Indie studio Retro Forge has released the first Souldiers post-launch patch on PC. Working in partnership with publisher Dear Villagers (The Forgotten City, ScourgeBringer), a console update is also due in the coming weeks. This new version fixes several progression and balance issues.
Souldiers has been very well received since launch. The game is available on multiple formats, and has generated quite a buzz across console and PC. Chit Hot delivered a Souldiers review at launch, calling it: “the captivating metroidvania game it aims to be.”
This update offers a huge host of new features, bug fixes, rebalances, and a raft of other changes. This includes more generous checkpoints, reduced mana costs for skills, more powerful players attacks, and more. The full patch notes are as follows:
Souldiers Quality of life improvements:
- Reduced loading times on Retry.
- Added resolution selection options to Options Video menu.
- Added new save statues and checkpoints in Spider Lair, Floating Module, Fire Temple, Forest of Fyr, Sunken Laboratory, Tempes Plains, Great Pyramid and Hafin Sewers.
- Archer arrows do reduced damage instead of missing if hitting far targets.
- On retry, recover HP up to a certain % depending on difficulty (100% in Easy, 50% in Medium and Hard).
- Increase rock push/pull speed.
- Mana bar is refilled when getting a skill sphere, so skills can be tested.
- Warm necklace no longer needs to be equipped to give protection from high temperatures, and now has more effects.
- Removed teleporter confinement restriction during the Great Pyramid arc.
- Statue checkpoint menu appears automatically after first activation to avoid confusion.
- Great Pyramid secret spinning doors are now marked in the map when on camera, no need to enter. Visited ones are marked different for extra clarity.
- Marked Great Pyramid’s opened globus doors as opened in map.
Souldiers Bugfixes:
- Wizard: Avoid consuming mana if a skill’s startup animation is interrupted by blocking/rolling.
- Relocated wings in Sangrigor combat.
- Fixed maps from other zones being slightly visible in Great Pyramid and Forest of Fyr.
- Prevent changing difficulty on New Game +.
- Fixed Euder race sometimes being in an unbeatable state.
- Fixed big cauldron room in Fire Temple leading to void room below if returning after rising lava section.
- Fixed softlock when Melian sometimes misses a wind switch in a Sunken Laboratory scene.
- Fixed project 0,5 combat not finishing sometimes (right door keeps open).
- Fixed volume of some ambience sounds.
- Fixed next scene load after returning from failing Colisseum sidequest never finish loading.
- Fixed player having wrong collision size during death animation if killed in slime form.
- Fixed pig bomb rotation being wrong sometimes.
- Fixed Archer Skirmish not working with hidden Nomad Thiefs and Battos.
- Fixed Archer Skirmish arrows sometimes getting stuck forever.
- Fixed some props/gameplay elements sometimes not appearing.
- Fixed Scout Parry stamina cost being way too high.
- Fixed Galath’s blue grenades not exploding when touched by other grenades, and causing stamina damage when deflected correctly.
- Fixed Panacea item not curing ‘Paralysed’ status.
- Fixed crusher blocks and electric coils sometimes remaining frozen.
- Fixed Altera Punisher not detecting the player after retrying.
- Fixed Sunken Laboratory pressure jets not affecting pig bombs.
- Fixed game lock if leveling up after receiving a killing hit before hitting the ground.
- Fixed Spider Lair geysers affecting the player when in a cutscene or dead.
- Fixed being able to save a trapped soldier at Spider Lair with the Wizard before the quest starts.
- Fixed a falling chest in the Great Pyramid.
- Fixed camera limits with ultra-wide resolutions.
- Fixed Dark Sword being reachable without the bridge.
Rebalance:
- General reduction of enemy health and damage in all difficulties.
- Adjusted weapons’ shard cost.
- Reduced roll cooldown.
- Increased player turn/crouch speed.
- Increased player stamina regeneration rate.
- Increased detection time for perfect blocks (reflecting blue attacks).
- Set same initial HP of Archer and Wizard as Scout.
- Reduced mana cost of all classes’ skills.
- Increased size of damage area of Scout air attacks.
- Increased attack hitbox of Archer arrows.
- Increased detection time of Archer Skirmish attack for easier execution.
- Reduced number of levels for each increase in Archer’s number of arrows.
- Increased Archer bow damage.
- Increase Wizard’s homing target detection area and damage.
- Improved area and duration of Wizard ‘Vital sproutling’ skill.
- Increased Wizard mana regeneration rate.
- Decreased mana cost of detonating Wizard clones.
- Reduced mana cost of Wizard Spellweaver attacks.
- Increase damage of rebounded Ionic Nail (reflected Altera Marauder attack).
- Increased Drones speed and player detection radius.
- Improved healing potion HP restored.
- Improved mana and stamina recovery of Restorer potion.
- Revised some hard jumps in Sunken Laboratory.
- Improved necklaces’ healing properties.
- Improved effect of Regeneration vial.
- Revised map shop prices.
- Blocked a lift in Great Pyramid to lead player on the path to get the yellow globus.
- Increased time to beat Spider Lair’s torch puzzle.
- Revised wait times in some electric coils in Floating Module.
- Tweaked turrets speed and removed traps in Great Pyramid.
- Fire Temple torches don’t turn off automatically anymore.
- Increased money dropped by monsters.
- Revised elemental weaknesses in bosses and midbosses.
- Reduced stamina (shield) damage of most enemies.
- Reduced chance of causing adverse effects in common enemies’ attacks.
- Reduced flying distance from player for Harpy, Gargoyle, Storm Raven, Altera Marauder, Hipicus and Scarab.
- Increased time between attacks of Harpy, Scarab, Storm Raven, Altera Marauder, Sand Slime, Electric Slime, Hipicus, Gargoyle.
- Reduced attack boxes in Altera Punisher’s attack and Dark Razor combo and jump attack.
- Reduced damaging box size of Babylon’s wheel and Beigon’s cut attack.
- Removed stun property in Aguinox attacks.
- Added some gold when defeating Birk.
- Remove Hipicus damage reflection while firing, and changed invulnerability to elemental resistance.
- Changed Kyut’s invulnerability when armored to elemental resistance.
- Removed Scarab invulnerability.
- Revised Golems’ max projectile distance.
- Revised hitboxes of some enemies (Altera Marauder, Mothena, Gargoyle, Pyramancer, Altera Punisher, Storm Raven, Avalerion, Dark Claw, Beastaurus, Guardian of Anubis).
- Increased Enchanter delay between spawning minions, reduced maximum of simultaneous minions.
- Reduced size of Galath grab attack box.
- Increased Gargoyle delay after landing.
- Increased HP items dropped by Lion Tree.
- Slowed startup of Minotaur’s direct axe attack.
- Reduced duration of Storm Raven and Electric Slimes’ electrified area.
- Readjusted enemies of one of Fire Temple enclosed encounters.
- Removed some flying enemies in Tempes Plains and Spider Lair.
- Removed some ledges in Spider Lair’s torch puzzle.
- Removed 2 rounds in Tempes Mines challenge.
- Removed some Salamanders in Fire Temple.
Other changes:
- Added Traditional Chinese localization.
- Restore health after Brigard and Beigon combats.
- Increased visual size of Wizard healing tree skill to better match the healing zone.
- Removed time freeze when effective attacks hit.
- Enlarged Pig Bomb’s contact zone with switches for better feedback.
- Readjusted sand platforms in Royal Scorpion combat for clarity.
- Player-tracking turrets in Floating Module don’t fire if outside the camera.
“We’re very happy with the reception Souldiers has been getting, though we’ve also been made aware of more bugs and balance issues than we’d anticipated. This update should smooth over a lot of the teething issues we had. Releasing a game of this scope on multiple platforms for a six-person team – during a pandemic no less – was a Herculean effort, and while we’re proud of the result, there was still room for improvement. So we thank you, the players, for being patient with us as we’ve polished Souldiers up to be the timeless metroidvania we always dreamed it would be.
Alberto Hernández, Creative Director, Retro Forge
To commemorate the first Souldiers post-launch patch, Retro Forge are offering a 20% Steam discount until 7th July, 2022.
Have you played Souldiers yet? Do you think it lives up to the hype? Let us know in the comments below!