Hey Survivors!
After nine months of continuous development and updates, we’ve just released one of our biggest updates yet!
This update introduces Skills, a new progression system called the Junkyard, character unlocks, hybrid aiming, new weapons, new items, new enemies, additional combat mechanics, major UI improvements, support for 33 languages, and much more.
⚙️ New Gameplay Features
Skills
Players can now select one Skill before starting each run.
Skills can be activated using the right mouse button, with custom key remapping planned for a future update.
The demo currently includes five Skills, ranging from offensive to support abilities, with more coming in future updates.
Starting Items
Players can now choose an item to start each run with.
Gameplay Mechanics
Hybrid Aiming: weapons aim and fire automatically by default, but players can hold the left mouse button to aim manually.
Dash Aiming: Players can manually aim the direction of their dash by holding the left mouse button.
New Victory Condition: starting on Chaos difficulty, taking damage causes players to drop Zippy. If the wave ends while the player is not holding Zippy, the run is lost.
Carrying Zippy reduces the player’s movement speed. After dropping him, the player gains a temporary +10 Speed bonus.
Enemy projectiles can now block attacks from ranged weapons.
After losing a wave, players can retry it. The number of retries available depends on the selected difficulty.
Players can now return to the main menu and later continue their run from the last wave they reached.
Runs now consist of 20 waves, with new timings and pacing designed to increase the difficulty progressively throughout each run.
🏆 Game Progression
Unlockables
Players can unlock characters, items, weapons, Skills, and other content by winning runs with different characters, completing challenges, and progressing through the Junkyard.
Junkyard
Progression System: weapons, items, and Skills unlocked in the Junkyard become available for selection before starting a run, can appear in the shop between waves, and can be used with any character.
🖥️ UI, HUD & Settings
Weapon Reordering: weapons can now be moved and rearranged directly in the shop.
Weapon Combining: weapons can now be combined in the shop by clicking and dragging one weapon onto another identical weapon of the same tier.
Tooltips have been added throughout the UI.
The HUD has been centered to make the character’s HP easier to see.
A Camera Shake option has been added to the Settings menu.
An FPS Counter option has been added to the Settings menu.
Various overlay and color feedback improvements have been added.
💀 Enemies & Drops
Dash Attack Indicators: enemies that perform dash attacks now display a ground indicator showing the direction and path of the attack.
New enemy types have been added to the game.
Enemy behavior and decision-making have been improved.
Enemies can now drop Gold Coins, along with Runes of different values and rarities.
Defeating Elite enemies now rewards players with a chest containing a Mythic item and a Superior Rune. Superior Runes can be exchanged for items, weapons, or Skills in the Junkyard.
🏹 New Combat Mechanics
Some weapons, items, and Skills can now deal damage over time through effects such as Burn and Poison.
Slow, Stun, Confusion, and Fear have been added to the game. Certain weapons, items, and Skills can now trigger these effects.
Certain weapons, items, and Skills can now knock enemies back.
Enemies now have different resistance levels to Knockback and status effects.
⚖️ Balance Adjustments
Character abilities and mechanics have been reworked, adjusted, and rebalanced.
All items and weapons have been fully reworked and rebalanced.
The drop rates of Runes, healing items, Gold Coins, and other collectibles have been rebalanced.
Various balance adjustments have been made across the game.
✨ Visuals, Audio & Performance
General VFX quality and timing have been improved.
Various sound effects have been adjusted and refined.
Colors and overall visual presentation have been improved across multiple maps.
Vertex Animation Textures (VAT) have been implemented to improve performance and allow more enemies to appear on screen at once.
🌍 Localization
Support for 33 languages has been added to the game.
Multiple translations have been reviewed, corrected, and improved across the supported languages.
⚙️ Demo Content
50 Weapons
80 Items
10 Playable Characters
5 Skills
5 Maps
2 Available Difficulty Levels
Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Helps Us Grow
With this major demo update now live, we’d love to hear what you think!
Your feedback helps us identify issues, improve balance, refine existing systems, and decide what to focus on in future updates. If you’ve played the demo, please consider leaving a Steam review and sharing your experience with us.
Even a short review can make a huge difference and help more players discover Invasion Survivors.
Thank you for playing and supporting our small team!
Boss Wave Studio