Closed Beta

Hello everyone! The free expansion for Death’s Gambit will be ready soon(TM)! But before we get there, we wanted to gather some feedback through a beta test starting this weekend. We’ll be reaching out to those who signed up a few months ago. This is a quick update on what to expect for those who will be participating.

The purpose of this beta is to gather feedback on talents and unique weapons. We want to make sure there is an appropriate balance of skill and reward in how you build your character. To that end, there will be an NPC in Gaian’s Cradle and Sanctuary who will unlock all weapons, talents, upgrades, NG+, and more, to give you an opportunity to play in this sandbox.

We’ve restricted the play area to a small slice of the game to avoid any major story spoilers. Here is what you’ll have access to:

However, be aware that even after unlocking everything at the NPC, you will still be required to complete the ability tutorial before you can use and change abilities. 

Many of the new weapons will also require the use of Crash Down, a metroidvania upgrade you need to unlock through the NPC.

For the purpose of testing balance, we recommend fighting Heroic Bulwark at level 80 with 30 talent points. But feel free to try out endgame builds (level 150 / 50 talents) against him as well. You’ll also be able to carry over those talents into NG+, so give that a go too.

Some lines may be missing voice overs - this is not a bug, we just haven’t put them in yet.

Lastly, you are free to stream, record, or post images of the beta. If you come across anything really bizarre or funny, we’d love to see it!

For anyone who does not receive access to the beta, follow us on twitter and discord for additional opportunities to help us improve the game.

We look forward to hearing about all the crazy synergies you discover.

Discord: https://discord.gg/deathsgambit

Twitter: @Deaths_Gambit

Death’s Gambit: Afterlife releases September 30th on PC and Switch!

Siradon has changed, but immortality still runs rampant. Through sacrifice and regret, Sorun finds himself at the start of his journey once again. But this time he wields choice. Greater choice in character customization, weapon variety, talents, and more. Guide his blade, and ultimately decide whether to fulfill his pact with Death, or succumb to the allure of immortality?

Death's Gambit Original & Afterlife Versions The game will be free to all owners of the original game and we plan on making the original version of the game playable on steam.

Physical Edition

We have physical edition pre-orders! Physical editions come with: 9 stickers of various characters, and a two-sided poster with a map to help explore Siradon. 

Bestbuy Target Serenity Forge (ships internationally)

Awesome New Merch! That's not all, though, we've got awesome new merch for you to pre-order! Check out the Serenity Forge store to pick up one of these cool new offerings:

A 24x18" double-sided poster, featuring a hand-drawn map of Siradon and new key art

A 2LP vinyl record of the Death's Gambit: Afterlife soundtrack, each with a different translucent two-tone "splatter" design + a digital download code Two t-shirts with exclusive, new designs.

Advanced Talents

In the upcoming Death’s Gambit expansion, we’ve overhauled our talent system to give players expanded player progression and customization. There are four talent pages in total, two of which players will have immediate access to. They are general talents, and their chosen class talents. As the player progresses, they will unlock the third page which allows them to multi-class. And finally, the advanced talents which remains relevant throughout increasing new game + levels. The general and advanced talent pages are the same no matter the class selection.

Today we’ll be delving into the advanced talent tree. Talents may change before final release.

II. Perfect Timing: Gain 10 soul energy if you use an ability within 1 second of it coming off cooldown.

Ia. Jump Dodge: When you double jump you become invincible for half a second.

Ia. Essence Gained Increase: Increase essence gained by 4% per point put into this talent.

Ib. Soul Energy Gained Increase: Soul Gained per attack increased by 3% per point put into this talent.

IIa. Power Increase: Damage increased by 1% per point put into this talent.

IIa. Soul Gambt: Abilities deal 5% more damage but cost 1 more soul energy to use per point put into this talent.

IIIa. Crash Dodge: When you use soul crash you become invincible until you hit the ground.

IIIa. Stamina Regeneration Increase: Stamina regeneration rate increased by 10% per point put into this talent.

IIIb. Soul Energy Max Increase: Soul energy max increased by 2 per point put into this talent.

Class Talents: Sentinel

In the upcoming Death’s Gambit expansion, we’ve overhauled our talent system to give players expanded player progression and customization. There are four talent pages in total, two of which players will have immediate access to. They are general talents, and their chosen class talents. As the player progresses, they will unlock the third page which allows them to multi-class. And finally, the advanced talents which remains relevant throughout increasing new game + levels. The general and advanced talent pages are the same no matter the class selection.

Today we’ll be delving into the Sentinel talent tree. Talents may change before final release.

I. Fire Empowerment: All fire damage dealt is increased by 4%.

II. Block and Roll: Perfect block and parry attacks, make your next roll attack hit grant 30 soul energy. 

IIa. Rupture Mastery: Hitting a bleeding enemy with rupture causes them to take 20% more bleed damage over time.

IIa. Greatsword Roll Fury: Hitting a bleeding enemy with a greatsword roll attack adds 3 seconds to the bleed timer.

IIa. Bloodbath: Greatsword: Greatsword combo finisher deals double damage to bleeding enemies. 

IIa. X Slash Mastery: X Slash projectiles return towards you and deal damage again.

IIa1. Devastation: Greatsword: Greatsword combo finisher deals double damage if all abilities are on cooldown.

IIb. Circle of Stamina: Upon healing, you leave behind a small area that regenerates your stamina very quickly. Lasts 10 seconds. 

IIb. Power Crash: Attacking with Crash Down increases all damage done by 5%. Effect lasts 24 seconds. 

III. Crashdown Shockwave: Whenever a crash down would blind enemies hit, it also creates shockwaves that deal damage and blind enemies around you

IIc. Greathammer Mastery: Crushing Tide and Seismic Nova buffs last 10 seconds longer.

IIc. Seismic Nova Mastery: The explosion for Seismic Nova is now huge.

IIc. Greathammer Haste: If you have over four stacks of Crushing Tide or Seismic Nova, then your main greathammer combo is much faster.

III. Dark Empowerment: All dark damage dealt is increased by 4%. 

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Class Talents: Noble

In the upcoming Death’s Gambit expansion, we’ve overhauled our talent system to give players expanded player progression and customization. There are four talent pages in total, two of which players will have immediate access to. They are general talents, and their chosen class talents. As the player progresses, they will unlock the third page which allows them to multi-class. And finally, the advanced talents which remains relevant throughout increasing new game + levels. The general and advanced talent pages are the same no matter the class selection.

Today we’ll be delving into the noble’s talent tree. Talents may change before final release.

I. Explosives Expert: Using an ability makes your next crystal bomb explode into two smaller crystal bombs.

II. Bear Trap Master: Every 150 soul energy gained via attacking enemies, restores 1 bear trap to use.

II. Perfect Block Rage: Perfect blocking makes your next lunge or spear rush deal 150% more damage. Effect lasts 12 seconds.

IIa. Essence Shear: Gain 50% more essence whenever you kill an enemy while under 25% health.

IIa: Blinding Trap: Ability. Throw a blinding trap. Enemies who step on it are unable to attack for 5 seconds.

IIb: Cyclone Mastery: Cyclone ability animation is faster. 

IIb: Devastation: Halberd: Halberd combo finisher deals double damage if all abilities are on cooldown.

IIc: Spear Rush Mastery: Whenever spear rush is used, the next spear rush has no cooldown and costs no soul energy. Deals more damage at the end of the dash.

IIc: Devastation: Spear: Spear combo finisher deals double damage if all abilities are on cooldown. 

III: Wellness: Negative debuffs last 25% less time.

IIIb: Lightning Empowerment. All lightning damage dealt increased by 4%.

IIIc: Spear Adjustment. Spears now scale with Strength. 

IIld: Halberd Adjustment. Halberds now scale with finesse. 

IIle: Longsword Adjustment. Longswords now scale with finesse.

Class Talents: Blood Knight

In the upcoming Death’s Gambit expansion, we’ve overhauled our talent system to give players expanded player progression and customization. There are four talent pages in total, two of which players will have immediate access to. They are general talents, and their chosen class talents. As the player progresses, they will unlock the third page which allows them to multi-class. And finally, the advanced talents which remains relevant throughout increasing new game + levels. The general and advanced talent pages are the same no matter the class selection.

Today we’ll be delving into the Blood Knight talent tree. Talents may change before final release.

II. Blessing of Protection: Blocking attacks while below 50% health heals you for 25% of the damage blocked. 

IIa. Unholy Transfer: Ability. Sacrifice 17% of your health for 35 soul energy.

IIa. Unholy Transfer Haste: Using Unholy Transfer also reduces ability cooldowns by 7 seconds 

IIa. Unyielding Strike Mastery: Using Unyielding Strike while over 60 soul energy causes enemies hit to bleed and take damage over 16 seconds.

IIb. Cleaving Throw Mastery: Cleaving Throw animation is faster.

IIb. Explosive Axe: Hitting a burning enemy with Flame Blitz, causes them to explode, dealing damage around them.

IIb. Rolling Conflagration: Deal double damage if you hit a burning enemy with a roll attack.

IIb1. Blood for Blood: Abilities cost 5% health, but reduces soul energy cost by 5.

IIb2. Bloody Retaliation: Perfect block retaliation heals 4% of your maximum health.

IIb3. Flame Blitz Mastery: Flame Blitz animation is much faster.

IIc. Killing Blow Resilience: Killing an enemy reduces incoming damage by 30% for 5 seconds.

IIc. Quick Recovery: Perfect blocking reduces the time of negative status ailments by 5 seconds.

IIc. Bloodborne: Dropping under 10% health activates a buff that lets you heal a large amount of health whenever you deal any damage. Effect lasts 15 seconds and cannot happen more than once every 5 minutes.

Class Talents: Acolyte

In the upcoming Death’s Gambit expansion, we’ve overhauled our talent system to give players expanded player progression and customization. There are four talent pages in total, two of which players will have immediate access to. They are general talents, and their chosen class talents. As the player progresses, they will unlock the third page which allows them to multi-class. And finally, the advanced talents which remains relevant throughout increasing new game + levels. The general and advanced talent pages are the same no matter the class selection.

Today we’ll be delving into the Acolyte talent tree. Talents may change before final release.

II. Reap Mastery: Reap ability animation is faster and the buff lasts 6 more seconds.

IIa. Soul Break: Being shield broken gives 20 soul energy.

IIa. Soul Crash: Soul Crash increases soul energy gained from attacks by 3 for 12 seconds. 

IIa. Full Soul: Scythe attacks deal 10% more damage when over 90 soul energy.

IIa. Overflowing Soul: Max Soul Energy increased by 40.

IIb. Devastation: Scythe: Scythe combo finisher deals double damage if all abilities are on cool down.

IIb. Scythe Haste: If you have over four stacks of reap, your main scythe combo is much faster.

IIb. Divine Force: Ability. You cannot go below 1 health for 8 seconds. If you don’t kill an enemy within this time, you die.

IIc. Aggressive Soul: Abilities cost 5 more soul energy. All damage increased by 5%.

III. Dark Defense: All dark damage taken reduced by 10%. 

Class Talents: Assassin

In the upcoming Death’s Gambit expansion, we’ve overhauled our talent system to give players expanded player progression and customization. There are four talent pages in total, two of which players will have immediate access to. They are general talents, and their chosen class talents. As the player progresses, they will unlock the third page which allows them to multi-class. And finally, the advanced talents which remains relevant throughout increasing new game + levels. The general and advanced talent pages are the same no matter the class selection.

Today we’ll be delving into the Assassin talent tree. Talents may change before final release.

I. Retaliation: Getting shield broken lowers all ability cooldowns by 10 seconds.

II. Assassin Reflection: Using assassinate creates a shadow copy of yourself that deals damage where you used the ability. Lasts 9 seconds.

II. Circle of Haste: Healing leaves behind a small area that doubles ability cooldown speeds while standing in the area. Lasts 10 seconds.

IIa. Blood Born: Dealing a killing blow to an enemy with a bleed effect will cause it to explode into a cloud of blood that deals damage to enemies in it.

IIa. Blink Combo: Blink increases all damage dealt by 4%. Effect lasts until 2.5 seconds pass without hitting an enemy.

IIb. Gouge Mastery: Reduces Gouge cooldown by 30 seconds.

IIb. Improved Gouge: Your next dagger roll attack after using gouge also blinds enemies. 

IIc. Devastation: Daggers: Dagger combo finisher deals double damage if all abilities are on cooldown.

IIc. Keep Rolling: Dodge rolling reduces all ability cooldowns by 1 second.

III. Cloak of Darkness: Ability. You become invisible to non-boss enemies. 60 soul energy cost. 50 second cool down.

Class Talents: Wizard

In the upcoming Death’s Gambit expansion, we’ve overhauled our talent system to give players expanded player progression and customization. There are four talent pages in total, two of which players will have immediate access to. They are general talents, and their chosen class talents. As the player progresses, they will unlock the third page which allows them to multi-class. And finally, the advanced talents which remains relevant throughout increasing new game + levels. The general and advanced talent pages are the same no matter the class selection.

Today we’ll be delving into the Wizard talent tree. Talents may change before final release.

II. Experienced Mage: Creating a tome orb reduces all other ability cooldowns by 2 seconds.

IIa. Fire Mastery: Burning enemies hit with fire magic explode, taking extra damage and damaging enemies around them.

IIa. Pyroclasm: Hitting burning enemies with fire 2, causes them to explode again. Other enemies hit by the explosion take extra damage and also explode.

IIa. Spell Blade Mastery: Spell blade finisher makes the orb cast animations much faster. Lasts 10 seconds.

IIb. Lightning Mastery: Animation for casting lightning 1 is faster and strikes one additional time.

IIb. Lightning Power: Using lightning 2 infuses you with lightning. All lightning damage increased by 20% for 20 seconds.

IIb. Rotating Orb Mastery: Casting lightning and fire orbs together, now creates 3 orbs at a time.

IIc. Dark Mastery: Animation for dark 1 ability is faster.

IIc. Dark Execution: If dark 2 kills an enemy, the attack repeats itself.

IIc. Dark Mine Mastery: Casting Dark and Fire orb now creates a mine that explodes 3 times. 

Class Talents: Soldier

In the upcoming Death’s Gambit expansion, we’ve overhauled our talent system to give players expanded player progression and customization. There are four talent pages in total, two of which players will have immediate access to. They are general talents, and their chosen class talents. As the player progresses, they will unlock the third page which allows them to multi-class. And finally, the advanced talents which remains relevant throughout increasing new game + levels. The general and advanced talent pages are the same no matter the starting class.

In this talent series, we’ll be delving into each of the new class talent pages, starting with the soldier. Talents may change before final release.

I. Perfect Block Haste: Perfect blocking reduces all ability cooldowns by 8 seconds.

I. Steadfast: Recover from being shield-broken 50% faster.

I. Circle of Healing: Whenever you heal, you leave behind a small area that heals you over time. Heals 5% every second for 10 seconds.

I. Fleeting Protection: The first attack taken after resting at a Death statue deals no damage.

II. Winding Hew Mastery: Hitting a bleeding enemy with Winding Hew deals resets the bleed timer and makes it deal 20% more damage over time.

II. Heroic Lunge Mastery: Heroic Lunge deals double damage if you are under 25% health.

II. Bloodbath: Longsword: Dealing damage to bleeding enemies with longsword roll attack lowers all ability cooldowns by 10 seconds.

II. Storm Caller Mastery: Lightning strikes at the end of Storm Caller’s sword, dealing extra damage. 

IIa. Soul Crash Haste: Soul Crash now costs 10 soul energy, but reduces all ability cooldowns by 6 seconds.

IIb. Safeguard: All shields block as if they are S ranked, reducing stamina lost from blocking attacks.

IIc. Improved Fortitude: Fortitude ability now makes you completely invincible, and lasts 4 seconds. Its cooldown is increased by 30 seconds.

III. Strength Archer: Bows now scale with strength instead of finesse. 

III. Lightning Defense: All lightning damage taken reduced by 10%.

III. Fire Defense: All fire damage taken reduced by 10%. 

Free DLC update

Death's Gambit will not be at E3. 

Development on the DLC is entering a polish phase as most of the content is now playable.

So why has it taken so long?

The DLC is enormous. It includes almost 100 new class talents, many new levels, bosses, a metroidvania style map, new game modes, and weapons. It also progresses the story beyond our last conclusion. 

We are working as hard as humanly possible. The state of bugs during the original release was regrettable, so we are going to take extra time polishing to make sure we don’t run into the same issues.

We are also improving the game based on feedback. For example, Cusith has been entirely re-worked.

Other fixes include animation improvements to the Golden Drake Knight and Y’lnoth enemies.

We also wanted to show you some new content without spoiling too much. 

One new ability we added are these bear traps. They have no stat requirement and damage scales with level. You can only place up to 5 before you run out. That said, all 5 bear traps are regenerated when you use a save point.

Here they are in action...

There is also an ice trap variant that can only be obtained in one of the new class talent trees. 

We also added a double jump...

And a crash down ability... 

that opens any secret area with that glowing sigil.

Both of these are part of a group of abilities we are calling “Metroidvania” upgrades. You will obtain these as you progress through the game. They will help you find new secret areas across the world, making re-exploring old areas fresh and exciting. We’ve been able to make new types of level structures because of this.

We can confirm that every level in the game has been expanded or changed in some way to account for these new abilities.

The next time you hear from us will be very close to DLC release. Thanks again for all the support! 

Soon it will be time to “end the cycle of regret”.    ;)

-Jean

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Deaths_Gambit 

Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/deathsgambit

Death’s Gambit Dev Update

Hello! I am Jean Canellas, programmer and designer on Death’s Gambit.

I’m writing this to talk about the future of Death’s Gambit and to describe what has been going on behind the scenes on our end.

My goal is to be as transparent as possible, because that's what I have always wanted from other developers. That said, it hasn’t been easy. I have opted to spend most of my time fixing bugs, rather than having a dialogue with you all. I stopped tweeting entirely, and I shut myself out. I felt like I didn’t deserve to talk to fans until all the bugs were fixed. That certainly hurt, since talking with fans is part of what I enjoy the most about my job, besides the game design.

The problems we had on release were not what the fans deserved, and as players ourselves, we would be just as frustrated. If you’ve been sticking with us this whole time, you already know that we’ve been working hard to address all of these issues. Thank you for sticking by us, and for all of your help in tracking down issues.  

Now, with Patch 1.1 and Patch 1.2 rolled out on PS4 and PC, I feel I can finally take a breather and come out of the shadows again. There are still minor bugs, but for the most part, the game is finally in a good state. And we’re still planning on new patches to iron out those remaining minor bugs soon.

All that said, I want every Death’s Gambit fan to know: We don’t ever give up. This game got made through sheer force of determination and will. And we’re not done with the game yet. We did make mistakes during the release, but we have been learning, and I hope you see that once you play the latest patch.

Addressing cut content and our first reveal trailer.

Many of our fans have really latched onto our first reveal trailer and have since been disappointed by content that seemingly appears cut. Game design is about iteration and much of what you see in that first trailer is simply older versions of existing areas, or early prototypes. At the end of the day, grappling wasn’t implemented in a way that meshed with our design philosophy for the game.

So will we be adding the “cut content” back into the game? Probably not, because it was cut for a reason. That said I believe all the new content we are making for the game will be far better than what we cut. You can read more about how the game changed over time on Gamasutra.

Even some our favorite games like Bloodborne and Dark Souls have been found to have a lot of cut content.

Why did it take so long?

For the past couple months, I’ve been agonizing over how long it has taken us to get out a patch. We began work on Patch 1.1 three months ago . However, we kept running into random new issues every other day. It was a nightmare. All of you deserve better and I know it.

The main issue was dealing with Gamemaker. We would have a patch ready, but find something in the Gamemaker engine that caused all sorts of random crashes. When we thought Gamemaker had a fix, it created more bugs -  bugs that we wouldn’t find until after testing the game for days.

This went on for over a MONTH. We have since decided to re-code many features entirely from the ground up to avoid these problems. In the end, that turned out to be the right strategy, since we finished Patch 1.1 in a week and a half. From here forward, we’re expecting updates and bug fixes to go much smoother based on everything new we’ve implemented.

Regaining Trust and What’s Next for Death’s Gambit

Since I feel like you all deserved a better release experience, we are working on a massive piece of free DLC content for everyone who already owns the game, featuring: new levels, new weapons, new bosses, and improvements to the main world. We hope this helps us regain the trust with all of you. I hope you continue to support us and spread the word of our game and future games.

In the coming months I want to do things differently and be more open about the development of the game.

Want to talk to me directly? Want to trash talk me for messing up the release date or for making that one boss that took you hours to beat? Come to my stream >:)  I’ll be developing the DLC or playing some of the games I missed during my crunch times.

Cheers,

-Jean Canellas

Death’s Gambit Dev

Streams: https://www.twitch.tv/whitesrabbit

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Deaths_Gambit

Fanart Compilation Pt. II

by @Reinfoxy on twitter

by pengow from our Discord

by @Manowarro on twitter

by @Reinfoxy on twitter

by @Reinfoxy on twitter

by lachive from our Discord

by aaaaaa from our Discord

by @newmria on twitter

The Death's Gambit Soundtrack is now available on Bandcamp! All proceeds go 100% to Kyle who worked incredibly hard to compose this masterpiece. Please show him the love he deserves!

Death’s Gambit... out Tuesday!

Death’s Gambit releases on Tuesday!

Final Trailer

Steam Page

Website

Sony Blog Post

Death’s Gambit Cinematic Trailer

The countdown begins...Mark your calendars - August 14