About three months into Early Access, we are releasing a major update built on your reviews and forum feedback. It rebuilds how the dungeon works and goes live on September 18 at 6:00 AM PDT / 3:00 PM CEST / 10:00 PM JST. The demo will be updated to the same content on the same day.
What's changing
- A room-to-room dungeon — Free roaming is gone. Resolve one room and two or three paths open deeper in. Each entrance shows the reward size and enemy strength waiting beyond it. Paths you don't take are lost.
- Spirits join by contract — After a victory, a summoning circle offers three spirits and three cards to contract with. Contracts have a duration; when it runs out, the spirit returns to the forest.
- Field and reserve — Spirits are arranged on the field and in the reserve, and swapped through card effects. When a field spirit falls, one steps out from the reserve, and fallen spirits do not come back. The reserve can be expanded at summonings.
- A clear win condition for each race — Beasts swap, Bugs play many cards, Plants shed. Ability keywords are trimmed to 15 and shown as 【】 tags.
- New race: Dragon — The only race that reacts to all three of swaps, cards played, and shedding, and can borrow other races' keywords. Appears only in summonings in the deeper zones.
- Four dungeons — Three introductory dungeons (Beast Forest, Bug Nest, Plant Garden) plus the main Hollow Forest. The Hollow Forest runs through five zones (Trail of the Pack, Thicket of Wingbeats, Grove of Falling Blossoms, Elder Dragons' Deepwood, Hollow Depths), and the enemy lineup and grade change with each zone.
- Bosses with unique powers and telegraphs — Enemies announce their next action, bosses grow stronger the further you go, and enemy reinforcements arrive in waves you can see coming.
- 37 Blessings (relics) — Choose one of three after beating fierce foes and bosses, or buy one in the Merchant Room.
- The Spirit Altar at the base — Spend Spirit Dew to unlock bundles of cards and spirits, tier by tier. Progress that carries between runs.
- Healing consolidated — The inventory and item system is removed. HP is restored only at Healing Shrines, by Blessings, or in the Merchant Room.
- New look and onboarding — Monsters, spirits, and NPCs are now 3D models, placeholder art has been replaced, the tutorial and prologue are rebuilt, and screen shake can be turned off. Hand size is always shown, and controller focus dead-ends are fixed.
From your feedback
What you told usWhat we did
Bugs are overpowered / Plant photosynthesis spamRedesigned each race's engine; permanent buffs changed from % to flat values
Too easy overall, too much healingFallen spirits stay fallen; healing limited to three sources
Regular fights aren't worth itEntrances show the reward; a summoning follows every victory
Enemy tracking, hitboxes, getting stuck on the mapFree roaming removed entirely
The same forest all the way down, flat bossesRace zones, intro dungeons, boss powers and telegraphs
Can't see what enemies will doIntent display and live effect values
Nothing carries over, gold piles upSpirit Dew and the Altar; summonings and the merchant as sinks
Mixed parties have no upsideDragons, cross-race cards, and mixed zones
Option to disable screen shakeAdded to settings
About your save data (please read)
This update rebuilds how the dungeon works. The first time you launch after updating, your current run will end and you will resume from the base. Spirit Dew, and the spirits and cards unlocked with it, start again from zero. Your catalog discoveries, furthest point reached, and clear count carry over.
If you want to finish your current run first, right-click Spirit Dungeon in your Steam library → Properties → Betas → select legacy_0_5 before updating, and you can keep playing the current version. Once you launch the new version, you cannot go back.
Full patch notes will be posted on release day. Feedback and bug reports are welcome on the forums as always.
Nemora