'RPG shooter' Witchfire comes to Steam, and after a year of early access on Epic it's finally turning into the game I always wanted it to be

GamesFPSWitchfire’RPG shooter' Witchfire comes to Steam, and after a year of early access on Epic it’s finally turning into the game I always wanted it to beWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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After a year as an Epic Games Store exclusive, the roguelike shooter Witchfire has made its way to Steam—and if you haven’t played for a while, or you’ve been waiting for the early access game to cook a little more, I’m here to tell you that the past 12 months have seen it come a very long way in the right direction.

The Astronauts have been tuning Witchfire for a good while now with an eye toward making it less punishing: The initial release in 2023 showed all kinds of potential but the learning curve wasn’t so much an arc as a brick wall with barbed wire on top, armed with a cricket bat and a bottle of Jack.

That’s changed, dramatically, in two ways. First, the addition in April of a new system calledGnosis, which replaced the original level-based difficulty with a wholly new mechanic that advances separately and much more slowly, and completely at the player’s discretion. Certain aspects and areas of Witchfire require higher levels of Gnosis to access, so there is incentive to crank it up sooner or later, but you’re now able to increase your character’s attributes and push deeper into the game without digging yourself into a hole you can’t get out of.

The other big step in approachability came in August with the release of theWailing Tower update, which among other things added a new locale Island of the Damned. Despite the name, the Island is actually very (well, relatively) friendly to newcomers: Small and easy to navigate, not too many enemies, double resource drops, and no “calamities,” the semi-regular run-or-die interruptions that nobody likes. There’s bigger trouble to be found as you explore and unlock the island’s secrets, but overall it’s a place where newcomers can rapidly improve their weapons and abilities, and more importantly get a feel for how Witchfire is played without having their asses mercilessly kicked.

Amidst all of this, The Astronauts has also changed how it talks about Witchfire in order to better reflect the nature of the game and the studio’s ambitions for the future. Witchfire was originally described as an FPS built around “soulslike, extraction, and roguelite gameplay,” but that’s all been dropped: Developers are now calling it “asingleplayer RPG shooter,” reflecting both an evolution of the game’s direction and a desire to avoid confusion.

“We realized that describing Witchfire as a ‘unique blend of souls-like, extraction, and roguelite gameplay was not only vague but potentially misleading,” creative director Adrian Chmielarz wrote. “It could deter players who would enjoy the game once they understood its true nature, or disappoint those expecting more rigid adherence to genre fundamentals.

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“We’ve now settled on ‘RPG shooter.’ The shooter part is obvious, and the RPG elements, like build crafting and lore, grow stronger with each update.” Chmielarz added that more story elements and a greater focus on Witchfire’s RPG aspect is “coming soon.”

For those who have been playing Witchfire on the Epic Games Store and want to make the move to Steam, the good news is that saves will carry over and the process is about as painless as possible. Both games use the same save location and format, so there’s literally nothing to do: Just install the game on Steam, fire it up, and like magic, there it is.

Coming to Steam seems to be working out pretty well for Witchfire, which has held a place in thetop sellers listsince its arrival. But Chmielarz said in January that the Epic exclusivity deal was very good for it too: Sales weren’t as high as they would have been if the game was on both storefronts, but the deal with Epic “helped us to keep the studio independent,” and Epic’s smaller take on revenues has provided a boost to Witchfire’s development budget.

“Last but not least, Epic is genuinely good to us,” Chmielarz wrote, before the Steam launch was announced. “Helping out, promoting the game. We’re happy with the deal. We will come to other platforms for sure, stay tuned—but for now we’re glad [we] went with them.”

(Image credit: The Astronauts)

Witchfire 2024-25 development roadmap

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