EDIT 2020-07-28: We released a new hotfix today with more bug fixes; for full patch notes please see this post!
Hey there Gungeoneers,
We have been hard at work on some fairly major changes to Exit the Gungeon based on your feedback. The gun-switching based on combo level (or “Blessed” runs) proved to be fairly divisive, and while we know we cannot please everyone, we believe that we owed it to the game and to you to try and reconcile that division. We hope that we have come up with a path forward that makes the game better for all players, including those who liked the “Blessed” run system. We are calling this collection of changes “Hello to Arms.”
Arsenal Mode
The player’s starting gun will continue to function as it does now; ever-changing based on combo, with infinite ammo. However, the player will also be able to acquire ”un-blessed” weapons, from chests or shops, with finite but refillable ammo, that they can bank and switch to and from at any time. You are able to see your Blessed weapon at all times, so you can switch back to it if it takes the form of something you like, and back to a banked weapon when desired. Gun switching includes both a quick-switch and a slow-motion gun selection, similar to how we did it in Enter the Gungeon.
The new gun mode, which we are calling Arsenal Mode, is optional and can be toggled on and off. In the final update we will also add a number of guns and items from Enter the Gungeon, including some ammo-related items that will only be relevant in Arsenal mode, but these are not included in this beta.
Hub Rooms
The other, very related, complaint that we have seen often in reviews and feedback submissions, is a disappointment in the amount of player choice, and specifically the lack of choice in where the player can go. We are testing a new level flow that will give the player more choices as to when they buy something, which type and how many rooms to go into. An added benefit of this is that players will get to meet the various NPC’s of the Gungeon more often, as we won’t be limited to only one non-shop room per level.
The Beta
Hopefully these new features result in a more fun game for everyone. We really hope you enjoy them.
Having said all of that, these are major changes and while we have done our best to balance and debug them thus far, we want to make sure that they are very solid before we unleash them upon every Exit the Gungeon player. Because of this, we have opened up a beta branch on Steam for those of you who are interested to try it out, right now. An important note: this beta does not include everything we will be releasing with Hello to Arms, but it does include the biggest, systemic changes that require the most testing.
You can access it by right-clicking on Exit the Gungeon in your Steam Library, and going to Properties. Then click the “Betas” tab. From there, use the drop-down to choose the beta branch titled “HelloToArmsBeta.” Close the window and XTG should start auto-updating on Steam (if you have that turned on). When it is done, run the game and check it out.
For those of you brave/eager/curious enough to try this, please understand that this is a “beta” in the truest sense, and we need help hammering out bugs and integrating feedback so that everyone else can have the best experience possible when it goes live for all players. To that end please use the feedback submission form accessible at https://support.exitthegungeon.com to submit any oddities or feedback and please call out that you are using the beta in the version, or somewhere else in the submission.
Also, some of the related text may not be fully localized yet, but we are working on it. On a related note, this entire post had to be written in advance so that we could have it localized, so there may be some minor changes to implementation that have happened since writing this as a draft.
I think that is it for now. We will get back to work!
Cheers
Dodge Roll
(For detailed patch notes, please see this post!)