Preyers, welcome - this week it’s time to have a look at yet another feature of the game receiving a fresh coat of paint: Gnosis. Adrian will guide you through what is changing and how it will affect your experience with the game, and then let’s talk the release date.
Gnosis Update
Gnosis is one of Witchfire’s unique features. However weird that sounds, it’s a mix of Bloodborne’s Insight, metroidvania mechanics, and dynamic difficulty.
Wait, what?
Well, the higher your Gnosis, the more areas you can unlock, the more hidden things you can see, and the tastier spoils become yours. On the other hand, the witch starts respecting you more, making things more difficult.
Gnosis is separate from your Level – which technically we call Ascension, but that’s not important here – which governs stats like HP, Stamina, Resistance to Madness, etc. Think of it this way: if you were a footballer, your Level would determine how fast you run or how well you kick the ball. Your Gnosis, however, would determine your deep understanding of the game, like knowing how to position yourself or exploiting a goalkeeper’s weakness.
Can you finish the game by just leveling up, without increasing Gnosis? No, you cannot. It’s expected that you’ll possess the highest esoteric understanding to even reach the witch’s lair, let alone face her.
However, it’s 100% your choice when to increase your Gnosis level. You can go as fast or as slow as you want. And when you feel ready, just open the Gnosis book and…
What are we changing about Gnosis with the Webgrave update?
Nothing related to the core idea. The Gnosis feature just works.
However, we are updating two things.
First, let’s talk difficulty. Bear with me for a second, as things are about to get complicated.
Originally, we imagined the final game would have ten Gnosis levels: two for each of the five major regions. But the game already has three such regions and only four Gnosis levels instead of six… and it seems fine? It didn’t feel like we needed more. Of course, you never know until you test it, so be aware that things might change in the future.
Also, these existing four Gnosis levels do not mean that – assuming we eventually have ten levels – reaching Gnosis IV puts you at about 40% of the final difficulty. No, we made Gnosis IV feel like a very late-game difficulty to ensure you’re sufficiently challenged. I’d say it’s equivalent to about Gnosis VIII in the full ten-level scenario.
With all that in mind, in the Webgrave update, we’re adding two more Gnosis levels and rebalancing the difficulty across all levels again. Long story short, the new Gnosis VI will feel roughly like the old Gnosis IV, perhaps with a slight difficulty bump.
Does this mean veteran players, for whom the current Gnosis IV is a piece of cake, won’t find any challenge in the Webgrave update?
Nah.
See, challenge isn’t just “enemies have more HP and hit harder.” Challenge is also the unknown. And the town is… something else. I’ll leave it at that to avoid spoilers. Rest assured, before you figure out how to deal with these new threats, the Velmorne town will not be a walk in the park even for the most hardened preyers.
Second, we’ve changed some Gnosis level-up objectives, added new ones, and redesigned parts of the UI. It’s more celebratory and informative now.
Back to you, Spajk.
Webgrave Release Date
By now it’s quite evident that Webgrave is bringing a huge amount of new stuff to the table - we know that “the biggest update yet” is often overused and abused, but we really mean it. And there is even more stuff coming next week, but let’s just leave it at this teaser and concentrate on the important stuff: guns.
Gearpacks have been accompanying the updates for a while now and today we’re ready to reveal yet another piece of the puzzle: a new lever-action rifle, Nemesis. A weapon for those who love the thrill of the hunt.
It will join Oracle in the upcoming expansion of the armory. And there is a very good chance it won’t be the latest addition to the collection of boomsticks when Webgrave will be made available to you all on the 28th of July.
… Oh, hang on, did I just spill the beans on the launch of the update?
Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. Let’s make it official:
WEBGRAVE - JULY 28TH 2025
There, this seems like a more appropriate way to reveal the date.
And do not for one second think that it means we’re done - while the list of what’s coming has been revealed for the past few weeks, we still have more to share and we will be doing so over two upcoming Wednesdays. This update will really be packed and while you already can get a sense of how much it’s going to change the face of the game, it’s all part of the major plan.
Which should not come as a surprise, after all, we’re in Early Access and Witchfire is constantly evolving - a while ago, back in May, I mentioned on Twitter that the compilation number is based on how many changes there have been made behind the scenes. The build most of you have access to is 59896. As of the moment of writing, we’ve screamed past the 62555 mark.
We have 19 days until the launch of Webgrave, and more often than not, that means commits are going to come hard and fast, almost in rapid fire mode. So, 62555 is where we sit on the 9th of July. Keep that number in mind and when the update drops on the 28th, see by how much the number has changed - I am not willing to bet all of my hair that we will breach the 62750 mark, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we did.
And since we’re done with the announcements for this week, it’s time to open the broad sheets of chatter and indulge ourselves between the pages of this week’s issue of
Hermitorium Archives
It’s all about balance
In one of the previous posts we highlighted a reddit topic in which you could express why you dropped the game - the topic itself hasn’t been ignored and it was a subject of discussion inside the studio, with the feedback really having a potential to influence the future of the game and its shape. This week the pendulum was swung the other way (by the same user, no less - thanks Vortigon123) and you were discussing what you really liked about the game. Some things deserve being turned up to 11, we like going over the top from time to time, so… You know, let us know - maybe the stars will align and you will get what you wish for.
Click here to visit the thread.
Learn your mushrooms and mind your surroundings
In Poland we have a sarcastic saying “Akcja wartka jak na grzybobraniu” (literally “The turn of events is as dynamic as if we’re gathering mushrooms”). I think we could drop the sarcasm for now or, like, you know, at least mind the surroundings a bit more.
(due to the inability of Steam client to handle external video, I'm afraid you have to watch this one on our website - hit this link to go there)
At least we can be certain that eating this mushroom could prove rather damaging to one's health..
Thanks to Weathertop for submitting the video to our Discord!
Other languages
This is becoming more and more of a common sight and - make no mistake - it’s fantastic, we’re happy to see that you find Witchfire worthy of endorsing to your friends who are not as versed in English as you are. We know that the translations are important, but we need them done well - we have secured resources and cooperations required to make that happen, some of the work is already happening.
That said, we’re not one of these huge studios, with 250 people on board, a huge publisher behind them, and infinite money cheat set to “very enabled”. Paying top dollar to properly (and I mean properly - cultural context, all the nuances, etc.) translate a segment of the game to X languages only to decide later in development that the said segment is not going to be included in the game due to whatever reason would be an unwise investment. And we made it clear that we’re doing what we can not to waste time and money.
So, to put this subject to bed for a while - translating the game is one of our top priorities and we remain committed to doing it right and doing the target languages (list is TBA) and their native speakers justice. Growing up in the time and place we’ve grown up, we know the value of a good translation and we know it can make or break a product - I think to a surprise of no one, we’d rather have Witchfire succeed.
We will keep you posted on the progress.
That’s it for this now - we’ll bring you more news from the world of Witchfire next week, please stay tuned and see you around!