Combat, Skills & Performance — Major Update

Under a Desert Sun: Seekers of the Cursed Vessel — Combat, Skills & Performance

Hello adventurers!

This update adds bow and shield upgrades, equipment effects, combat balancing and a new ending sequence for the current Early Access adventure. It also improves saving, scene transitions and performance.

Thank you to everyone reporting bugs and sharing feedback. Your help makes a real difference!

More ways to use your bow

The Adventurer’s bow now progresses through three firing styles:

• Split: fire three arrows.
• Mines: fire an arrow and scatter proximity mines.
• Blast: fire eight short arrows in a close-range spread.

Each style replaces the previous one. Lightning is a separate upgrade that works with all three.

Mine arming, detonation and cleanup have also been improved.

Leave a few surprises behind with Mines.

Blast: eight arrows, one close-range spread.

Soldier shield upgrades

• Poison Shield: adds poison after the Burn and Frost upgrades.
• Barrier: reduces incoming damage by 40% while your shield is away.
• Barrier Bomb: triggers an explosion around you when the shield returns.
• Pierce: throws your shield through a line of enemies, carrying its elemental effects.

Shield hits are more reliable, including fast throws and hits against enemy protection.

True Grit and Reflect

True Grit reduces incoming damage by 30% while the Soldier is below 25% health. A gold effect and HUD indicator show when it is active.

True Grit kicks in when health runs low.

Reflect equipment damages nearby enemies when you take a hit. Multiple equipped Reflect items add to the retaliation damage.

Elemental damage and visuals

Elemental effects now scale more consistently with level and rarity.

Poison refreshes without endlessly stacking, and weaker applications no longer replace stronger poison. Lightning chaining and effect cleanup have also been improved.

Enemy elemental colours are more consistent, the two auras have distinct colours, and several skill icons are clearer.

Fixed an Arcane effect that was unintentionally spawning extra projectiles and explosions. A little too much magic.

Make some room!

Rolling and sliding now shove eligible enemies sideways out of your path, with improved crowd detection, terrain handling and co-op reactions.

Bosses still refuse to be pushed around.

Against low-level enemies, the Adventurer’s dash can do more than make room.

The Adventurer clears a path.

The Soldier makes some room of his own.

Difficulty and progression

Enemy health and damage have been rebalanced across levels 1–25 to account for equipment progression.

Difficulty is now saved with your world. Changing it updates living enemies while preserving their remaining health percentage.

High-level warning icons have also been fixed and added to enemies that were missing them.

A new closing chapter

The current Early Access adventure now ends with an illustrated book for the Adventurer or Soldier, reflecting on their journey and what lies ahead.

In co-op, the host’s character determines the book. Both lead into the Early Access end screen.

Once again, we use the stunning art of Francesca Montingelli to give our story the flair it deserves.

More reliable saving and travel

Save failures are now reported more reliably, and failed file replacements preserve the previous save.

If saving fails, travel can still continue. A red warning in the gameplay menu remains until a full save succeeds.

Scene entry now waits for initial world and enemy preparation before fading in. Characters also settle onto the ground before the reveal, with controls held and damage protection active during arrival.

Overlapping travel triggers and competing fades have also been addressed.

Less spawning, more reusing

Loot pickups, muzzle flashes, dash smoke, weapon models and floating damage numbers now reuse existing objects more consistently. This reduces repeated object creation during combat, equipment changes and enemy respawns.

• Loot pooling preserves drop chances, item levels and rarity rules.
• Dropping an inventory item preserves its existing stats.
• Reused pickups reset their movement, effects and collection state.
• Damage numbers no longer disappear early because an older animation timer was still running.
• Fixed a helmet drop that referenced a display model instead of a collectible pickup.

Experimental preloading

We’re trying a heavier version of shader preloading to help reduce stutters during play. It means a slightly longer wait at startup, and I’d love your feedback: is the improvement worth the wait? You can skip it and continue whenever you like.

Other fixes

• Better combat-effect cleanup between scenes.
• Support for selected character remarks to play once per session.
• Fixed quest remarks checking progress before character data had loaded.
• Fixed a main-map lighting initialization error.
• Improved special-weapon unlocks and older skill-save compatibility.

Thanks for playing, and keep the feedback coming!