! Hope you’re doing well!) Work on the game is in full swing, but we still wanted to take a moment to share a few locations from the Critical Shift with you - from their first drafts to their current versions. This is where our game begins: the entrance to a seemingl
Hello, everyone! Last Saturday, we launched our first closed playtest. The first 100 participants are already getting access to the beta version - thank you all for such a quick response, it truly means a lot to us! If you didn’t make it into the first wave, don’t worry, we’re co
Greetings, agents! We’re preparing to start playtesting this spring, and the first step will be an early closed beta. At this stage we’d like to invite around 300 players to join the test and help us improve the game through feedback before moving on to the next beta phases. A fe
Hey everyone! Before we proceed with talking about game mechanics in future posts, today we want to talk about the story in Critical Shift and explain one important decision we made early in development. When we started building the game together with our narrative designer Guilt
Dear agents, our systems have detected new material in the Archive. It is particularly relevant given the recent events of February 14. Link: Love happens at ICHOR too, and like many things in our organization, it is unpredictable. Remember that we are all biological organisms su
Hey everyone! Heads up: today’s update is a slightly longer read behind-the-scenes story about a combat system that used to be at the heart of Critical Shift - and why we ultimately moved on from it. Early on, we were obsessed with making a tactical game that didn’t rely on the c
Hello, everyone! In this video, we want to show how Warlock - a master of totems and manipulation - came to life step by step: from the early concept, searching for shapes and details, to a fully-fledged 3D character. A lot changed along the way: proportions, mood, elements, and
Greetings, agents! In January, we took another step forward and want to share the details with you: The combat chance system has been improved (previously we used pure random, but that turned out to be too harsh on players). The first iteration of pre-battle placement has been im
Hello, agents! We decided to show you a short recording of what our out-of-control artificial intelligence is doing at the base in Antarctica! 👀 Aside from that, we wish you a pleasant day, a productive week, and no hostile and dangerous cyborgs along the way!
Hi everyone!:) For our turn-based horror game, we needed a lot of unique corpses. Making them by hand was unrealistic, so we took a different approach. We built a procedural corpse generator. How it works: take rigged models place them into poses using IK choose the damage level
Hey everyone! Today we want to share a bit of behind-the-scenes context on how Critical Shift became what it is now. Originally, we were building a story-driven tactical game. But while playtesting early prototypes, we noticed something unexpected: the exploration phase - navigat
ICHOR ARCHIVE // FILE OPENED We released the first file from the ICHOR Archive. Tombstone Gambit is an internal operational report documenting an incident that resulted in the loss of an agent and the recovery of an anomalous EXO object. The file is presented in its original arch
As a small New Year's gift, we are launching the ICHOR Archive - a collection of materials that allows you to delve deeper into the lore of the Critical Shift universe. The ICHOR Archive collects reports, documents, and records that reveal events and structures of the game world
Friends, Happy New Year!🎄 This year was truly important for us. For six years, we’ve been building this game - quietly, persistently, without shortcuts. And this year, we finally stepped into the light. Thank you for the warm welcome. For your comments, messages, discussions, fe
Hello, agents! Here’s a development update on Critical Shift. The past few weeks were challenging, but also very productive! Not without challenges We had to upgrade our Unity version after a security vulnerability was discovered. The transition triggered several build and pipeli
Hello, folks! Today we will share with you our work on maps!:) We spent several months refining one of our first levels, carefully shaping it to feel just right. Step by step, we revisited core ideas, tested different approaches, and fine-tuned numerous details along the way. Sta
Merry Christmas! ✨ On this joyous holiday, we wish you peace, harmony, and confidence in every day. May your home be filled with warmth and comfort, and may you always be surrounded by loved ones whose smiles brighten your life. May every moment of this season of miracles bring j