Hey everyone,
The Closed Alpha for Fading Echo is now live on Steam and we couldn’t be more excited (and a little nervous) to finally have you in the game!
This is a very early look at what we’re building, raw in places, unfinished in others, but a major milestone in the journey toward full release. With your help, we’ll be able to pinpoint what’s working, what’s not, and what needs more love moving forward.
Below is a transparent list of known bugs, incomplete features, and other quirks you might run into.
🎬 Cutscenes
Some story moments are presented as early animated storyboard cutscenes. You’ll hear final voice acting, but there’s no music, and the visuals are rough like you’re in the booth with the actor and audio engineer watching a live sketch. These will be polished in future builds, but for now, they help carry the narrative forward.
One exchange with Rahne currently has no voiceover !
⚔️ Combat
Combat can get a little wild especially with all the fluids and effects flying around. That chaos is partially intended, but we’re still refining where the fun ends and confusion begins.
We’re especially looking for feedback on:
Combat clarity: When does it feel readable vs. overwhelming?
Tactical depth: How does the evolving endgame system feel in its current state?
Difficulty & deaths: Are deaths frustrating? Do they feel fair or unavoidable?
Known bugs affecting combat:
Falling and dying at the same time can softlock the player.
If you jump during the dying animation, you may respawn in an unnatural position.
🌍 The World
You’ll explore parts of the world that are already in solid shape, but some areas like the later zones in the Volcano, other islands, and the Bastion exterior are visually unfinished. Expect placeholder textures or blocked-out environments in those spots.
🧠 Perk Screen
Our perk system is in, but the perk screen UI is still using placeholder assets. It’ll get its visual upgrade in the next alpha build, we were just a few weeks short this time around. 😊
🎮 Controls & Controller Notes
No key remapping yet: It’s on the roadmap, but not in this build. To get the best experience, we recommend playing with a controller.
Steam Form movement: There’s a known issue where this form can automatically propel the player forward, making it feel like you’ve lost control.
Controller audio bug (PS5/Switch): Due to a known Steam issue affecting many indie games, sound may be routed to controller vibrations.
When pausing the game while haptic feedback is active, the haptics continue running.
🚧 Performance & Stability
This alpha hasn’t been fully optimized yet, so you may notice:
Performance dips in certain arenas
Crashes on lower-end hardware
Game can crash if you kill too many ennemies at the same time (it means you did a great job tho 😅)
On rare occasions, the game may crash on first launch from Steam.
➤ This issue only occurs once (and only sometimes). The game launches fine every time after the initial crash
On AMD graphics cards, some visual elements may not display correctly : One’s hair might not appear at all. We're investigating and will address this in a future update.
🙌 Help Us Make Fading Echo Better
We’re all ears, everything helps, not just the compliments (though we do like those too!). You can share your thoughts in two ways:
Thanks for your understanding and your support as we build this together.
The Fading Echo Team
🌊 Flow with us
✨ Wishlist Fading Echo
Steam | Epic Games Store | PlayStation Store | Xbox Store
💬 Join the Echoverse on Discord
And follow the adventure:
📝 Sign Up for the Alpha Playtest