Fantasy Strike Patch Notes: July 2025
This patch is live now on all platforms. Developer Notes: Fantasy Strike has always been free-to-play in a wide variety of ways: online casual play, online ranked play, offline practice mode, vs. CPU mode, and with ALL characters permanently unlocked from the start, including the
This patch is live now on all platforms. Developer Notes: Fantasy Strike has always been free-to-play in a wide variety of ways: online casual play, online ranked play, offline practice mode, vs. CPU mode, and with ALL characters permanently unlocked from the start, including the two new characters we added after launch. Friend Match was always available for free as well, provided one of the two players involved was an owner of the Fantasy Strike Core Pack. Starting today, we’re lifting this restriction; the free-to-play version of Fantasy Strike will allow you to play not just online as part of the casual and ranked queues, but in Direct Challenges (Friend Matches), as well.
We appreciate all of the support we’ve gotten for Fantasy Strike over the years. If you’d like to keep supporting the game (and us!), please consider still picking up the Core or Collector’s Packs; they still come with several features like Offline vs. Mode, Arcade story mode, and the awesome roguelike Boss Rush single player modes. Here’s some helpful links to pick up those DLCs on various platforms: Steam Switch PlayStation Thanks so much for being a fan. Full patch notes below.
The Steam Fighting Games Fest is online!
We're celebrating with a whopping 70% off the Core and Collector's Packs for 
It’s time again for the Steam Autumn Sale! From November 24th until December 1st at 10am PST you can save 34% on the Core and Collector’s Packs for 
Spooky times are here again! From October 28th - November 1st you can save 34% on the 
Notice on his chest the crisp, hard lines of shading on the new version and the grainy, blurry regions of shading on the old one’s chest. Notice the highlights on the new one’s hair that makes it pop and shine, compared to flat, blah-ish shading on the old one’s hair. The new one’s face (and chest) have been re-sculpted to be more stylized too. We also extended his tattoo further onto his chest because it just looked cooler.
Rook is another example:
Rook suffered especially much from the problem of grainy, blurry boundaries between shading zones that would “swim” around when he’s in motion. That’s all gone now and his shadows and highlights look a lot more deliberate. The modeling of his vines has been greatly improved as well. As you can see above, the old vines were a bit of a mess in that they seemed to penetrate his body here and there, looked low poly in some places, and didn’t have shadow between the vines and his body. Now the fines are clearly separate from him and have pretty great shadows.
Here’s another example of Rook in his gameplay stance:
We’d also like to highlight the visual changes to Setsuki for you.
Setsuki’s hair was always a problem for us. We were never happy with the way it was modeled, but couldn’t really figure out what to do until now. As you can see, it’s a lot less “bananas” now, and more stylish. Her crazy hair colors show that she wants to have a style, so styled hair is just a better fit here.
Remember that we’ve taken the unprecedented step in the fighting game genre of making the gameplay of ALL our characters FREE in online casual matches, online ranked matches, practice mode, and 1p vs AI mode. We hope you support us by buying a costume here and there so that we know it was the right choice to take the risk of making the gameplay for all characters free.
Let’s get the summer started off right with another Steam sale! From June 24th until July 8th at 10am PST you can save 34% on the 
Happy Holidays everyone! It’s time for another Steam sale. From December 22nd until January 5th at 10am PST you can save 34% on the Core and Collector’s Packs for 
The holidays are almost here, so it’s time for the Steam Autumn Sale! From November 25th until December 1st you can save 34% on not just the Core and Collector's Packs for 
Hello everyone and happy holidays from Sirlin Games!
Be sure to check us out on the Steam Autumn Sale, but also please join our dedicated community in nominating Fantasy Strike for the Steam Game Awards' "Labor of Love" award. We've been working hard on Fantasy Strike for many years now though Early Access, our Steam/PS4/Switch launch, and now again through our free-to-play transition back in July. We're still working on making Fantasy Strike the best fighting game it can be, and we hope you're having as much fun playing the game as we're having making it.
Please go support all of your favorite games this holiday season! Enjoy the sale and we'll see you on the servers!
Spooky times are here again! From October 29th - November 2nd you can save 34% on the Core and Collector's Packs for 
Specifically, you can play all characters in online casual play, online ranked play, offline practice mode, and offline “single match” mode against AI…completely free.
Also we are also adding two new characters: Chancellor Quince and General Onimaru. Everyone gets these characters for free, too.
To learn more about the gameplay of these new characters, check out their character spotlight videos, narrated by our game director, David Sirlin:
First, Fantasy+ gives you access to our new replay system. We tried very hard to give this feature awesome UI and usability. You can save replays of your own games, watch replays of others, and you even get four new “channels” in our Netflix-like video screen that are all devoted to replays.
Next, every character has a special Master Costume that’s like their ultimate progression. These costumes can’t be bought in the item shop. They are only available to Fantasy+ members, and even then, only if you are level 20 or higher with that character. Fantasy+ members also get an XP boost to cross that threshold faster. (XP does not give any gameplay advantage.)
Finally, Fantasy+ members get their names in green in the game to show their support. Every time you see someone with a green name, you know they are supporting more development of the game.
To everyone who already bought the game, we want you to know that you lose nothing and you gain 2 free new characters to play. We also want you to know that for other people to have all the game modes you do, they’ll have to buy the core pack. And that our founders already have 60 additional costume colors that free-to-play players don’t have.
Give the gift of fighting games to your loved ones this holiday season! From December 19th - January 2nd you can save 34% on the Steam version of