Today, I’m delighted to release the Ascension Update!!
Ever since Reality Break launched in February, players have suggested dozens of cool ideas that I have wished to include if given the opportunity, including new progression systems as well as expansions to existing gameplay mechanics. I have already included a few of those in the two Patches and ten Hotfixes released so far. But now, thanks to all of your support for Reality Break, many more of those wishes have become reality!
In the Ascension Update, you'll find a True Ending progression path that unlocks the all new Ultimate item tier, a system for Endless Progression, unique new Rewrite types, the ability to Preserve more unlocks across Profile Breaks, and much more! See below for more details.
But first...
I am also thrilled to announce today that @sarahelementgames has joined forces with me at Element Games! She is a brilliant, insightful game dev who has helped a ton with this update as well as helping me with the game's launch this past February, and I can't wait to see what we can accomplish together. After 11+ years of solo indie dev, it will be a nice change of pace... not to mention how incredible it will be to work on games with her!!
Features
Here's a partial list of what you can expect in this update:
New Progression Path
Once you've achieved the game's True Ending, a new Talent progression path becomes available in the Reality Stream. This uses a new currency and enables some of the most powerful upgrades the game has seen!
Ultimate Items
Some items cannot be found. They must be created. In the Ascension Update, you will be able to break the limitations of item rarity itself!
Endless Progression
Unlock the option to continue increasing your Tier bonuses directly... and permanently.
And Lots More!
Preserve your Specialist Upgrades across Breaks, analyze items multiple times, and occasionally Extract multiple Affix Fragments. You will also be able to challenge Bosses as often as you wish via repeatable Boss Random Missions, with a new custom Boss Health UI!
Ongoing Updates
This update represents the continuation of my incorporating player feedback in shaping where I take the game. As before, I will hotfix issues as they come up.
Daily Deal! Special Bundles! More Cool Games!
In celebration of the update, starting at 10AM PST on 7/28/2025 we're running a Daily Deal with our highest ever discount of 20%. Not only that, we've also teamed up with a few of our friends to hold a special "Four Galaxies" sci-fi extravaganza! We're bundling with three other sci-fi games that have major releases today: Star Valor with its new Base Building DLC, Astronomics with its Better Bots Update, and last but not least, Star Vortex which is launching today into Early Access! All games are available bundled with each other for extra discounts, so there's a ton of cool new stuff for you to check out!!
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Feedback
The best way to give feedback is to email me at [email protected] or to join the official Element Games discord! This is especially helpful if you encounter something that breaks the game for you or prevents progress in some way - go to your %localappdata%low\\Element Games\\Reality Break folder and email me all of your *.sav and *.log files along with a description of the issue you're experiencing. This will help me fix things much faster.
Enjoy!
Oh but, one more thing: as you can probably tell from the above, it took a lot of effort to synchronize this Four Galaxies event, months in the making for all four of us to hit this singular date! That does mean that a few things didn't quite make the deadline... but, as an extra little surprise, stay tuned for a few small goodies coming to Reality Break over the next few weeks that were scheduled for the Ascension Update ;)
That's enough from me - much love, and happy breaking! <3
~Courtney
Reality Break full version build v1.1 has gone live!
Performance
Addressed an issue with the Recursion skill effect not being cleaned up correctly, which was causing it to stack to ridiculously high spawn counts and bogging down performance after long play sessions.
Quality of Life
Implemented first pass at support for ultrawide aspect ratios, defaulting UI elements on the left and right sides to the edges of the game window. (Courtney's note: The previous behavior that placed the main ingame UI in a virtual 16:9 rectangle can be restored in the Options dialog for those players who requested it)
Implemented Story Dialogue Auto-Skip option, allowing you to choose whether it automatically skips all dialogue or only fast forwards what you've previously seen.
Show confirmation dialog when resetting a Subtalent in the Reality Stream.
Display a more prominent centered flyout visual when completing a mission and gaining its rewards.
Loot drops are now spawned into the world more quickly, speeding up gameplay when destroying elites, warships, and other difficult enemies that drop many items at once. You can adjust this in GameSettings.xml via WorldDropSpawnIntervalSeconds and WorldDropMaxSpawnsPerUpdate.
Duluh'a now drops her loot near your ship and does it much sooner instead of waiting 9 seconds for full despawn.
The Storage dialog UI now slides over to the side anytime the Rewrite dialog is visible.
Item tooltips now always show the item's sell value.
Moved the colossus interior map from Colossus Demolition side missions into Excursion, Elimination, and Salvage.
Content
Added new Talent progression tier, available when the game's True Ending has been achieved.
Added new Ultimate item rarity. Ultimate items are created in a unique way, described when you unlock this feature ingame.
Added Boss Side Missions. (Courtney's note: Renamed the Demolition mission type to Disruption, since Demolition is now the broader category of boss takedown missions)
Implemented the Bonus Resources rewrite type for treasure crates. (Courtney's note: yay Calcium!)
Balance
Improved the Precision Guide talent to grant a flat bonus to crit chance instead of boosting the current crit chance by a percentage.
Increased the chance that treasure crates are rewritable.
Prevented Affix Value rewrites from generating for defined item guaranteed affixes. (Courtney's note: this created outlandish balance problems, much like when other affix rewrite types could hit them)
Increased Reality Point gain from equipped Epic items by 100%.
Adjusted difficulty curve of Story Campaign missions as well as enemy power scaling from Challenge Level and Omen. (Courtney's note: Patch 2's balance rework needed some TLC)
Changed the Tier 3 bonus to Fate Ward, which increases Ship Armor.
When crafting an item from a Chassis, the resulting item's rarity is no longer decreased to the lowest slotted Affix Fragment rarity.
Buffed the Concentration pilot skill from +100% to +400%.
Improved the Fate Council boss fight: they have a lower chance to use propulsion and a longer propulsion cooldown, they receive a speed and damage vulnerability debuff after using propulsion, and the game camera is zoomed out during this fight.
Improved the Fate Villain boss fight: they can now use their own Focus Ability, and have nearly complete immunity to knockback.
Improved the Expanse boss fight: destroying the outer structures now grants it a far more substantial buff that improves its Haste when spawning various adds and hazards, and its hazard spawns deal additional damage.
Adjusted Uncatalogued Space boss: reduced the strength of the damage vulnerability debuff when its panels are destroyed.
Polish
Added unique UI for visualizing Boss health and shields.
Improved tooltip scaling at high resolutions so they aren't so tiny.
Modding
Mission specs (such as Elimination, which corresponds to specific missions) are no longer hard-coded, and can be used by multiple CMissionProto XML definitions.
Bug fixes
fixed tiny scale for Choose Aptitude dialog and various other UIs at very high resolutions
fixed Aggression Boon talent not displaying percentages correctly
fixed tooltips not being constrained by the top edge of the game window or screen
fixed side missions sometimes rolling higher rarity than intended
fixed some random missions still defaulting to the current Omen level when generated
fixed various talent and tier fx not getting cleaned up when closing and reopening Reality Stream
fixed default binding for Reset Talent being the same as the binding for Cycle Tier
fixed Accumulated Brilliance talent multiplier applying twice when Breaking a profile
fixed Scionic Boom talent bonus not displaying in Break Profile tooltip
fixed Nexus capital ship only having a warship-sized health pool
fixed rewriting Unique Mod Value not propagating to Unique Mod Type rewrite on the same item
fixed various affix rewrites, such as weapon damage benefit and pilot skill benefit, not scaling up when the item's rarity was rewritten
fixed Damage Flyouts radio buttons not initializing properly in Options dialog
fixed Through The Looking Glass clone not having extra drone equip slots
fixed various unique items no longer working properly after swapping loadouts
fixed Chaos Vortex lightning fx and prologue explosion fx not despawning properly on scene transition
fixed mission objective flyout showing Next Objective section before showing the next objective
fixed certain mechanics, such as the Home Turf unique affix, not getting cleared properly when out of range
fixed Fate Council not being able to use their Secondary Weapons