Beware and Behold, Unfortunate Souls!
It’s been a long time since the last update, but news has finally emerged from the abyssal depths of the dungeon.
It's high time to announce that INTO EVIL, the megadungeon you are still not ready for, is joining the CRITICAL REFLEX family! Together we’ll deliver the most intense and brutal experience to anyone daring to face the dangers of the underworld.
In INTO EVIL, it’s T̴̨̈́h̴̛͉e̷̦͌ ̷̡́I̷̫̐ń̵̦v̸̢̈́e̷͇͐r̷̩͋ẗ̷͈́ḛ̸̽d̵̬̆ ̵̀ͅT̶̖̈́o̵͎͋w̶̹̾e̸͎͊r̷̬͝, not the Tower of Babel you need to worry about, as such we have localized the demo into the following languages:
- English
- French
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Simplified Chinese
- Spanish
- Traditional Chinese
- Ukrainian
We recognise it’s been a long time since the last update, so we’ve made sure to make it worth your while by making this one the biggest yet. Beyond adding localisation, we’ve made adjustments to every area of the game, here are some of the key changes:
- The "leveling up" process has been revised.
- All items (and the modifiers they can acquire) have been revised and polished.
- Each unlockable character’s starting traits have been revised.
- New items have been added to the game. Go discover what they do!
Scroll down in order to study all the changes yourselves!
Progression changes:
- Consuming a Vitae flame is now more dramatic and more clearly indicates the rewards to the player.
- Branding Runes have been removed from the game.
- In their place, "Soulsear Engines" have been added - these devices allow a user to consume a Soul Point in return for one of three random traits.
- The Runes that characters can obtain have been reworked (and renamed “Essence”).
- Consuming a Vitae Flame no longer resets all cooldowns. (This is meant to simplify their effects and make them more understandable.)
- Being resurrected in multiplayer is now much more dramatic, as your bones and flesh are reconstituted by arcane power.
Character changes:
- Each unlockable character’s starting traits have been revised.
- Characters now begin with Essence traits unique to them that help grant them a more unique playstyle, as well as encapsulating their backstory.
- Unlockable characters now have an explicit “flaw” unique to them to counterbalance their increased starting abilities. Try out their new playstyles!
Gameplay changes:
- Many items have received tweaks and polish (or removed/replaced).
- New items have been added to the game. Go discover what they do!
- New item modifiers can be discovered.
- Healing Potions, and Potions of Magic are now “Vitae ampoules” and behave slightly differently.
- All other potions have been removed from the game. They are planned to be re-added in a more comprehensive “alchemy” update later in Early Access.
- Many items now have more visual variants - for example, more patterns of shields can be discovered.
- Some items are now "brittle" and degrade, then break, over time.
- You can now “struggle” while frozen to break free more quickly.
- There is a new status effect, “wet.” While its direct effects on your character are slight, its interactions with other elements are significant...
- Parry windows have been significantly tightened.
- Ammunition now persists between levels when loaded into crossbows.
- Whip yanks no longer make unaware enemies look in the wrong direction.\
- By default, you can no longer manually “unlock” when playing on a gamepad. This should prevent new players from accidentally unlocking themselves when getting used to the controls. (An option to revert to prior behavior is in Options > Gameplay.)
HUD Changes:
- Runes now display more holistic information in the Character Menu, detailing both their background and the exact changes they add to your character.
- Changes in Vigor and Vitality are more clearly indicated.
- When displaying the Armor of an item or ability, the HUD displays an armor icon next to the stat changes to make this more clear.
- Armor stats now are more clear when comparing the difference between the armor you are examining and the currently-equipped item you would be replacing.
- There is now a "Defenses" page on the Character Menu.
- Fixed a bug where the dialogue overlay would scale poorly in multiplayer.
- The look and feel of the HUD has been refined.
- You are no longer able to bring up the Character Menu or pause the game mid-dialogue.
- During multiplayer, players are no longer able to have clashing Character Menus displayed simultaneously.
- All item icons have been reworked.
- You can now change the cursor to a higher-contrast red if the simple white version is insufficiently visible.
- The game now displays an explanatory alert when a controller has “suppressed” keyboard input.
- Due to needing to support a broader range of characters for various languages, the “header” font in the UI has been changed.
Other changes:
- The pathfinding library has been updated to the latest version.
- Graphics jobs have been enabled (which should improve performance on Steam Deck).
- Sprites atlases have been created to improve batching at runtime (which should improve performance on Steam Deck).
- Unity has been updated to version 2022.3.32f1.
- Fixed some visual bugs in the prologue.
- Prisoner torture chairs no longer appear in narrow hallways.
- Fixed a bug where objects were placed too close to each other and protruded past the edge of walls.
- All references to acid damage have been changed to refer to psychic damage.
- The game’s build date is now visible in the Options menu. (Please reference when filing a bug!)
- You can now reset the game’s playthrough state in the Options menu (while leaving conventional settings intact).
Lastly, join the Critical Reflex Publisher Page and Discord to stay updated and connected with your allies.
We will keep an eye on you.