Witchfire fills a very specific niche in videogames: the spooky shooter. Games like Blood, Resident Evil 4, Trepang2, and Painkiller, for instance, all belong to the horror genre, but they’re also less concerned with being outright scary than they are with conveying a more fun-loving, Halloween-style mood. They are, in short, more spooky than truly horrifying. Witchfire, the latest game from the former Painkiller and Bulletstorm makers at The Astronauts, continues in this vein, making it a solid choice for the fall season, especially given that it’s launching on Steam today with a huge overhaul to accompany its arrival on Valve’s platform.
Witchfire has been available in Early Access on Epic Games for a year now, but the FPS game is now heading to Steam with its most recent update, titled ‘High Stakes,’ along with it. In a post on the game’s website, designer Adrian Chmielarz details the update, which he says contains “big changes to … core gameplay loops.”
These include substantial changes to Witchfire’s stamina system, which now starts out full at the beginning of a run and can be refilled more easily. The Calamity gauge has also been tweaked, accumulating and triggering differently so, as Chmielarz puts it, “players should now feel like they’ve truly ‘earned’ a Calamity.” Along with these changes, the Gunroom has been reworked to split gear upgrading and equipping between discrete stations, and Witchfire’s visuals have been altered “to improve visibility without sacrificing the [game’s] atmosphere.”
The post also explains that Early Access players will receive a new weapon based on Painkiller’s stake gun called the Striga with the High Stakes update. A new Witch Vault for players to fight through and achievements have been added to the game as well.
Witchfire is out today on Steam. You can grab a copy right here.
If you’re still looking for more like Witchfire, you can find plenty of other great options in our picks for the top horror games and fantasy games on PC.
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