Hello mates! The Baron here, with news from the Warpfrog front that The Rakta Update is now available!
This is update 1 of 4 in the free series of "Byeth Updates" Warpfrog is planning, from now until the end of 2026.
If you want to read more about The Byeth Updates, what they are and what we have planned, Warpfrog did a Q&A here.
The Rakta Update focuses on the nation of Rakta, adding Raike themed content into the game, officially expanding the canon of the Blade & Sorcery universe.
Now, let's dive into what is new in the update! ːpraisesunː
New Raike Weapons
The Rakta Update brings 8 new canon Raike weapons into the base game. Thematically they are inspired by an amalgamation of East Asian real life counterparts.
Check out these renders of the new content:
These exotic weapons can be purchased at The Baron's Bounty in Crystal Hunt, or accessed freely in Sandbox mode.
It might have taken 7 years, but we did it guys - the katana is a canon part of Blade & Sorcery. ːsteamlaughcryː
Physics bases shuriken
Among the new weaponry are physics-based shuriken (including a shuriken pouch).
These shuriken will actually spin when thrown, with a little under-the-hood assistance to help ensure the blade actually sticks into the target. (annoying when you throw a weapon and it just bounces off an enemy ːsteamfacepalmː )
Dual Spell Staff
My personal favourite addition to the update: the Raike Dual Crystal Staff.
Being a highly magical warrior nation, the Raike have developed a combat staff that allows for a dual imbue; one element on each end.
This allows for some really cool and creative combinations! For example, you to have one end blasting a flamethrower spell while the other end is lashing a lightning whip.
Or, double up on the element and unleash hell!
New Raike Armour
Available in Crystal Hunt to purchase in the Baron's Bounty, or freely available in Sandbox mode, for the first time ever, a non-Eraden armour is available to wear.
The armour reflects the warrior culture of the Raike, reflecting exquisite craftsmanship, functionality, and aesthetic.
You can find the new armour under the plate section of the armour spawner.
Special Rakta Wave
Fight in Sandbox mode against Raike warriors, equipped with their Rakta attire and weapons.
Currently we have it limited to 1v1 duels, but expanding this is a real possibility in the future, if not in minor patches then possible as a bonus in the future Byeth Updates.
You can find this special 1v1 wave in under the category Special > Rakta Elite Duel.
Achievements
The Rakta Update brings 37 achievements to find and unlock.
A couple of the achievements are listed and you can see what is necessary to unlock them. These are the really obvious type achievements, like complete X in the game, or collect Y items.
However, we really, really wanted to avoid these grindy type achievements, because our vibe is that those kind of achievements always feel like they are just there to waste your time and keep you grinding hours.
So in the case that we have visible achievements, we tried to make them more landmark accomplishments (mostly relating to the end game) but mainly we opted to make most of the achievements hidden. The idea here was we wanted to make them more easter eggy, and something fun for the player to try and find in game themselves through discovery. Typically they relate to an in game secret, or are a reference to some community in-joke, so the objective is to explore the game, and see what you discover.
You can of course spoil the unlock conditions by simply revealing them on Steam, so no worries if you are a straight-up completionist type person and don't want to actually discover them for yourself.
What about Unity 6 and OpenXR?
I mentioned in an earlier preview about the Rakta Update being the time when we would update the game to Unity 6 and OpenXR - this is a purely technical decision which will help Warpfrog handle the snowballing maintenance of Blade & Sorcery across so many headsets, but players would not actually notice any difference at all.
However, the move to Unity 6 is a big one because it risks breaking all sorts of mystery things in the game, and indeed when we began the migration, we start to notice all sorts of stuff was breaking, from dungeons to VFX.
Because of the bug risks involved, we would need to do a really massive QA pass over the whole game, and given that we didn't want to delay the update release, we decided to hold off on the Unity 6 / OpenXR switch for now and we will tackle it in the coming months instead.
As said, the delay on this migration will be completely indifferent for players, except for one thing - full body tracking. OpenXR was likely to improve FBT, so this is one thing players will benefit from when the migration happens.
Modwatch: will this update break mods?
The short answer: no!
Of course you can't guarantee anything 100%, but the main concern was that Unity 6 threatened to break map mods and scripting mods. However, since we are not moving to Unity 6 right now, this is not an issue.
This update has no major code changes and we are being deliberately careful so as not to break mods if it can be helped.
That's it for now, folks! Coming down the line is likely to be some small bugfix patches, and a patch that switches the game to Unity 6 and OpenXR. Other than that, it is on to the next Byeth Update - The Sentara Update!
Cheers!
The Rakta Update - Full 1.1.0 Changelog
Features
- [New] Add Rakta Weapons
- [New] Add Rakta Armor
- [New] Add Shopkeeper Rakta Items voice lines
- [New] Add Achievements
- [New] Add Rakta 1v1 Wave.
IMPROVEMENTS
- [Improvement] Ensure video players don't drop frames
- [Improvement] Improve game mode title and description readability on the world travel map
- [Plugins] Improve Steam setting up callbacks for getting tickets
- [Plugins] Improve handling of Steam API error states
- [Plugins] Improve Mod.io error handling
- [Plugins] Reduce Mod.io logging
CHANGES
- [Change] Make the zipline return to you if you drop it
- [Change] Remove the Falchion and the Cupbending Cup from the Sandbox book
FIXES
- [Fix] Fix messages popup transparency
- [Fix] Fix tutorial dungeon sometimes not showing up on the Shop map
- [Fix] Fix Sepia grayscale not working with Hyperfocus on Nomad
- [Fix] Prevent NRE from hand overlap coroutine
- [Fix] Fix OpenVR not being stripped from platforms that don't use OpenVR
- [Fix] Fix double call back from Steam
- [Fix] Add blood content flag to slice flesh parent and slice flesh child effects
- [Fix] Fix Notes lighting issues
- [Fix] Fix missing shadows on mirror in Home and Shop
- [Fix] Add missing mesh collider to the Cliff Bridge of the Citadel
- [Fix] Fix overlapping fabric mesh in the Shop
- [Fix] Fix boat sail visual issue
- [Fix] Fix the missing physics material on the skill orb
- [Fix] Remove duplicate creature spawner point in Castle RopeTraverse
AI
- [Fix] Fix Shopkeeper not saying the Falchion and the Baron Hat easter egg lines
- [Fix] Fix for NRE if the item is despawned before the NPC can start aiming
- [Fix] Prevent NREs from BrainModuleRanged due to Throw, Bow brain modules dropping items
- [Fix] Prevent unconscious creatures sharing targets with nearby enemies
- [Fix] Fix navmesh issues on the Canyon, the DA Forge, and the DA Metal Storage
MODDING
- [Mods] Move manikin channel layers address out of ItemModuleWardrobe and into CreatureData
- [Mods] Fix golem activating player events on zones
- [Mods] Fix for NPCs not taking gravity modifiers into account when aiming
- [Mods] Fix for Note text loading
- [Mods] Remove runtime-only bool property from JSON in brains
- [Mods] Only snap creatures to the ground if they are properly grounded
- [Mods] Fix session prefab data
- [Mods] Fix skill menu not showing modded skills under certain circumstances
- [Mods] Add support for manual assembly resolving for multi DLL mods
- [Mods] Add mono cecil and use it to handle sorting assembly dependencies
- [Mods] Add condition to allow creatures to be made immune to stun
- [Mods] Add GetHandAngularVelocity method
SDK
- [SDK] Add new editor tool to setup armor items
- [SDK] Add AssetPostProcessor to ensure modders asset bundle groups get moved to Assets/Personal so they are ignored by the SDKs git repo
- [SDK] Add button to open platform export folder for each asset bundle
- [SDK] Fix GUI errors when building bundles
- [SDK] Add export mode so that modders can export directly to a folder
- [SDK] Change assetBundleGroup list to buttons to edit the groups easier
- [SDK] Fix catalog files not exporting to Nomad
- [SDK] Expand merge events for crystals
- [SDK] Add proto shield rack and proto bow rack
- [SDK] Remove Steamworks from the SDK
- [SDK] Fix menus for tools
- [SDK] Make methods in BrainModuleStance virtual
- [SDK] Improvements to making Groups in SDK
- [SDK] Move crystal shader into SDK
- [SDK] Update MOES maker and improve it to allow splitting existing mixed-channel textures, improve GUI
- [SDK] Fix Detail map toggle not working on LitMoss shader
- [SDK] Hide the set compressed button in the SDK
- [SDK] Add SDK tools to help modders switch platform + quality setting
- [SDK] Fix setting the gitignore on the SDK
- [SDK] Add new compile checker, fix compile errors
- [SDK] Add DrawGizmosCircle into common for throwspinner gizmos
- [SDK] Make Odin stubs editor only
- [SDK] Make sure onvalidate is run on the assetbundlegroup before building
- [SDK] Ensure the AssetBundleGroup folder name is never empty
- [SDK] Expose Play() method on AudioContainerPlayer
- [SDK] Add reveal shared bundle to save modders bundle size
- [SDK] Add water enter/exit events for creatures/items
- [SDK] Add offset transform field to PhysicbodyForceApplier
- [SDK] Add level load/unload events to GameEventLinker
- [SDK] Make OptionBase use name as a JSONMergeKey
- [SDK] Make boneHash a property with a backer field which is set on get
- [SDK] Add release item method to item magnet
- [SDK] Add holder filter to container saver
- [SDK] Add method to creature tool to run all ragdoll part actions
- [SDK] Add comments to discombobulate, add condition to allow creatures to be made immune
- [SDK] Make some fields on skill tree crystal public
- [SDK] Add CustomSkillData class
- [SDK] Call PhysicBodyZoneChange in force item/creature enter/exit methods
- [SDK] Add snap item and snap item silently methods for public SDK
- [SDK] Expose methods in ItemMagnet by moving them out of ProjectCore
- [SDK] Invoke blackboard update event on SessionBlackboardTool when setting variables