Hello everyone, v0.4.10 is now live.
It has been several months since our last full Steam update, so this announcement also catches up on the major Playtest changes since v0.2.10. During that time, we expanded buildcrafting, added a full Relic and difficulty layer, completed three new boss encounters, improved performance, and continued polishing combat based on your feedback.
Patch Notes:
Major Systems
- Added the Skill Synergy system. Skills can now combine through shared traits to create stronger build identities, including Forge Construct, Reaper, ChronoPact, Time Phantom, and several combat-focused synergies.
- Reworked Charge Up. All valid Charge Up skills now count correctly; the 2-piece bonus reduces charge cost by 1, to a minimum of 1; the 3-piece bonus increases that cast's damage or healing by 30%; and at 4 pieces, all valid Charge Up skills share one successful-cast counter, with every third successful cast gaining an additional 40%.
- Added the Relic system, including three-card choices, Rest Room rewards, HUD status, tooltips, Skill Duplicators, Ouroboros Vouchers, Fate Golden Egg, ChronoPact shop interactions, Time Phantom rewards, and other run-shaping effects.
- Added N1-N6 difficulty selection. The selection screen now shows final enemy Health and Damage multipliers, Rest Room healing, and available Relic rarity. Higher difficulties no longer automatically restore you to full health.
- Added High Fidelity, Balanced, Performance, and Low Spec quality presets. High Fidelity remains the default.
Progression and Run Flow
- Added win-streak rewards. Clearing within the time limit while alive builds a streak and grants Time Dust; a timeout or death resets it.
- Added shop card locking. Unpurchased cards can be carried into the next Rest Room once; manually rerolling clears the lock.
- Added post-boss maximum Health growth and clearer numeric Health and Shield displays.
- Relic choices now arrive in the next Rest Room after clearing 1-2, 1-10, and 2-10, so their effects begin earlier in each stage.
- For easier Playtest reporting, each completed run now creates a ready-to-share ZIP containing that run's combat and decision log, available performance data with its match status, and an error-log excerpt in %USERPROFILE%/AppData/LocalLow/Paracosm Studio/NoTimeToDie/PlaytestReports.
New Boss Encounters
- Added the Contract Overlord, Zombie Chief Twins, and Angry Incarnate boss encounters across the three stages.
- Boss rooms now provide a short opening window before the first major skill sequence, giving players time to read the arena.
- The Contract Overlord no longer summons elite enemies. Its tracking attack now shows a 2-second omen above the player and leaves a longer gap between the first two ground warnings before returning to its normal rapid cadence.
- The Angry Incarnate now shows the same 2-second overhead omen before its tracking attack begins.
- Fixed the 1-10 room routing so the intended boss encounter loads correctly.
Combat, Balance, and Performance
- Improved performance in projectile and unit queries, combat graphs, on-hit processing, damage text, effects, and other high-frequency combat paths. Effects now make broader use of pooling and prewarming.
- Strengthened elite identity with higher durability, clearer attack warnings, and improved behavior. Ranged enemies now keep moving during attack downtime instead of idling far away.
- Retuned later-room population and elite pressure with more melee-heavy crowds. Stage 16's final self-destruct elite group was reduced from 10 to 4 and an extra late pair was removed to reduce overtime cleanup.
- Rebalanced several high-cost skills, healing and shielding sources, monster durability, boss Health, and difficulty damage so later rooms apply more consistent pressure.
- Improved Relic reward and settlement rules so Fate Golden Egg, reroll-ticket effects, Rest Room settlement, and related save-state behavior resolve more reliably.
Fixes and Polish
- Fixed room spawning so enemies must use reachable NavMesh areas; severely broken rooms can now fall back safely instead of blocking the run.
- Fixed stacked time-slow effects being able to freeze bosses completely.
- Fixed several skill purchase, merge, and placement issues, including upgraded skills failing to remain in their original equipped slot.
- Fixed Soulharvest Ritual's mirrored volleys, Abyssal Oculus's broken skill connection, Charge Up requirements for Fate Echo and Reverse-Time Judgment, and several projectile, area, and close-range hit issues.
- Fixed Light of Fury star scaling to fire 1 / 2 / 3 beams, with the 3-star beams spread 120 degrees apart. Prismatic AscendantBloodline now requires four different members, all at 2 stars.
- Fixed rare invalid movement velocity values, flying-zombie contact detection, and a boss-room transition issue that could leave player controls locked.
- Improved missing-skill-icon fallback, startup preloading, tooltip safe areas, UI refresh behavior, room markers, and Battle HUD readability.
- Rewrote Relic descriptions across Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English so costs, trigger conditions, trade-offs, and dynamic status text match actual behavior.
Quick Start Guide
For players joining after these changes, we have included the current quick-start guide below, covering the main UI, movement and combat controls, entering battle, the shop, and common failure states.
Thank you all for your continued support and feedback. Please keep sharing your runs and letting us know what feels great and what still needs work.