PATCH 0.9.4 (74146)
(2026.07.07)
This is - most likely - the final patch for Revelations, and quite an important one, as version 0.9.4 will represent Witchfire until 1.0 lands.
(unless a hotfix or a rollback of some features is needed, that is)
0.9.4 doesn’t just bring the usual swathe of fixes and improvements, but introduces a very meaningful change to the way weapons feel as we have tinkered with the damage fall-off. It was well-received among the testers, but we want to hear the thoughts of the wider audience as well, so please don't hesitate to let us know what you think.
We added an option to launch the game in Safe mode on Steam. Using this feature deactivates the module responsible for super sampling - it has been known to cause crashes on hardware that does not support it.
Damage drop-off rebalance:
- The distance over which all weapons lose full effectiveness has been doubled (base ranges have not been changed). For example, a gun that dealt full damage at 10m range, and then steadily lost all effectiveness over the 10-14m range, now will do so over 10-18m range.
- Base pellet spread of shotguns has been tightened.
- Pellet spread reduction on aiming down sights and crouching has been reduced.
- Recoil reduction on aiming down sights and crouching for Machine Pistols have been reduced
- Maximum range gains from Arsenal have been slightly reduced across the board (10 to 15%, depending on the weapon type).
Designer notes: sharp damage drop-off with range has been a pain point for many new players as long as Witchfire has been playable. It has been implemented for multiple reasons, but as time went on, it became increasingly clear: while most people didn't mind it, people who disliked it really hated it. As with all common quality of life issues, we decided to examine it, and see if it could be resolved without compromising the core vision of the game.
We experimented and playtested a version that was less punishing, and after more deliberation and additional playtesting over our Beta branch, we decided to go forward with the rebalance. We believe this change has a positive influence on gameplay, and added an interesting strategic layer to the game. The rest of the changes in that paragraph have been introduced to keep the effectiveness of specific weapon classes relatively the same - this is meant to be mostly a quality of life/game feel change, not a difficulty change.
Keep in mind that the reasons why we initially implemented such a short damage drop off range are still there, and prolonged playtesting might prove that the tradeoffs are too severe, and we roll back the changes.
Early game levelling:
- Reduced the amount of witchfire it takes to Ascend before the player hits level 30.
- Increased witchfire gains multiplier on the Island of the Damned and Scarlet Coast.
Designer notes: we're balancing the levelling experience not around retention time, but player satisfaction. Level-ups are meant to be rare enough to feel earned and valuable, without feeling grindy. It seems that right now the balance is slightly off, so we'll be looking at witchfire acquisition rate through the game before 1.0. That, however, will be quite a lengthy process, so for now we decided to focus on the early game experience. This is when players have the least objectives to work towards, so gathering witchfire is in the spotlight, and early game buildcrafting opportunities don't really open up until you get a few levels under your belt.
Melee weapons:
- Added a Zweihander melee weapon to the game. It has to be found to be unlocked.
- Changed Sacring Bell charged attack animation - it has intentionally longer windup, to balance out the Bell's powerful Special attack.
Changes to spells:
Burning Stake:
- Reduced base duration from 30 to 25 seconds
Miasma:
- Increased base decay tick from 4 to 6.
- Decay damage now increases every 2.5 seconds instead of every 3 seconds
- Increased base duration from 20 to 30 seconds.
Changes to weapons:
- Increased Nemesis ammo reserves from 65 to 88.
Traps and events:
- Flytraps and Festers can now spawn in the Marshland.
- Removed numerous events and traps that could spawn underwater in the Marshland.
- The Mine Attractor event reward treasures are no longer cursed.
Enemies:
Lament:
- Fixed Lament crying triggering at too long distance from the player.
- Laments will now stop crying if they get too far from the player for too long.
- Laments will only cry if they are targeting the player now.
- Laments' deafening cry effect will now scale with distance from the player. Cry effect intensity is now proportionate to the distance to the player:
- Upon going out of range, the ability will be interrupted.
- Ability will not be used against foes other than the Preyer.
- Upon going out of range, the ability will be interrupted.
Spore-head:
- Reduced bombardment total area and lowered the randomization of target locations.
- Reduced projectiles lifetime post landing to 10s at maximum.
- Fixed a bug that caused the projectiles destroyed by the player to damage the player.
- Projectile explosions no longer push the player upwards.
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the enemy from using melee attacks.
Concelebrant:
- Concelebrants chase logic tweaked - it is now easier to avoid the skirmish.
Changes to World Corruption:
Stone Golem:
- Drastically reduced the chance for Stone Golem to spawn due to World Corruption, as it was never intended to be a guaranteed encounter (in World Corruption).
Unstable rifts:
- Reworked the way unstable rifts spawn; all portals should feel less crowded, rifts will spawn mostly in empty areas, with only a few reinforcing the remaining dangerous areas.
- Total amount of rifts has been slightly increased.
- Decreased the number of stronger unstable rifts spawning at higher World Corruption.
Spires:
- Spires gained a new physical mesh, they feel way more "shootable" now.
Madness orbs:
- Madness orbs have been limited to fewer arenas, in order to make room, but also to eliminate spaces where they were the sole obstacle. In the current iteration, they should have more of an additional area modifier feel, instead of disrupting the flow of play across the whole maps.
World corruption - known issues:
- World Corruption Spawn Particles can sometimes show in unintended areas - we’re investigating this issue.
UI:
Letters Screen improvements:
- Better layout on 16:10 screens.
- Added animation when sending a letter.
- The thread automatically scrolls to the bottom after sending a letter.
- Added information about thread status, making it clear whether the current thread is finished or we're currently awaiting a reply from the Vatican.
- Threads on the left side of the screen now display icons depicting their status.
- Finished threads are now displayed at the bottom of the list. This isn't very noticeable right now, but will be more useful when more correspondence is added to the game.
- Tweaked Letters appearance in the Workshop screen.
Other:
- Added support for in-text icons in popups which let us display better key binding conflict message in controls settings.
- Improved threads appearance on the left side of the Letters screen.
- Dossier: fixed an issue with quest name overlapping other UI elements in some languages.
Audio:
- Designed new sounds for the Sacring Bell.
- Restored the volume slider for Dialogues in the audio settings.
Other improvements and changes:
- Captain's log and scout note on Marshland got a unique camera placement, they should now look nicer.
- Tweaked animation timing for Grenadier Kick ability.
- Husk and Cultist overhead melee animation timing adjustments.
- Performance tweaks for Iron Cross and Cursed Bell spells (backend tweaks for these spells to be less resource-hungry).
- Added trail VFX to indicate Fallen Preyers' teleport location after quest ambushes
- Temptations should now disappear from map instantly after being picked up.
- Story texts/VO updates & corrections.
- Changed the turret activation cost to 1000 Witchfire + 1 Divine essence.
- Tears of whispering god has a new prompt: open instead of disarm.
- Corrupted turrets HP lowered.
- A new, surprise addition to World Corruption: Madness heads, which - upon detecting the player - slightly rise the Calamity meter.
- Marshland mini-boss difficulty tweaks.
- Turret corruption distance tweaks.
- Madness orbs balancing.
- Removed multiple Proximity Mine spawn points that were too close to the entry portals on Marshlands
- Performance optimizations for Miasma and Frost Cone (backend improvements).
- Increased the Witchfire multiplier for Witch Mountain to 200%.
Bug fixes:
- Fixed the timing on the most problematic Swordsman/Buckler/Maceman/Axeman/Wretch melee attack.
- Fixed Maceman lightnings possibly stripping the player of all shield charges and dealing damage on top of that, as well as tweaked its tracking.
- Fixed missing recoil for weapons when they had their magazine sizes increased.
- Fixed range of interaction with garden plants in the Hermitorium.
- Fixed a bug that caused the enemy to freeze after killing a frozen enemy with Blessed Fire bead equipped.
- Fixed Tainted Coin inventory category.
- Fixed "..." interaction prompt bug.
- Incense ingredients are now consumed correctly.
- Fixed Zweihander consuming two charges.
- Fixed Zweihander not taking into account lowered crosshair.
- Fixed Soul Eater not showing soul sigils in fall off range.
- Fixed a bug that caused Divine Essence to drop from mini-bosses and calamities before World Corruption becomes unlocked.
- Fixed all melee weapons being visible in the background of some screens (e.g Gnosis) when the weapon is extended.
- Removed the extra mini-boss from Marshland.
- Various text fixes.
- Fixed an incorrect RoF value displayed on Vulture's inspect screen.
- Fixed exploding barrels behaviour, damage and chaining.
- Fixed a bug that was causing homing projectiles to not follow Bloaters and Creepers.
