Update 0.9 — Final Major Update Before 1.0

Plague Doctors,

Update 0.9 is now live.

This is the biggest update we’ve ever built for Devil of the Plague and our final major update before the 1.0 Full Release.

Throughout Early Access, we’ve listened closely to your feedback and spent months rebuilding major parts of the game.

With Update 0.9, we didn’t want to simply add another room, another item, or another small system.

We wanted Devil of the Plague to feel different.

The result is a completely rebuilt lobby filled with activities, minigames and secrets, new gameplay mechanics inside matches, a new afterlife experience, hiding systems, boss improvements, puzzles, major performance work, and much more.

And this is still only the beginning of the final road toward 1.0.

The Lobby Is No Longer a Waiting Room

One of the biggest changes in Update 0.9 is our completely rebuilt medieval cozy-horror lobby.

We wanted the time between matches to actually be fun.

Instead of standing around waiting for the next game to begin, you can now explore, practice mechanics, challenge your friends, discover secrets, listen to music, and interact with several different systems.

In many ways, the lobby has become a game within the game.

Rat Race

Pick your rat and race against your friends.

Manage your speed, avoid overheating, shove rival rats, recover when knocked down, and be the first to reach the cheese.

Four players. Four rats.

One piece of cheese.

Good luck.

Whack-a-Rat

Not everything in the new lobby needs to summon something from another dimension.

Grab the mallet and test your reactions in our new Whack-a-Rat minigame.

Simple.

Fast.

And surprisingly competitive.

Dukebox

The new lobby also includes an interactive Dukebox, giving your group another way to customize the atmosphere while preparing for the next match.

Take a break.

Pick something to listen to.

Then go back to screaming.

Practice Before the Nightmare Begins

The new lobby is also a place to learn.

We’ve added a dedicated training area where players can practice important mechanics before entering a real match.

Learn how to use your lantern.

Understand its timing.

Practice how it can help you survive encounters with bosses and other threats.

New players can experiment without immediately putting an entire run at risk, while experienced players can sharpen their reactions before heading back into the plague.

The lobby isn’t just more entertaining now.

It’s useful.

Occult Board

Gather your entire team around the board.

When everyone activates it together, the Occult Board randomly chooses one of four outcomes.

You never know what you’re going to get.

It may:

• Automatically complete a ritual

• Send the boss into a frenzy

• Throw one of your teammates into a hallucinatory state

• Kill one player instantly

Sometimes the occult helps.

Sometimes it absolutely does not.

Cryptex — Secrets Hidden Across the Maps

Update 0.9 also introduces the Cryptex system.

Hidden chests can now be discovered across the maps, but opening them requires more than simply finding a key.

Each Cryptex uses a four-digit combination.

To discover the code, you’ll need to investigate the environment.

At certain clue locations, use your lantern’s secondary action to reveal hidden numbers written on the walls.

Each number also contains a small marking underneath it that tells you where that number belongs in the four digit sequence.

Find all four clues.

Put them in the correct order.

Unlock the Cryptex.

And discover what’s hidden inside.

We wanted exploration to matter more, and the Cryptex is one of the first steps toward adding more secrets, puzzles, and reasons to investigate every corner of our maps.

New Gameplay Mechanics

Update 0.9 introduces several new mechanics designed to create more interaction, more improvisation, and more memorable moments during a run.

These include:

• Axe Throwing

• Bottle Throwing

• Crossbow

These aren’t here to turn Devil of the Plague into an action game.

They’re here to give players more options when a situation goes wrong.

Interrupt an enemy.

Create distance.

Help a teammate.

Buy yourself a few extra seconds. Or completely miss and make everything worse. That part is up to you.

New Hiding Mechanics

Running is no longer always your only option.

Update 0.9 expands hide and seek gameplay with new interactive hiding spots including lockers, cabinets, and other environmental spaces.

On certain maps, hiding can now become an important part of surviving a boss encounter.

Sometimes the best move is not running faster.

Araf — Choose What Happens After Death (Haunting Mode)

Death no longer means simply waiting for the rest of the match.

Update 0.9 introduces a redesigned Araf, giving eliminated players a choice in what happens next.

Single Player

In single-player, death sends you to a single Blue Door.

Pass through it to return to the normal afterlife flow and continue toward revival.

Multiplayer — Blue or Red?

In multiplayer, two doors will appear:

Blue Door — Return

Choose the Blue Door to return to the normal afterlife flow.

Your teammates can revive you with a Mandrake, just like before.

Red Door — Haunting Mode

Choose the Red Door and you’ll enter Haunting Mode for around 90 seconds.

Instead of waiting to be revived, you can temporarily haunt your surviving teammates:

• Turn off their lanterns

• Trigger jumpscares

• Mess with them while they’re trying to survive

When Haunting Mode ends, your time causing chaos is over.

So when you die, you now have a choice:

Wait for your friends to save you… or make their lives harder first.able to stay there forever, but for a short time, death can become someone else’s problem too.

Improved Boss Behavior

Boss behavior has received significant updates.

New logic and behaviors make encounters more dynamic and less predictable while allowing them to interact more naturally with the new mechanics and hiding systems introduced in Update 0.9.

The goal is simple:

More tension. More decisions. Fewer encounters that feel exactly the same.

Major Performance Improvements

Devil of the Plague has moved to Unreal Engine 5.8, alongside extensive optimization work across the project.

In our internal testing, some scenarios have shown performance improvements of approximately 30–40 FPS, depending on hardware, settings, and the area being played.

Performance and stability remain major priorities as we approach 1.0.

Improved Ghost Visuals

Several visual effects related to players in the Ghost state have also been updated based directly on community feedback.

We’ll continue refining these effects as more players experience Update 0.9.

Improved Gamepad Support

While full official controller support is not complete yet, many more gameplay elements can now be controlled using a gamepad.

We’ll continue improving this on the road toward 1.0. More Achievements Are Coming

More Steam Achievements are planned for an upcoming update.

And this is one area where we want your ideas.

Serious achievements.

Difficult achievements.

Ridiculous achievements.

Completely cursed achievements.

Send them to us.

Some community ideas may eventually find their way into the game.

The Final Major Step Before 1.0

Update 0.9 is our final major update before the 1.0 Full Release.

From here, our focus shifts toward completing and polishing everything required for release.

That includes:

• Our fourth map

• More achievements

• Additional content

• Balancing

• Further optimization

• Controller improvements

• Final polish across the entire game

But we don’t want to build that final stretch alone.

We want you involved.

Play Update 0.9.

Try every system.

Break things.

Find bugs.

Tell us what feels good.

Tell us what doesn’t.

Send us your ideas.

Your feedback during Update 0.9 will directly help shape Devil of the Plague as we move toward 1.0.

Early Access Price

As Devil of the Plague moves closer to Full Release, the price of the game will increase.

Update 0.9 is the final major update at the current Early Access price.

As we move toward 1.0 with the fourth map, additional content, further improvements, and final polish, Devil of the Plague will move to a higher price point.

One Last Road Before 1.0

This update represents months of work and one of the biggest changes Devil of the Plague has gone through since entering Early Access.

If you’ve been with us since the beginning, thank you for helping shape the game.

If you’re joining us now, welcome to the plague.

Let’s build the road from Update 0.9 to 1.0 together.

Have fun, Plague Doctors.

— Devil of the Plague Dev Team

— SoulByte Games