Early Access Patch 018: The BEEFY Update - May 7, 2019
Our fourth Major Update has arrived, letting you rise higher into the Underworld than ever before! This one is packed, so _ A) _we hope you enjoy it! and _B) _we'll be monitoring feedback and making follow-up changes for a number of days before switching focus to our next big update.
Highlights[ | ]
- Elysium: rise up to an all-new biome of the Underworld, rife with new perils and mysteries
- Theseus & the Minotaur: they await you in the afterlife of heroes... who else will you find up there?
- Redesigned Dash: outmaneuver your foes like never before with this newly revised core ability
- Improved UI: all-new Boon Info display lets you track an even greater number of power-ups
- New Foes: confront the Exalted and the Nemean Chariot, among other Elysian foes
- New Boons: look for new God Boons, including all-new 'Exchange' choices
- New Story Events: including ~1,000 new voice lines! The most added in an update since launch
General Gameplay[ | ]
- Added the third main biome after Asphodel (good luck up there)
- Boons and other power-up rewards now show up relatively more often as Chamber Reward options
- You can now find and use more than one Daedalus Hammer per escape attempt
- Reworked damage scaling from multiple Boons; effects are generally additive rather than multiplicative
- Olympians will sometimes offer an Exchange of Boons; Exchanges always have a higher power level
- Added Heroic rarity level for Boons, greater than Epic (note: used with 'Exchange' Boons)
- Poms of Power now yield diminishing returns when repeatedly applied to the same Boons
- Infernal Troves requiring Skeleton Keys are rarer but yield greater rewards
- Infernal Gates appear slightly more often
Weapons & Powers[ | ]
- Dash: redesigned for a more fluid feel
- Wrath: reduced meter gain from dealing and receiving damage; meter no longer gained from pillars
- Stygian Blade: slightly reduced recovery time of Nova special
- Heart-Seeking Bow: standard shot now staggers foes on-hit; increased stagger duration of Power Shot; reduced recovery time of Volley special
- Shield of Chaos: increased attack damage; increased knockback for Bull Rush; you are now invulnerable while using Bull Rush
- Eternal Spear: reduced damage of Throw special; removed recovery time if you retrieve a thrown Spear by moving to it; slightly increased range of Spin Attack to match the visual
- Adamant Rail: increased speed and reduced recovery of Bombard special; attack projectile hit box slightly increased (making it more effective against foes' projectile attacks)
Olympian Boons[ | ]
- Boons affecting your Dash are all updated based on the new properties
- Status Curses: each Olympian now has their own status effect; some descriptions have been updated
- Static Discharge (Zeus): newly added!
- Thunder-God's Fury (Zeus): slightly increased damage and range
- Freak Accident (Zeus x Artemis): newly added!
- Sea-God's Rage (Poseidon): increased damage, duration, and maneuverability
- Razor Shoals (Poseidon): slightly reduced damage
- Blinding Flash (Athena): newly added!
- Titan Toppler (Athena): no longer freezes you in place for a moment
- Sure Footing (Athena): increased damage resistance
- Deadly Reversal (Athena x Artemis): reduced chance of Critical damage
- Hunter's Mark (Artemis): newly added!
- Exit Wounds (Artemis): increased damage
- Barbs of the Master Huntress (Artemis): shots pierce obstacles; increased long-range damage
- Deadly Reversal (Artemis x Athena): reduced duration of guaranteed-Critical buff
- Heartbreak Strike (Aphrodite): increased duration of Weak effect on this and her other Boons
- Dying Lament (Aphrodite): increased radius of effect
- War-God's Thirst (Ares): increased damage and added immunity to knockback effects
- Positive Outlook (Dionysus): reduced damage resistance
Daedalus Hammer Upgrades[ | ]
- Empowering Nova (Blade): slightly reduced duration of Critical buff
- Sudden Sunder (Blade): redesigned as Instant Nova; much faster but no longer blinks forward
- Piercing Barrage (Bow): reduced armor damage (to compensate for increased rate of fire)
- Explosive Shot (Bow): increased damage; increased duration of charge-up (making it slightly slower)
- Defensive Aura (Shield): removed from game
- Dark Barrier (Shield): removed from game
- Assault Flight (Shield): removed from game
- Minotaur Rush (Shield): redesigned; now gives your Bull Rush a Power Shot opportunity
- Pulverizing Blow (Shield): redesigned; now hits twice
- Dashing Wallop (Shield): newly added!
- Explosive Return (Shield): newly added!
- Armor Shredder (Shield): newly added!
- Mirage Flight (Shield): returns to you faster; updated visuals
- Sudden Rush (Shield): increased duration of charge-up
- Vicious Skewer (Spear): reduced chance of Critical damage
- Exploding Launcher (Spear): increased attack speed
- Triple Bomb (Rail): reduced recovery time
- Explosive Fire (Rail): newly added!
- Heavy Slug (Rail): newly added!
- Invigorating Blast (Rail): newly added!
Foes & Encounters[ | ]
- Beware of a variety of all-new foes and traps in Elysium
- Removed Survival encounters from Asphodel
- Reduced how many types of elite foes can appear in Thanatos encounters
- Removed Elite Voidstones from Asphodel (look for them later on...)
- Reduced enemy counts in Asphodel 'river crossing' encounter
- Pest: mines thrown onto impassable terrain now harmlessly defuse instead of exploding
- Burn-Flinger: death weapon should be slightly easier to avoid
- Wave-Maker: slightly reduced projectile acceleration
- Megagorgon: removed short-range area attack
- Bone Hydra: further adjustment and improvements to attack telegraphing
- Alecto: reduced attack speed while enraged
Mirror of Night[ | ]
- Greater Reflex (Mirror): max rank reduced (as part of the Dash redesign; invested Darkness will be refunded)
- Privileged Status: newly added! deal greater damage by chaining godlike powers
- Shadow Presence: reduced max rank
Keepsakes & Items[ | ]
- Keepsakes can now rank up during escape attempts (not just in between)
- Broken Spearpoint: newly added!
- Tinge of Erebus (Well): reduced shop cost
Pact of Punishment[ | ]
- Updated Skeleton Key cost and ordering of options once the system is unlocked (as a result, the Pact should be able to more quickly and meaningfully enhance challenge)_
- Shared Misery makes foes spawn faster as well as in greater numbers
- Tenebrous Veil now locks random choices
Level Design & Environments[ | ]
- Added Elysium chambers
- Updated newer Tartarus mini-boss chamber with more walkable space
- Chaos Gates now can spawn in the first chamber of Asphodel
- Other minor fixes and improvements to various chambers
Art & Visual FX[ | ]
- Added new Elysium environment set
- Updated main menu based on new Major Update
- Updated animations for Alecto
- Updated animations for Tisiphone
- Updated colors of Asphodel Witches to be distinct from those in Tartarus
- Updated colors of wave-shooting Bone Hydra head to be more distinct from the others
- Updated visual effects when interacting with Primordial Chaos
- Added visuals effects for new Status Curses and other new Boons
- Added visual effect for Second Wave (Poseidon)
Menus & UI[ | ]
- Updated and reset default Boon Info command; now toggles the screen on/off instead of requiring a press-and-hold (note: you may need to update your control mappings)
- Updated Victory Screen after successfully completing an escape attempt
- Improved low-health feedback on the life gauge
- Added feedback when Keepsakes rank up after encounters
- Added feedback when Pierced Butterfly (Thanatos) upgrades in power
- Added new feedback for when you are being targeted by certain ranged attacks
- Death Defiance charges granted by Athena have a special indicator
- Updated Boon icon backings to show rarity color more clearly
- Improved 'active Heat' feedback when using the Pact of Punishment
- Improved feedback for Boons affected by Tenebrous Veil (Pact)
- Improved feedback for recently ranked-up Keepsakes in the selection screen
- Improvements to Well of Charon formatting
- Improvements to boss life gauges
- Improvements to feedback on charmed foes
- Damage numbers from damage-over-time effects have distinct formatting
- Updated text for various Boons and interactions
- Other minor changes and improvements
Music & SFX[ | ]
- 'The King and the Bull': added new music track to Elysium
- Added many new sound effects
- Minor fixes and mix improvements
Voice & Narrative[ | ]
- Added narrative events with various characters
- Added Zagreus voice events for various gameplay contexts
- Added 'Remembrance' and Victory event variants
- Added Wrath voice events for when Olympians are displeased in 'Trial of the Gods' encounters
- Added Codex entries for new foes and characters
- Updated requirements from some narrative events
- Fixes and tuning to some contextual voice events
Miscellaneous[ | ]
- Updated Development Roadmap to reflect our plans for our next Major Update
- Improvements to Aim Assist tuning using controllers
- Gameplay timer now pauses while entering Chaos Gates and Infernal Gates
- Skelly's unlockables now become available after clearing Elysium (if you haven't revealed them yet)
- The Pact of Punishment is now unlocked after clearing Asphodel (if you haven't unlocked it yet)
- Gameplay performance optimizations for some system configurations
- Added lightning effects for Scintillating Feast (Zeus x Dionysus)
- The catch animation for the Shield's Throw special now plays more reliably
- Reduced frequency of the hint to use Wrath
- Improved D-pad scrolling in Mirror screen
- Updated some non-English language strings in menus
- Updated Voice Cast in Credits
Bug Fixes[ | ]
- Fixed various issues with Charm effects from Aphrodite
- Fixed issues with Last Stand and Deathless Stand (Athena) not applying to all Death Defiance effects
- Fixed an issue causing the Adamant Rail to have too much knockback from Tempest Strike (Poseidon)
- Fixed an issue where Sea-God's Rage (Poseidon) could be earned before a specific event
- Fixed an issue where Ocean's Bounty (Poseidon) did not affect rewards in Erebus
- Fixed incorrect prerequisite Boons for earning Second Wave (Poseidon)
- Fixed lingering visual FX issues with Razor Shoals (Poseidon)
- Fixed Engulfing Vortex (Ares) not upgrading his War-God's Thirst
- Fixed an issue where you could exit chambers while charging up the Shield's Bull Rush
- Fixed an issue where upgrades affecting Rail ammo supply did not update the UI right away
- Fixed issues where reduced healing from Grim Inevitability (Pact) did not always preview correctly
- Fixed issues with the Wrath Gauge sometimes not showing correct feedback when full
- Fixed issues with controller vibration occurring unintentionally in some contexts
- Fixed lava damage causing a physical impact sound
- Fixed a rare issue where the Codex update notification would not display when intended
- Fixed an issue with Tisiphone's AI when standing in the corner during the last phase of the fight
- Fixed an issue where opening the Codex near Thanatos did not always turn to the correct page
- Fixed an issue where Dusa could be gifted after flying off
- Many other minor fixes
Quote of the Patch[ | ]
“ | ...now Theseus encouraged his father and loudly boasted that he would master the Minotaur, so that he gave the pilot another sail, a white one, ordering him, if he returned with Theseus safe, to hoist the white sail, but otherwise to sail with the black one, and so indicate the affliction. | „ |
~ Life of Theseus (Plutarch; B. Perrin translation) |
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