Summer's hitting peak heat right now, and we're guessing more than a few of you would rather stay in a cool room gaming than brave the outdoors. So we figured we'd give you a fresh excuse to spend some quality time with friends!
From July 25th to August 1st, the Soulmask base game will be 20% off, and the Shifting Sands DLC will be 10% off — our lowest prices in recent memory! There's nothing quite like pulling your friends into building a camp from scratch together in the heat of summer — if you know someone who's been on the fence, this might be the right moment.
Alright, pricing talk done. Let's get to the more interesting stuff — like what exactly we've been cooking in the Public Test Branch (PTB).
If you haven't been following PTB developments, here's a quick sync.
The Red Crystal system — this is something we didn't get to cover in detail last time. In short, this is a brand-new approach to enhancing Mask abilities: "Primordial" Red Crystals grant exceptionally powerful unique abilities, and when multiple Red Crystals are combined, your entire combat and survival playstyle can undergo a fundamental transformation.
This system is still being validated on the PTB, and we'd love to hear more feedback from your actual builds and combinations. We're genuinely excited to see what kind of possibilities you Chieftains can squeeze out of this system.
Currently, Primordial Red Crystals still drop from Mechanical constructs in Dungeons and Sacred Ruins. To make your Red Crystal build experiments easier, we've also added a dedicated traveling merchant to the PTB — available only on the test branch for now — who sells Primordial Red Crystals directly, so you can jump straight into testing various combinations without extensive farming.
Everything above is already playable on the PTB. But what comes next is what we really want to talk about: our major update.
Yes — the areas shrouded in mist within the "Golden Sands" world are about to reveal themselves.
Honestly, what we're aiming for with this next major update isn't just "unlock a new area, fight a new boss." We want to meet — and hopefully exceed — your expectations for Soulmask.
First, we've prepared three brand-new Masks. They once belonged to the buried power of Egyptian deities, and they're about to be reawakened — we'll reveal their specific abilities in detail very soon.
Second, in terms of combat and level design, this time we're turning our attention to the Burning Highlands — the homeland of those Sand Bandits known as "heretics" and "betrayers." What exactly is hidden at their origin? In this brutally harsh, scorching highland, you'll encounter battles unlike anything you've faced before.
On the Sacred Ruins front, we've prepared a stylistically distinct Ancient Guardian — a bold experiment in our Mechanical construct design. Unlike the previous Guardians' weighty, imposing presence, her combat style is far more fluid and unpredictable. We're hoping this will be a dazzling, memorable fight.
And finally — the most important piece. From the moment you put the Mask back on, guided by whispers in your consciousness, you'll be drawn step by step toward the deepest secret of this world: The "Sun God," who gazes down from the floating islands above, worshipped as the Creator by countless civilizations — what is it, really?
We're ready to give you that answer in the coming update.
A special reminder here: As long as you own the Shifting Sands DLC, all new content mentioned above will be available for early access on the PTB. We'll gradually roll out testing windows for the new content and announce them via community posts ahead of time. We're genuinely looking forward to seeing you try everything new on the PTB and then tell us in the community what we can do better.
We also know that "completeness" has always been one of your biggest concerns. With this update, we don't want to deliver a half-hearted area expansion — we want to truly present this world to you in its entirety.
Throughout August, we'll continue releasing more detailed information around this major update — the specific abilities of the new Masks, the full design philosophy behind the new encounters, and the true face of that mysterious Guardian will all be unveiled one by one in upcoming dev logs.
See you next week!