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We meet again, Rune Knights.

It’s been in the making for some time now, but we’re finally ready to roll out our first major update. The focus for this update: new weapons, Runesmith VO and SteamVR support!

We’ve added four (count ​‘em: four!) new weapons to the roster: a mace, a rapier and two new non-weapon offhands that allow you to focus on your dominant hand’s weapon. The Knight Blooded Crest, one of these offhands, also intro­duces our 7th Super: Concus­sive Blast. When used, it will knock enemies away from the player in a suitably flashy fashion. Higher levels cause the blast to deal damage, which is pretty awesome.

This update also intro­duces some new VO from our Runesmith, Agatha, who should now be notice­ably more present. With each enemy you encounter for the first time, Agatha will provide some backstory about the foes you’re fighting. Addi­tion­ally, she’ll make comments in the Runeforge, as well as react to how you’re doing in the run.

We’ve also finished fully inte­grating our support for the Rift S and Knuckles controllers. Addi­tion­ally, SteamVR is better inte­grated to allow for custom button mappings through its Input Action interface.

Combine every­thing above with some balance updates, bug fixes, and some more polish around the UI and First Time User Expe­ri­ence, you’ve got yourself an update! Be sure to read the patch notes below for the specifics about what’s changed.

So, that’s about it for now! Give the new weapons a try, listen to that new dialogue, and, of course, let us know what you think on our Discord.

Keep slashin’!

- Dave, Project Director

RELEASE 0 . 2 . 1 HOTFIX

Bug Fixes



Resolved an issue where using Concus­sive Blast under certain condi­tions would cause the game to crash.

Fixed issue where unsup­ported headsets weren’t properly defaulting to the Vive on Steam VR , resulting in playa­bility issues.

RELEASE 0 . 2 . 0 CHANGES

Four New Weapons!

With 0.2.0, we’re adding some new weapon types to the mix. Notably, the mace (which has a very unique spring/​weight combi­na­tion) and the Offhand Armaments, which are focused on players that want to double down on a one-handed playstyle. Credit for these weapons SHOULD be retroac­tive, meaning if you’ve already defeated both current bosses, these weapons should be available the next time you visit the Runeforge.

Vestal’s Wrath - Flanged One-Handed Mace with Soul Burn Unlocked after defeating the Aether Horror at the end of Tier 1 . A stalwart and strategic heavy weapon that excels at rapidly smashing through enemy Guard. Although difficult to block with, catching blocks on the mace enables it to rapidly charge Soul Burn, making it a reliable source of health damage in the hands of a skilled Rune Knight.

Flanged One-Handed Mace with Soul Burn Duelist’s Edge - Rapier-style Sword with Stasis Strike Unlocked after defeating the Twin Captains at the end of Tier 2 . Elegant sabre that boasts better handling than even the arming sword, enhanced mobility, and some of the highest damage output in the game… as long as you don’t lose any health.

- Rapier-style Sword with Stasis Strike Knight Blooded Crest - Offhand Armament with Concus­sive Blast Unlocked after your first attempt at the Shattered Woods. A weapon of Martial prowess. In exchange for an offhand weapon, the Crest offers a unique super: ​ “ Concus­sive Blast”. Concus­sive blast is on a short cooldown, knocking back and briefly stunning all nearby enemies. Addi­tion­ally, the Crest features Martial Focus, which passively increases the Guard Damage (on block AND on hit!) of your other weapon by 30 %.

- Offhand Armament with Concus­sive Blast Spellsword’s Charm — Offhand Armament with Void Trap Unlocked after defeating the Aether Horror at the end of Tier 1 . For those who favor evasive styles and heavy use of Supers. Although armed with Void Trap for strategic play- the main feature of the Spellsword’s Charm is its innate Trait (Arcane Focus), which DOUBLES the Super Gain rate for both of the Rune Knight’s weapons.

— Offhand Armament with Void Trap

The Runesmith Speaks!

This update gave us the chance to implement addi­tional VO we had already recorded for Agatha (the Runesmith) to make her feel more present after the tutorial.

Added a variety of new dialogue that occurs in the Runeforge. Returning from a run, buying weapons and even some idle chatter!

Added new dialogue for important moments of the game, such as encoun­tering and defeating enemies for the first time. Because some encoun­ters are one-time intro­duc­tions to enemies, you may not hear all dialogue unless starting a new Profile.

Added new keepalive dialogue that occurs during combat. Your Runesmith companion should now feel more present beyond the tutorial!



Platform Support

With our 0.1.2 patch, we allowed all unsup­ported headsets to play the game without any major workarounds. With 0.2.0, we’ve added more official support for the Rift S and Knuckles, while also opening the games control bindings through SteamVR.

While we can’t promise to support every headset, we’re defi­nitely listening to your feedback, so let us know if there’s any way we can make it easier for you folks to play.

We have added full support (tutorial images, controller models and default button mappings) for the Rift S and Knuckles Controllers. For folks that have already been playing with Index controllers, be sure to disable Grab/​Summon as Toggle in Gameplay Settings if you want to try out our default button mapping.

SteamVR Input Action Inte­gra­tion You can now, through SteamVR, define custom controller mappings based on your personal pref­er­ences. Each supported controller now has default controller mappings as well that have been published to Steam.

Rift S Headsets now properly defaults to ​ “ Room Scale” being enabled.

Partial support for Windows Mixed Reality. We have control mappings for the Windows Mixed Reality headset and controllers. KNOWN ISSUE : In-game tutorial cards will still show Vive controllers.



User Interface & Settings

Pulled settings from other tabs to create a Gameplay Settings tab for ease of access.

tab for ease of access. New Gameplay Setting: Look Direction Movement This setting (when enabled) allows players to change forward movement to always be based off of the direction the player is facing, rather than the direction the player was initially facing while moving. By default, this setting is disabled, but we’d defi­nitely recommend trying it if you ever felt that the walking movement’s direction ever felt…off.

“ Face the Flame” callout received an art pass for non-room-scale setups.

Face the Flame” callout received an art pass for non-room-scale setups. Improved read­ability for Reward Moment UI , with better respects to sorting orders. Things should more reliably sort in a way that makes it easier to read in general.

, with better respects to sorting orders.

First Time User Expe­ri­ence (FTUE)

Imme­di­ately after Launch (both on-stream and at PAX West) we saw some rough edges that we wanted to sand off. In order to help the first time expe­ri­ence flow better, we moved the inspec­tion tutorial to be right before learning about your Supers. This also let us move up the Pausing tutorial, which felt awkwardly placed near the end of the tutorial.

Adjusted the position, phrasing and timing of several tutorial cards.

Moved Weapon Inspec­tion tutorial to the ​ “ How to Use Supers” Tutorial.

​ How to Use Supers” Tutorial. Moved Pausing Tutorial to Room 3 of the FTUE .

of the . Adjusted enemy positions in several rooms.

Balance Changes

With the game now in the wild, we’ve been receiving all sorts of great feedback about what’s feeling over­pow­ered, under­pow­ered or just plain…weird. While balance is an ever-changing beast, we took 0.2.0 to try and smooth things out a bit.

Traits “ Guarded” Trait 50 % -> 25 % Bonus Guard Damage. “ Fleet” Trait: Now grants 1 Dash charge any time an enemy is slain, regard­less of weapon (kills from supers also count.)

Weapons Arming Sword: Level 8 Upgrade now gives + 5 Dash Damage instead of + 2 Guard Damage. The Arming Sword is meant to be a well rounded weapon. At higher levels, the high base power level of the ​ “ Guarded” Trait, and the Arming Sword’s innate high Guard Damage made it too efficient at blocking, making it more special­ized than we’d wanted. Moving some of its power to Dash Damage helps it maintain an identity as a weapon that gives a ​ “ little bit of every­thing” as it levels up. Heart­seeker: Innate Trait Bonus Health Damage on Combo Finish 3 -> 4 This should help the Heart­seeker Axe more reliably kill Husks in two Crits. (Now one Crit can be a glancing blow.) High Arcanist’s Blade: Enkindled Trait unlocked at Weapon Level 1 Blood­thirsty moved to Weapon Level 4 Adjusted base Stats: Initial Health Damage 6 -> 4 Adjusted Stats at Level 10 : Health Damage 7 -> 6 Level 10 now gives + 2 Guard /​+ 1 Health Dmg instead of + 1 /+ 1 The High Arcanist’s blade was an inter­esting weapon that didn’t really shine until it unlocked the ​ “ Enkindled” Trait. We felt that Enkindled made a much more iconic innate Trait for the High Arcanist’s blade. To keep the weapon from being too strong at Upgrade Level 1 , we took some of the Sword’s stats and distrib­uted them later in the Upgrade tree, to preserve the weapon’s strength at Rank 10 , but make it more nuanced at Rank 1 .

Supers “ Stasis” Duration 15 s -> 7 s “ Stasis” Level 3 changed to ​ “ Increases the Damage of Stasis Strike to 75 .“ We’re keeping a close eye on Stasis, since as players have pointed out, taking an enemy out of the fight completely can be very strong. We still like the option that this gives players getting used to the game mechanics, though, since it takes some stress off of facing down two opponents at once. Reducing the duration should still provide a brief respite, without removing the opponent from combat completely. We want Stasis Strike 1 to provide a strong Crowd-Control ability to assist new players that want to get used to fighting multiple enemies at once- but the scaling potential of Stasis Strike was too strong and too easy to achieve. Now, Stasis Strike should scale in offensive appli­ca­tion without scaling in CC in a way that triv­i­al­izes the game when combined with other powers.

Enemies Combo Crit Minimum Duration Reduced to 0 . 5 s from 1 s. Knights, Spellswords, Captains: Min Crit Duration 1 s -> 0 . 5 s Aether Horror: Min Crit Duration 1 . 5 s -> 1 s Combo Limit increases are very strong but didn’t have much tradeoff. This change should make Combos after 5 a bit harder to land, without making high combo limit builds worse. Daggers will still be able to follow up easily, but heavy weapons may become more difficult to land deep combos with. Our goal is to make sure there are viable high & low combo builds across all Ranks of weapons. Captains: Guard Damage Hit Mult 1 -> 0 . 9 Granting Captains a 10 % resis­tance to Guard Damage from strikes, to make Captains a little more chal­lenging to rush down at high weapon Ranks. Empowered Knights: Phase Two Guard Dmg Block Mult 0 . 75 -> 0 . 6 Empowered Knights now gain more resis­tance to Guard Damage from blocking when entering their Phase Two. This is to compen­sate for their increased number of attacks. Sneaking in Guard Damage hits around their attacks will remain as effective as it was.



Notable Bug Fixes