Hello Wanderers! 😺
It has been a while! We hope you're enjoying your time in The Wreckage! We decided to go back to Songs of Rats and the result is a major update for the game, focused on resolving progression blockers and improving the overall reliability of the whole experience.😊
This update fixes numerous campaign, saving, combat, and end-of-day issues, while also expanding controller support, improving ultrawide presentation and localization, and adding some other useful options and tweaks.
Behind the scenes, we have also rebuilt the game’s narrative system to make scenarios easier to maintain, test, and expand in case of future updates.
Thank you to everyone who reported issues and helped us track them down. You can find the complete list of implemented changes and improvements below.
Songs of Rats - Full Changelog
Fixed major campaign progression blockers. Corrected all chapter endings across Trial Time, Our Last Hope, and Searching for Balance that could leave you with an empty board and no way to continue. This includes the GO LEFT / GO RIGHT branches and Act 10. Cards and action points now return after the affected story sequences.
Improved save reliability and Continue functionality. Fixed valid saves being rejected when their location cards were outside the main deck hierarchy. Loading now replaces the previous session’s state, restores progression and card visibility, and keeps base stats separate from equipment bonuses. Added save version validation, atomic file replacement, and recovery from backup files when the main save is missing or corrupted. Returning to a camp checkpoint no longer awards its experience again.
Fixed end-of-day transitions and action-point handling. Card events now remain active until their dialogue, choices, combat, or trading sequence finishes. Their action-point cost is charged once, before checking whether the day has ended. Fixed conflicting transitions that could leave the board empty after spending the final AP, and removed duplicate turn generation from scanning.
Fixed combat execution and enemy encounters. Reconnected dozens of legacy encounter entry points to the active combat system, restored missing battle instructions, and corrected attacks and escape attempts that used another enemy’s outcome or data. Living enemies now counterattack after a player miss; defeated enemies cannot counterattack. Player death stops further event execution.
Corrected campaign scheduling and post-combat progression. Restored the transition to Act 10 in Time Trial after the relevant victories. Defeating or successfully escaping the Grinders now schedules the correct next chapter. Corrected chapter scheduling conflicts and ensured updated location pools are applied before drawing the next turn’s cards.
Expanded and repaired controller support. Added LB/RB navigation through all five scenarios and nine tiles, with a localized portrait confirmation button. Improved D-pad and analog navigation, B/Cancel handling, and focus recovery. Now you can access healing, stat upgrades, and the menu through the side panels, then return to the central choices. MOVE ON is selected automatically upon entering camp.
Fixed pause and resume during dialogue and combat. Opening the pause menu no longer interrupts running dialogue or destroys the current choice state. Returning to the game preserves the active panels. Confirming a menu action or healing no longer also advances the dialogue.
Fixed caravan trading. Random merchant offers now remain visible and keep the event active until the transaction finishes. Buying five food for 40 scrap now changes food and scrap instead of BODY. Techno-armor opens the correct offer, and the Acid Launcher requires the same 140 scrap that it costs.
Corrected combat rewards and equipment wear. Rewards are calculated and credited before the victory summary appears, with protection against duplicate payouts. Every victory now grants at least 5 scrap, while larger rolls remain unchanged. Restored post-victory weapon and armor wear, with accurate loss messages and protection against applying the same wear twice.
Updated dodge scaling and fixed impossible-to-hit enemies. MIND now grants 1-3% dodge chance per effective point, capped at 35%, including bonuses. Corrected Sentry Systems and Aggressive Robot configurations that caused every player attack to miss, restoring their miss chance to 20%.
Improved character creation and session resets. Fixed stale controllers and UI references surviving scene reloads. Character creation correctly initializes its five-point allocation, protects against repeated confirmation, and prevents older text commands from overwriting live counters. Effective BODY, MIND, and SPIRIT values refresh correctly.
Repaired exploration and clan interactions. Restored above 200 (!) random-roll conditions and repaired exploration checks involving discoveries, databases, reputation, settlements, and rituals. Ritual completion is recorded once. Opening the clan screen no longer triggers an unintended upgrade, and purchases refresh the relevant development values and costs.
Improved location draws and event routing. Duplicate entries retain their probability weighting without occupying multiple visible card slots in the same draw. Corrected scenario destinations for Sentry Systems, Doppelganger, and Mad Trader. Disabled broken entry points to missing content to prevent players entering those incomplete paths.
Extras section introduced in Main Menu. Extras now includes the Lorebook and might be expanded in the future with new content.
Added adjustable screen zoom and improved ultrawide presentation. Settings now offers 0–20% zoom, with immediate preview and automatic preference saving. Zoom applies to gameplay, character creation, the Main Menu, and Settings. Added decorative ultrawide backgrounds and fixed their overlap with enlarged side panels.
Improved healing and level-up controls. Healing displays its actual cost separately from available supplies. When food runs out, the selected healing mode automatically switches to first-aid kits if available. Added clearer mode-switch arrows, visible selection frames for stat upgrades, and reliable controller focus after spending the last available upgrade points.
Improved combat and reward feedback. Round summaries display actual damage dealt and taken, with CRITICAL labels for both sides and clearer red miss messages. Enemy attack displays now show the base attack consistently, while round results show damage after mitigation. Fixed stale or missing random reward amounts, escape damage, trap health-loss messages, and equipment-loss summaries.
Expanded and corrected localization. Filled missing dialogue and interface translations in Polish, German, and French, repaired dynamic stat and reward placeholders, and corrected item descriptions. Restored English labels that were incorrectly replaced with “Play” or another language. Switching languages preserves current numerical values and correctly refreshes the interface.
Added more camp dialogue for Aron. Added 12 randomized lines, including three jokes, in English, Polish, German, and French.
Improved menus, settings, and intro playback. Main-menu navigation follows the visible button order and skips unavailable options. Settings now opens correctly with a controller, and sliders have consistent gold selection feedback. Fixed Intro skipping now uses a three-second hold with not only mouse andkeyboard, but also with controller buttons.
Corrected audio, camera shake, and rendering issues. Fixed decimal parsing that could multiply effect durations and sound volumes on some system languages. Restored attack sounds, corrected camera shake timing and camera-position recovery, and reduced armor pickup/purchase volume by 30%. Restored missing text-rendering resources and improved shader safeguards, material cleanup, and the scanner effect.
Improved game stability. Moved the whole game to the latest engine version. Reworked how story events and choices are handled, fixing issues that could interrupt events or prevent the game from continuing.
Stats window added. Now you can access your stats by clicking on the character portrait or pressing LB on the gamepad.
Phew! That's all for now!
Traditionally, we would also like to encourage you to check out the EBOOK, which contains a short novel (Uriel's Song) offering deeper insight into the lore of Songs of Rats and The Wreckage. If you'd like to explore more of the world, we think it could be a good read!
[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/3545330/Songs_of_Rats__Tales_from_the_Shadows_EBOOK/"]
Your support means everything!😺
Once again, we can’t thank you enough for being part of Songs of Rats and exploring The Wreckage. If you don’t own the game yet, we highly encourage you to try the demo - we’d love for you to join us on this adventure! And finally, if you’re enjoying the game, please consider leaving a positive review on Steam. As a small indie team, your reviews help us tremendously in reaching more players and growing our community. Every single one counts and is deeply appreciated! 🙏 🤛 Thank you all once again for your amazing support. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts and see you exploring The Wreckage. Enjoy the adventure! [dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/3300470/Songs_of_Rats/"]
