Emberspark 1.2 is live! The Equipment Update gives your heroes something new to bring home from a run, and new ways to put those builds to the test.
I've had a lot of fun building and playing with this update. Finding a piece that changes how you want to play, then putting a party together around it, has been the best part. I'm excited to see what you find and which combinations you make work.
Equipment that stays with you
- Build lasting loadouts across 12 equipment slots, including weapons, off-hands, armor, two rings, necklaces, and trinkets.
- Find gear with different stat rolls and rarities. Higher difficulty increases its flat stats, with the multiplier shown on the item.
- Weapon skill bonuses work with the skill's evolution too, and can take its effective rank beyond the normal in-run cap of 10. You still need to know the skill to use it.
- Armor uses armor-type restrictions rather than ordinary class locks. Weapons, off-hands, and class-specific uniques retain their restrictions. Classless can use every armor type, weapon, and off-hand.
- All armor types and armor/accessory uniques can drop, even when their intended wearer isn't in your party. Weapon and off-hand drops are drawn from your party's classes.
- Give duplicate classes their own loadouts. The same item cannot be equipped by two heroes at once.
- Keep banked equipment between runs, through Prestige, and through progression resets. Equip changes take effect when you start a new run.
36 uniques and personal relic powers
- Discover three class-specific uniques for every class, plus six universal uniques, with powers designed around different builds.
- Uniques become available at +500% difficulty. Their stat types are fixed to suit their effects, while their flat stat values improve with difficulty tiers.
- A class-specific unique cannot drop again in a 100% difficulty band while you own that item from that band. Higher-tier copies can still drop; selling a copy makes its tier eligible again. Universal uniques can repeat.
- Trinkets carry relic effects that apply to their wearer. Legendary trinkets roll four effects, and stackable effects can appear more than once.
- Epic gear begins above +400% difficulty, and Legendary gear begins at +700%. Their chances increase as you raise the difficulty.
Bring your loot home
- Regular victories have a 20% equipment drop chance; elites have a 50% chance.
- Area bosses guarantee one item, with a 50% chance of a second. If that second item drops, there is a 20% chance of a third.
- Defeating Emberspark guarantees a trinket, weapon, and off-hand, with a chance for another item and improved rarity odds.
- Reaching a rest site or defeating an area boss banks the gear you're carrying. Defeat or abandoning the run loses only your unbanked finds, so choosing your route matters.
- Compare equipment and its stat changes before equipping it, search with up to four stat filters, protect favorites from sale, and sell unwanted pieces for permanent points.
- Store up to 200 shared armor, accessory, and trinket items, plus 50 weapons, off-hands, and class uniques per class. Equipped items do not take up storage space.
Shape your challenge
After your first campaign victory, choose from 21 optional run modifiers alongside the difficulty slider, now placed after party selection. Review your settings and extra points per combat before starting.
- Push enemy health, damage, speed, or defense higher, with tougher tiers unlocked by clearing the campaign with the previous tier active.
- Face elemental damage, stronger damage-over-time effects, enemies that heal from damage, and packs that grow stronger when an ally falls.
- Try restrictions such as No Resurrections, No Healing Spells, or Sealed Supplies. No Healing Spells restricts healing spells; other sources of healing still work.
- Combine modifiers to earn extra points for each combat victory. Their bonus points receive the difficulty multiplier only after a full campaign victory over both forms of Emberspark. On defeat, those modifier points remain unmultiplied by difficulty; abandoning a run still forfeits pending points.
Achievements and improvements
- Nine new Steam achievements celebrate equipment finds and modifier challenges, bringing the total to 74.
- Map nodes have more vertical space and staggered positions to make branching routes easier to follow.
- The equipment screen keeps the hero and all equipment slots visible, with separate scrolling for stats and item details.
- Controller navigation now lets you move into the item details pane and scroll it without moving the inventory list.
- Rings can be equipped in either ring slot, with the comparison using the slot you selected.
- Improved equipment, unique, and modifier text across all seven supported languages, plus fixes for percentage displays and equipment interactions.
Your progress
This is a free update for existing owners. Your normal Steam progress carries forward; no reset is needed. Start a new run to use your chosen equipment and modifiers.
If you played the equipment beta, select None under Steam's Properties > Betas to return to the public release. That beta used a separate save, so the live version continues your normal Steam progress rather than merging test progress.
Thank you for playing, testing, and sharing feedback. Let me know which pieces you find, what builds you enjoy, and anything that needs another look. I want to keep making Emberspark better with you.
- Warranted