New Content: 20 New Artifacts
A total of 20 new Artifacts have been added: 10 Legendary Artifacts and 10 Normal Artifacts. Each Legendary Artifact also comes with five elemental Engravings and an Ascend Effect.
These Artifacts are designed to open up builds that work differently from those already available. Several use less commonly utilized actions, such as Awaken, Special Attacks, Tactical Attacks, and Counterattacks, as their activation conditions. Others convert resource flows such as steps taken, Blood Shards spent, and Weapon Chimes acquired into damage.
Element | Legendary Artifact | How It Works |
|---|---|---|
Wind | Oar of Sondol | On Awaken, summons a Tempest Wheel that pulls in enemies across a wide area and deals damage based on the distance they are pulled. |
Wind | Edict of the Hidden Target | Special Attacks drive in a Blood Stake and connect it to the caster with a Blood Thread. When the thread snaps, it releases a Blood Gale that knocks enemies back. |
Fire | Hungry Brazier | Each step consumes Blood Shards to plant a Fire Lotus. The lotus blooms and explodes, then restores the Blood Shards spent. |
Fire | Golden Bangle of Jigwi | Tactical Attacks summon a Fiery Heart. Striking the heart with a Spell releases an expanding Fire Ring. |
Earth | Tread of Buddha | Every ten steps, a Sacred Tread slams down at the caster’s position. |
Earth | Arrow Rain of SoByeol | On Awaken, drops a massive Boulder that splits twice, continuing to deal damage as it breaks apart. |
Lightning | Bronze Seal | Each Weapon Chime gained imbues the corresponding skill with lightning, adding bonus Lightning damage to that skill. |
Lightning | Thunder Axe | Heavenly punishment strikes whenever an enemy is afflicted with a debuff. |
Frost | Requiem Jijeon | During Awaken, reduces the attack speed and movement speed of nearby enemies every 0.5 seconds. The effect stacks. |
Frost | Shield of the Black Tortoise | The Aura of the Black Tortoise surrounds the caster and grants a Barrier. |
The five new elemental rings are the Crimson Jewel Ring, Amber Ring, Agate Ring, Jade Ring, and Coral Ring.
Five additional Normal Artifacts have also been added: Straw Shoes of the Sprint, Patchwork Pouch, Satba of the Champion, Hammer of the Blacksmith, and Portable Whetstone.
The rings increase their respective elemental damage based on resource consumption. The other five Artifacts each enhance a different aspect of a build, including movement speed, summoned units, maximum Health, Tactical Attacks, and Special Attacks.
The new Artifacts also include dedicated icons, visual effects, sound effects, and new dialogue from the Fiends.
Changes: Redesigned Status Screen
The Status screen has been completely redesigned, making it easier to see everything currently affecting your character at a glance.
Your active Weapon Attunement and difficulty modifiers are now displayed on the Status screen.
While inspecting an Artifact, elements that synergize with that Artifact are highlighted on the Status screen.
Duration and stack display rules for HUD slots have been standardized.
Quality-of-Life Improvements
Artifact tooltips can now display up to five pieces of additional information.
Tooltips have been added to the Artifact Engraving screen.
Top tabs have been added to the main popups in the Temple of the Forbidden Seal, including the Weapon, Seal Level, and Chapter Map screens. You can now move between these menus without closing the current screen.
The left-side menu can now be accessed more quickly between stages.
The Settings menu has been reorganized, with improved controller and keyboard navigation.
A combat results report is now displayed after a defeat.
Artifacts already purchased from the shop now retain a Purchased indicator.
Controller vibration now activates in more situations.
Combat and Presentation
Walking animations now play at a speed proportional to the character’s actual movement speed.
Screen shake effects have been added to give high-impact skills a stronger sense of force.
A new enemy, the Soju Peddler, now appears in Chapter 3.
Scenario and Text
Soul Stitched Bloom has been reworked. Its guidance text has been refined, dedicated voice lines have been added, and a new scenario now explains the player’s first encounter with Blood Shards.
New Fiend dialogue related to the Legendary Artifacts has been added, including lines that only play under specific conditions.
Descriptions and keyword presentation have been improved for several Artifacts, including Bell of Hwanung, Bawling Bombshell, and Shield of the Black Tortoise.
Performance and Stability
The pooling systems used for visual effects, units, and UI elements have been comprehensively reorganized. This resolves underlying issues that caused effects to remain on screen or continue playing after their source had disappeared.
Combat calculation paths have been streamlined, reducing unnecessary calculations and memory allocations during combat.
Balance
Monster compositions have been changed across all chapters. Fewer monsters now appear at once, while individual monsters have more Health.
Two-wave encounters now appear only before Stage 3, instead of before Stage 5.
Blood Shard and Anvil Stone rewards have been adjusted to account for the reduced monster density.
Bug Fixes
Combat
Fixed an error that could occur when the character was struck during combat.
Fixed an error that could occur when certain Artifacts referencing enemy status effects targeted enemies that could not receive those effects.
Other
Fixed several additional exceptions and causes of crashes.