We are a small independent game developer located in Warsaw, Poland. Before The Astronauts, some of us worked on games like Painkiller and Bulletstorm.
Our latest project is Witchfire, a dark fantasy first person shooter set in an alternative world in which witches are real and very dangerous – but so are you, witchhunter.
Our first game was a weird fiction mystery titled The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. The game has won many awards, including BAFTA, and we sold over one million copies. It’s available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Click here for more details.
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Road to Revelations - Challenge, Corruption, Tongues
This post marks the beginning of a very exciting and important period. A while ago, while replying in one of the threads on Steam, I mentioned that we don’t do shadowdrops and we won’t suddenly release update 0.9 – The Revelations Update – out of the blue. Instead, there will be a series of posts leading up to it.
Well, this is the one that kicks things off.
Over the next few weeks we’re going to discuss everything coming to Witchfire and give you a look at what we’ve been working on. We’ve seen your eagerness to get your hands on new content and, while there’s a lot to talk about, this week we’re starting with something that isn’t entirely new – at least not in concept. It was promised before, then put on hold, dialled back, and shuffled around a bit.
But now it’s finally happening.
THE BIGGEST VAULT YET
This one was promised a long time ago, and we’re finally going to make good on that promise: a new vault is about to arrive in the game.
Now, I know saying “it’s going to be the biggest challenge yet” sounds like the most predictable thing imaginable when introducing a new endgame space for hardcore players, but this one really is a bit different from the others. Getting inside will not be as simple as slapping some witchfire on the gate and shooting everything that moves. Before you breach the entrance, there is a test you’ll have to pass first.
The location itself may not be what you expect – while it would be perfectly reasonable to assume this is the Marshland vault, this one is actually hidden somewhere in the Outskirts. Where exactly, that’s for you to figure out, but I can already tell you that it isn’t nearly as obvious as the one in Velmorne. And is much more… airy.
Let me show you a little something, a bit of food for thought, something that may spark your curiosity and cause some of you to zoom in a bit more than usual.
Enough teasing for now – the Outskirts Vault will debut in a short while and you will be able to test your might against whatever lies inside. If you can even get inside, that is.
World Corruption 2.0
This one may feel like a bit of déjà vu.
World Corruption was originally supposed to be the headliner of the previous update, but the balance leaned a little too hard into no-mercy territory. We went back to the drawing board and used the opportunity to rethink the system altogether.
Game design is iterative by nature – new ideas appear while you’re already working on previous ones. That was exactly the case here. The blueprint for the new iteration started taking shape while we were putting the finishing touches on The Reckoning. We simply didn’t have enough time to implement it in its 2.0 form back then (we didn’t have enough time to balance the whole thing, frankly), but the plan was already there.
Now we’re finally bringing it to life.
In the previous version, you didn’t really have much to say in the matter – you were the infection, and the world was trying to get rid of you, with corruption acting as the fever. This time, it’s more of a choice – the less discreet you are, the less subtle the corruption becomes. You may finish an expedition without seeing much of it at all – or you can make things significantly worse for yourself.
Prying chests open (yes, it’s an option now), collecting cursed treasures, giving in to newly added Temptations for more power… All of it leaves traces.
As your presence becomes more obvious, the world will react. Unnatural events and out-of-place objects will start appearing, making expeditions increasingly difficult. You will be able to use cleansing stations to partially restore the previous state of the world, but doing so will test your skill – and failing will trigger an extra Calamity.
I won’t spoil it any further, but the world of Witchfire will be much less static than before. Some of you are going to embrace it and enjoy the chaos and hell breaking loose, some will meticulously cleanse the corruption. We’re eagerly waiting for your testimonies.
Translations
This is a big one. Honestly, one of the biggest announcements we’ve made so far.
A couple of months ago we announced that Witchfire would be localised into several languages, but we deliberately kept quiet about the specifics. That changes today. We’re happy to announce that Witchfire will soon support the following languages (in alphabetical order):
Chinese (Traditional)
Chinese (Simplified)
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Portuguese (Brazil)
Russian
Spanish
Spanish (Latin America)
Turkish
Ukrainian
We’re excited to share this news with you and we’re happy that so many more people will be able to experience Witchfire in a more approachable way. There are two important things worth mentioning here.
First and foremost, the list of supported languages may still change in the future. We’re not drawing a line in the sand and saying “that’s it forever”, additional languages may come later. The limiting factor here isn’t willingness – it’s economics. We’re not a gigantic organisation with infinite money cheat enabled; we’re a relatively small independent studio and localisation is expensive, so we had to make choices and prioritise carefully, and we would absolutely love to expand the list further in the future.
Secondly, we hired professionals and worked with world-class localisation specialists, but they are still human, or rather – in the age of AI – reassuringly human. Mistakes can happen, and while – obviously – LQA is part of the process, the more eyes we have on the translations, the better the final result will be. Especially if gamers themselves take a look.
That’s why we’d like to ask for your help: the link below leads to a Google Form where we ask about your languages and your experience with Witchfire. If you’d like to help us out, please fill it in and we may contact some of you in the coming days.
The translations are happening regardless – we’re not going to suddenly pull a 180 because we didn’t receive enough submissions or anything like that. We simply want the translations to be as good as they possibly can be within the timeframe we have.
Now, before we proceed to the Hermitorium Archives, there is one more thing – something that has just rolled off the printing press.
PC Gamer recently sat down with various members of our team and Witchfire landed on the cover of the magazine’s newest issue. It’s an honour to be featured and, while we obviously cannot spoil the interview itself, we can show you the cover – featuring the Preyer in a rather close encounter with the big baddie herself: the Witch.
It’s only a single angle, but it’s still your first look at her.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…
Hermitorium archives:
We’re not planning to call for the cleanup crew.
It’s been a while since this one was asked and answered, and with 1.0 fast approaching, the question is more valid than ever:
Let me assure you that nothing has changed in this regard and we’re sticking to our guns (pun fully intended): we’re going to do everything in our power to avoid forcing anybody to wipe their progress.
There is still a slim technical possibility of it happening, but we will do everything we can to leave that choice in your hands. Starting fresh when 1.0 launches will most likely be recommended for the best experience, but we do not want it to become mandatory.
An age old question of… age.
As the world gets older, so do we. A while ago this appeared on Steam:
It’s far from the first time somebody in their silver fox era has asked a question like this, and we were genuinely curious to see what their experience would be like.
Witchfire is still in Early Access (albeit not for much longer) and we’re continuously adding things we believe the game needs – including a whole suite of accessibility features currently in development. We’re considering solutions for all kinds of impairments and limitations because we want as many people as possible to be able to experience Witchfire.
Now, I know this immediately raises questions about difficulty, but difficulty is part of the experience.
We’re doing everything we can to make the game fair and provide multiple ways of approaching its challenges, no matter whether you’re old or young, experienced or a complete nugget – we believe players are smart and resourceful.
What we don’t want are unnecessary handicaps standing in your way.
The challenge itself, however, has to remain.
Where do we even begin?
The topic of selecting a class pops up every now and then, this being one of the more recent threads about the matter:
Revelations Update will bring some changes to this system. The major overhaul is planned for 1.0, but even now we’re restructuring parts of the prologue and changing the point at which you select your class. For now it’s mostly cosmetic, but more changes will follow later.
They upgraded, it’s an air intake.
A certain series of books about a certain teenage wizard (who would absolutely be smoked by the Preyer, by the way) featured a certain ghostly individual who nearly lost his head. We have Devotees who never leave a job half-assed, so that’s 1:0 for Witchfire.
Seriously though, bugs happen – some of them are hilarious, some are not, but I’m going to use this opportunity to assure you that we’re taking all of them very seriously. We may still be in Early Access, but the more bug-free we are now, the less fixing we will have to do in the future. Plus, it’s just so damn nice when things just work. We’re doing everything we can to get rid of these happenings and you’re helping us immensely, so thanks for all the reports.
Once and for all…
We’ve been absolutely inundated with requests for co-op and, more recently, a PvP mode as well, but we’re not going to budge on this one: Witchfire is – and will most likely remain – a single-player-only game.
We’re approaching the end of Early Access, v0.9 is around the corner, and changing direction now would simply make no sense. It would add months, if not years, to development. That does not mean we’re opposed to multiplayer concepts in future projects, whatever those projects may end up being, but let’s put this one to bed once and for all:
Witchfire will not have co-op, PvP, or PvPvE modes.
I hope that makes things crystal clear.
There’s a lot more coming, and next week we’ll continue revealing what The Revelations Update has in store. We’re expanding the list of activities and giving one of the more overlooked parts of the game a serious overhaul. Hazard a guess what we’re talking about – and see whether you were right next week.
