We are happy to release the largest update Striving for Light has ever seen. You might have already got a first impression of the major features coming to Striving for Light with the Rift Content Update, but behold this update has even more in store for you! To celebrate this update release we will host a 48h rift race event where everyone (even with the free demo can join) and also 14 days steam sale. With this update we are also starting EA-Season 15.

Release Race Event - Season 15

As it already became tradition we will celebrate the update release and kick off Season 15 with a 48h race event. Plenty of new challenges await to be conquered. This race will feature a design with the devs price, up to 200 price pool and some SfL Keys. If you want to join drop us a message to register at our Discord. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4553794655131533369?l=english Lets jump into all the new content that the Rift Content Update will hold in store for you!

New Features

Rift Endgame System

Some might have noticed a new portal that has appeared in Ankerath. This portal will allow you to enter Unstable Rifts. Rifts are unstable realms on the brink of collapse. Use your time wisely to conquer the darkness, unlocking new depths and challenges. Unstable Rifts are a new endgame challenge coming to Striving for Light. In these unstable rifts, you will face not only powerful foes and treacherous environments but also a new nemesis: Time itself. A entire new leaderboard will log your required time completing a certain rift level.
Rifts utilise a brand new world generation algorithm resulting in dense packed levels. Your current rift progress as well as the remaining time will be displayed at a dual progress bar on the right. Once you have defeated enough enemies a portal will spawn that leads to one of 4 new uber pinnacle rift boss encounters.
If you manage to complete a rift in time you gain access to the sky forge, granting a chance to upgrade your weapons to ascended quality. With higher rift levels your upgrade chances will rise.

Rift Trials

Entering an unstable rift is not easy, you will have to proof worthy and overcome the 4 trails of the elements to obtain the required key pieces to activate the portal and tear an unstable rift into reality.

Ascended Weapons

Conquering the unstable rifts now grants you access to the forge of light where you can utilise light itself to ascent your weapons beyond legendary powers. Ascended weapons can hold up to 5 weapon stats and always have 2 embedded legendary abilities. This are the weapons you want to get to break the game.
Ascended Weapons can also be crafted and found as a random drop but they will be a lot more rare to find compared to legendaries which makes the sky forge the most reliable source for obtaining those powerful weapons.

Corruption System

Greed comes at a cost. Maps now have a chance to become corrupted when applying modifiers. Corrupted maps increase your received damage by 1 but also grant you access to corrupted weapons and new trinkets.
But beware, the immense power of these corrupted items comes with a cost. Carrying a corrupted item will increase all received damage by +1. Corrupted weapons always roll 4 weapon stats and have increased base damage rolls.
You now might ask yourself what happens if you try to upgrade a corrupted weapon to legendary or ascended quality. Well... you will be able to craft Ascended Corrupted items, and they will benefit from both the increased base damage stat rolls of the corruption and the ascension. This will be difficult to obtain but for the ones that are willing to go all in, these weapons hold powers never before seen in Striving for Light.

Echo Weapons and Echo Crafting System

A complete new echo crafting system allows players to craft their own echo weapons which are then added to the global loot pool. There will be over 5000+ weapon combinations and the possibility to inscribe messages into your weapon. When your run ends you will be rewarded by one echo fragment per achieved level of your character. These fragments can be used to upgrade your echo weapons transforming them into very powerful options to strike down your foes.

Here are some design examples of the more than 5000+ possible echo weapons you will be able to craft. Echo fragments can also be used to upgrade your echo up to tier 25 improving various weapon stats. With echo weapons you can immortalise yourself and leave messages for other players. The item drop pool will be ever evolving and bring the online experience to a whole new level.

Redesigned Player Characters

The most iconic and oldest player characters have been completely redesigned to align with the visual quality of the new content.

Interaction Hints

All interactable world objects now have hints what your interaction will lead you into. This should make it easier for new players to see what portal leads to which destination and where an interaction will result in a dialog or a challenging boss fight.

New Evolution Weapon + Rework

A new ranged weapon Wildfire's Wrath has been added. Defeating enemies will charge up this weapon and increase the amount of projectiles per attack.
The Abyssal Hunger evolution weapon has received a rework. Now for all evolution weapons charges when getting hit vanish by -30% instead of a total number of charges which makes early charge gaining much more forgiving. Keeping high amount of charges will be more challenging as well which should make playing these weapons much more interesting.

Corrupted Trinket - Wraps of Dread

Increases all damage sources but also increases your received damage by +1. Increased companion damage +10, +10% Crit Damage, +80% Melee Damage, +80% Projectile Damage, +5 Condition Damage

Currency Inventory

There is now a currency inventory giving you an overview of all currency shard items you currently have collected without having to switch through all menus.

Reimagined UI

The complete UI of the game has received a complete rework, yes every UI, also the user interface that has been unaltered since our Early Access start over 2 years ago. Fear not we will do further iterations and closely listen to your feedback. If there is something you dislike or feel is missing that the old UI had, please let us know we want to further iterate on the new concepts and let you be part of this journey.
Your energy and endurance charges will now be included in a new bottom UI bar that should not only make it easier to read but also make it easier for new players to understand the resource system.

Improved Tutorials

All tutorials have been updated to make diving into the game for the first time less overwhelming and more straight forward. Opening the pathfinder for the first time will exactly introduce what maps are and where to click to jump into the action as fast as possible.

Redesigned Skill Visuals

Discharge and Lightning Strike type skills have been completely redesigned.

Balancing

• Male Unknown Wanderer starting stats now have additional +10% dodge regeneration and +10% crit damage
• Female Unknown Wanderer starting stats now have +3 companion damage and +10% movement speed
• Increased base movement speed of all player characters by +5%
• Increased Ice Staff Projectile Speed
• Increased Light Staff Projectile Speed
• Trasure Goblins now have half HP to make chasing goblins worth it
• Rebalanced Noctelle Bossfight, Noctelle now spawns less AoE fields
• 100 Bloodchest seasonal challenge has been removed

Major Improvements and Changes

• Range Companions now attack faster and the projectiles have more range and faster movement speed
• Performance improvements in skilltree
• Redesigned enemy AoE effects for improved perspective, utilising new shaders for improved performance and improved visibility
• Redesigned main menu
• Player Movement Animation has been reworked to fix delayed animation starts what made movement feel less responsive
• Invincibility after Teleport: Player Character is now invincible for 3s after teleporting to a new map or teleporting back into a map when you got defeated in softcore
• Leaderboards are now available in the city plaza even on offline save games (the empty plaza looked kind of awkward, and now offline play can also check out the builds and leaderboards).

Bugfixes

Softcore: Event spawned enemies now vanish if you die in softcore to prevent duplicating bosses and rewards Fixed bosses idle and not attacking player when player was keeping certain distance to the boss Fixed freezing enemies caused some enemies with AoE effects to hide AoE effects while still being able to deal damage Evolution Weapons (Abyssal Hunger, Wildfire's Staff) can now be charged with all enemies Fixed bug on gatekeeper portal that allowed switching nearby weapon while interacting with the portal If you are excited about this update please share the word, your support means a lot to us. After this content update we are quickly approaching the 1.0 release of Striving for Light. We tried to include all major new mechanics and systems into this update, so that there is enough time to iron out bugs and listen to your feedback to improve and polish the game for its 1.0 release. So it is more important than ever to report bugs, give us your constructive feedback and let us know what you think about these new features and what you would like to see improved for the 1.0 release. We value your feedback and appreciate your invested time. At this point we want to thank you for all your continuous support on this wild - almost 3 year long - early access journey. You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.