The Experimental Branch Update

Hello everyone,

We're happy to introduce the new Experimental Branch for Tears of Metal. This gives us a playground to test new features and gameplay tweaks that need more data before we're ready to ship them to everyone. Getting those changes into your hands sooner, seeing how they perform in real runs and using that data to guide further adjustments will hopefully help us make the game more fun for new and experienced players alike.

Most of the time, updates to the main branch will include features and changes that have been previously tested on the Experimental Branch. Every now and then though, we'll also ship new content and changes directly to the main branch that we've tested internally and are confident with. Stuff you won't have seen in Experimental.

It goes without saying, the Experimental Branch will be more prone to bugs, balance issues and other technical shenanigans. That's part of the process. If you're playing on the Experimental Branch, your experience and feedback matters a lot, so please take the time to report any bug you encounter, or let us know if something doesn't feel right.

How to try the Experimental Branch

To sign up to the Experimental Branch, right-click Tears of Metal in your Steam Library, click "Properties" and select "Game Versions & Betas" in the menu. In the list that appears, choose the "experimental" branch and close the window. Your game should update (if it doesn't, restart Steam).

Note that when switching to the Experimental Branch, your save file is backed up, so if Experimental breaks your savefile, feel free to reach out and we might be able to restore it to a state before you switched to Experimental.

Other things to note is that crossplay does not work on the Experimental Branch, and you can only join lobbies of other players who are also on the Experimental Branch.

With that out of the way, let's get into what's new in this first Experimental Update!

Experimental Branch Patch Notes

New Features & Content

• SINGLEPLAYER Mid-Campaign Saves: You can now save an ongoing solo Campaign and pick up where you left off later. :) We're actively working on mid-campaign save for multiplayer sessions as well.
• Charm Descriptions are now displayed before you pick them up and before interacting with interactables.
• In-Game Bug Reporting: Found a bug? Press F3 to open the new Bug Report Tool directly in-game.
• New Challenge Rewards: Challenges can now reward healing, currency and passive Emblems.
• New Market Item in Village: After defeating a boss, you can now choose between healing and a Charm.
• New Emporium Item in Village: You can now select a preferred Emblem Clan for your next Campaign.
• New Cartographer Item in Village: You can unlock new Challenge Rewards. Challenges are optional multi-wave objectives you encounter during fights.

Emblems & Charms

Note: The focus of these changes is to introduce proper scaling to the strength of the emblems throughout a run. This is setting things up for future updates that will feature new and reworked emblems behaviors.

• Added four new stats that will contribute to scale the power of your core emblems. These stats increase as you level up and with acquired Charms.:
• Strike Emblem Power
• Heavy Emblem Power
• Dodge Emblem Power
• Block Emblem Power

Core Emblems scaling has been reworked.

• Core Emblems effectiveness now also scale with their corresponding emblem power stats (Strike, Heavy, Dodge, Block Emblem Power)
• Core Emblems now have a maximum level of 3.

Synergy Emblems scaling reworked.

• Synergies now scale similarly to Core Emblems.
• Synergies have a single level and cannot be replaced.
• Their effects have been rebalanced to better preserve the strengths of the Emblems used to create them.
• Gambler Synergies now retain their base Critical Chance in addition to improving their secondary family effect.

The Emblem Reward screen now displays your Emblem Power stats instead of the previous combo display. Emblem levels are now displayed directly on their icons when applicable. Added Emblem Power information to relevant Charm and effect descriptions. T3 and Synergies acquiring conditions have been rebalanced and are now easier to attain. Added Emblem Power bonuses to Charms Large Reliquaries' double reward chance reduced from 25% to 10%. Chain Core Emblems now improve their own Chain damage rather than increasing the damage of all Chains. Doomsayer Orbs now activate and seek a random enemy when their lifetime expires instead of disappearing. Orbs picked up by a player deal 50% additional damage.

• Reworked Combust:
• Combust now displays its total damage instead of showing every individual damage instance.
• Added new VFX.
• Significantly improved its performance.

Combat & Enemies

• Adjusted attack cooldowns for Pikeman Captain II, Greatshield Knight II, Giant II, Giant III, and Bulwark Knight: their cooldown is now visible through their animations.
• Added proper Breaker animations for Giant III.

Bug fixes

• Fixed Triskeles sometimes flying away.
• Fixed enemies sometimes dying without moving.
• Fixed Gilles the Hog occasionally continuing to attack after being killed.
• Fixed Gilles sometimes starting in a floating position for Clients.
• Fixed Boss height sometimes being offset for Clients.
• Fixed some Map Events becoming desynchronized between players.
• Fixed Cartographer Shop items causing multiplayer desynchronization.
• Fixed some feature unlocks checking the wrong player's progression data.
• Improved player-facing error messages for several multiplayer issues.

Descriptions & Localization

• Updated Charm descriptions to better communicate Emblem Power.
• Fixed several incorrect or inconsistently formatted Charm descriptions.
• Fixed incorrect values appearing in Morning Star Charm descriptions.
• Updated three Achievement unlock descriptions with the correct terminology.
• Fixed the Celestial Trumpet description formatting.
• Various localization fixes and updated translations.
• Added localization for new Ally Traits.

That's all for now! So those of you willing to brave potential bugs and technical hurdles, we'd appreciate all the feedback we can get.

As a reward for making it to the end, here's a spectacular fan art of the dreadful Flint, made by Garchy!

Now get out there, there's a war to wage.