Blessed To Die news & patch notes

This update focuses on making the game easier to learn, providing more control over rewards and progression, and continuing to improve the overall user experience.

Big Changes

New Help & Information Buttons

One of the most common pieces of feedback we've received is that some systems can be difficult to understand for newer players.

To help with this, we've added ? buttons to many screens throughout the game.

These provide quick explanations for mechanics, systems, and terminology without requiring players to leave the screen they're currently on.

This is just the first pass, and we'll continue expanding these explanations over time.

Medium Changes

Tweaks to Blessing Refusal

Refusing a Blessing now has only a 50% chance to reduce Divinity.

Previously, declining a blessing always carried a penalty, which could make some choices feel less meaningful. This change gives players more freedom when deciding whether to accept a blessing.

You Can Now Refuse Rewards

After winning an encounter, you can now choose to decline rewards entirely.

Whether you're trying to avoid clutter, pursue a challenge run, or simply don't want the offered reward, the choice is now yours.

More Flexible Support Spells

Revive, Cleanse, and similar abilities no longer require their target to already be affected by the condition they're designed to remove.

This should make these cards and abilities feel much smoother to use and reduce unnecessary targeting restrictions.

Quality-of-Life Improvements

• Added a confirmation popup when firing Veterans

• Veteran Hall now displays:

  • Total Veterans employed

  • Monthly wage costs

• Taverns now show:

  • Monthly recruit generation

  • Any modifiers affecting that number

• Returning from a mission now displays how much Gold and Renown was earned

• Decrees now provide better information about costs, upkeep, and requirements

• Added general gameplay tips to the main menu

• UI consistency improvements across multiple screens

Gameplay Changes

Intervene

• Intervene now grants Dodge instead of Guard

Ambush

• Ambush mechanics now function properly, allowing enemies to actually ambush as intended

Mercenaries

• Mercenaries may now arrive with their own equipment

This update introduces a new city notification system, additional city events, new gold-focused cards, and a variety of balance, UI, audio, and content improvements.

Big Changes

City Notification System

Keeping track of what's happening in your kingdom should now be much easier.

A new City Notification System has been added to help surface important events, updates, and developments happening throughout your city.

Whether it's new opportunities, important changes, or events that require your attention, the goal is to make sure critical information is easier to spot and less likely to be missed.

New Content

More Ways to Get Rich

Added 19 new cards focused on generating gold and building wealth during your adventures.

These include:

• 4 new Thief cards

• 15 additional gold-focused cards spread across other classes

If you've wanted more ways to lean into an economy-focused playstyle, this update should provide several new options.

Additional City Events

Added 4 new City Events.

The city event system continues to grow, bringing more variety to life in your kingdom and creating additional opportunities, rewards, and decisions throughout the year.

New Portraits & Audio

• Added additional Cleric portraits

• Added additional Thief portraits

• Added several new sound effects

Balance Changes

Thief

• Gold Snatch now applies 1 Vulnerable to the Thief when used

This adds a bit more risk to an otherwise powerful gold-generating ability.

Guard

• Guard no longer blocks damage from spells

This change helps magic-based enemies and abilities behave more consistently and gives spellcasters more ways to bypass heavily defended targets.

UI Improvements

• Slight improvements and refinements to the city information bar

• Additional polish to city-related interfaces and notifications

0.4.2.0 Update — City Events, Decrees & City Management Expansion

This update significantly expands the kingdom management side of the game with the introduction of City Events, Decrees, and City Statistics.

While combat remains at the heart of the experience, you'll now have more ways than ever to shape your city, influence its future, and respond to opportunities and challenges throughout the year.

Big Changes

City Events

City Events have arrived!

Random events can now occur throughout the year, presenting opportunities, risks, and decisions that can affect your city, resources, and citizens.

Current events include:

• Festivals

• Traveling doctors

• Gambling opportunities

• Mercenary visits

• And more

Some events are influenced by the time of year, while others may be affected by your ruler's Divinity level.

This is just the beginning, with many more events planned for future updates.

Decree System

As ruler, you can now enact policies that influence the direction of your kingdom.

Decrees can be accessed from the new scroll icon at the top of the screen or through the Palace.

There are currently three decree categories:

• Military

• Religious

• Economic

Key details:

• Decrees are unlocked over time while you have advisors employed

• Employing an advisor for 12 consecutive months unlocks a powerful advisor-specific decree

• Advisor decrees remain active only while that advisor remains employed

• Decrees last for 1 year

• Decrees cannot be canceled once enacted

• Enacting a decree costs 10 Renown

Some decrees offer powerful benefits, while others come with risks or tradeoffs. Choosing the right policy can help steer your city toward your current goals.

City Statistics

Gold, Renown, Divinity, and Threat are now clickable.

Each stat now provides detailed information and historical trends, helping players better understand what is happening in their kingdom and plan ahead.

No more wondering why a value changed or where your resources are going.

Medium Changes

Ruler Divinity

Your ruler's Divinity level is now visible within the city interface.

Divinity has also been reworked to make its effects on random events more transparent and easier to understand.

Improved Character & Combat Information

• Post-combat MVP screen now includes detailed statistics for every party member

• Character nicknames are now rarer, but offer better rewards when earned

• Many buttons now explain missing requirements directly instead of leaving players guessing

Economy & City Management

• Buildings level 3 and above now have monthly upkeep costs

• Renown will gradually decline when reaching certain thresholds

• Recruitment quality has been reworked to better reflect Renown

Other Changes

• Temporal Lag now lasts long enough to affect the next turn

• Focus Band now grants its AP bonus on the following turn instead of the current turn

• Clotting Serum now removes all Bleed effects and grants immunity to Bleed for the remainder of the encounter

• Charm Undead now correctly affects Zombies

• Fixed scrolling issues on the Raid Defense screen

• Fixed scrolling issues on the Blacksmith screen

• Additional UI polish throughout the game

This update focuses on improving clarity across combat and city management systems, refining UI feedback, and fixing a range of ability and system issues.

UI Improvements

• Major UI polish pass across multiple screens

• Added clearer tooltips for cards that are unavailable (now explains why they are greyed out)

• Better feedback when moving queued cards into invalid positions

• Improved readability of card type indicators (no longer hidden by borders)

• More tooltips added across key UI screens for better clarity

City UI Updates

• Raid Defense screen now shows more relevant character info for planning defense

• Blacksmith UI improved when forging items

• Campfires now display total party healing and updated HP values

• Characters can now be repositioned in City Defense setup

• Buildings now clearly show unmet requirements

• Mission screen now explains why “Continue” may be disabled

• Slight visual improvements to city building appearance

• Map node generation has been tweaked for better layout variety

Combat & Card Improvements

• Gold Snatch & Greed Strike:

  • Increased damage and gold gain

  • Now exhaust after use (one-time per fight)

• Post-battle screen now shows gold stolen from enemies

• Exhaust cards are now clearly labeled as such

• “Retreat to City” now requires confirmation to prevent misclicks

Balance & Ability Fixes

• Shieldwall:

  • Now functions correctly

  • Now grants +5 Defense (previously 10)

• Kill Streak fixed and now triggers properly

• Cleave (Upgraded) now works as intended

• Pinning Strike (Upgraded) damage fixed

• Unstoppable Force now correctly pushes enemies to the back row

• Card effects corrected:

  • All relevant ability triggers now resolve properly

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Hermit event crash

• Fixed multiple ability resolution bugs affecting combat consistency

This update focuses heavily on improving the overall look, feel, and usability of the game. The biggest addition is a major redesign of the mission map screen, along with continued UI polish and new rewards earned from defeating bosses.

Big Changes

Mission Map Redesign

The mission map has received a major visual redesign. This is still a work in progress. More refinements and improvements are already planned for future updates.

UI Polish Across the Game

A large amount of development time this update was spent improving the user experience throughout the game.

Many screens, menus, tooltips, and combat elements have been updated to improve readability, clarity, and overall presentation.

Boss Rewards

Added 9 new boss rewards specific to each boss. This applies to Part 3 and special mission bosses.

Save System Improvements

Several improvements have been made to help protect player progress and recover from save issues.

• Fixed a save issue that could incorrectly report an error

• Improved feedback when save/load problems occur

• If a save file is corrupted, the game will now attempt to load a backup save automatically

• Added a Repair Save option that attempts to recover corrupted saves

• Saving during a raid now functions better

UI Improvements

• New card borders and visual polish

• Advisor tooltips in the Palace now clearly show which mission they unlock, if any

• Reworked portions of the combat character panels

• Improved Blessedpedia presentation

• Status effects now display their icons within Blessedpedia

• Queued cards no longer overflow incorrectly

• Improved text rendering in encounters and other UI screens

• Better handling of long text and overflow situations

• Updated combat scene UI

• Updated "New Epithet" screen

• Combat Log default size is now slightly smaller

Balance & Gameplay Changes

• Unbound and Unhinged now cap at 7 AP instead of 10 AP

• Added a missing Outlaw mission boss

• Improved descriptions for Wither, Mind Burn, and several other effects

• Updated various item descriptions

• Tweaked mission generation logic

• Fixed several event-related bugs

Developer Notes

This update is largely about polish and improving the overall player experience.

The new mission map redesign is the most visible change, but a lot of work also went into making the UI easier to read, improving save reliability, and ensuring important information is easier to find throughout the game.

The mission map redesign is not finished yet, so expect additional improvements and refinements in upcoming updates.

As always, thank you for all the feedback and support. Your community feedback continues to help shape the game!

This update introduces the new Raid system — a major new gameplay feature focused on defending your city against large-scale attacks.

Unlike normal missions, raids force you to split your forces across multiple battles throughout the city while managing the risk of losing important buildings and renown.

Big Changes

The Raid System

Raids begin when the city’s threat level becomes too high.

Once danger reaches a critical point, you’ll receive a 3 month warning before the raid begins, giving you time to prepare your defenses, build your roster, and manage resources.

When the raid starts:

• 3 random city locations come under attack

• You must divide your party members and inventory across the city

• Each location becomes its own battle

Losing a location:

• Reduces its level

• Lowers your renown

Successfully defending all 3 locations rewards you with a sizeable payout.

The goal with raids was to create something that feels very different from standard missions, where you'll have only a few months to prepare before they arrive.

City Walls Matter Now

City Walls now directly help during raids.

Upgrading your walls will provide companion city guards that assist you during defensive battles, making city development more important to long-term survival.

Medium Changes

• Added 3 new Blessings

• Added 1 new Cursed Blessing

• City Threat Level now provides more detailed information when hovered

Other Changes

• Added 6 new Necromancer portraits

• Updated “Fork in the Road” visuals to better match the game’s current art style

• Small UI fixes and improvements

• Various Region Codex tweaks

• Updated tags for several status effects

Coming Soon

Currently in development:

• Updated mission map design

• Boss-specific rewards

• More story content

• More unique cards for top tier classes

Developer Notes

Raids are something we’ve wanted to add for a long time because they fundamentally change the feeling of the game.

Normal missions are about planning a single expedition. Raids are about surviving chaos across the entire city while making difficult decisions about where your best fighters and equipment are needed most.

This is the first version of the system, and we fully expect to continue balancing and expanding it over time.

As always, thank you for all the support and feedback so far!

This update adds the new Cloud Mission enemy set, expanded combat queue controls, background effects for Advisor Missions, and a large number of combat readability improvements and fixes.

Big Changes

New Cloud Mission Enemies

Added 12 new enemies to the Cloud Missions.

These enemies are built around:

• Dodging

• Mobility

• Repositioning

• Disrupting player targeting and timing

The Cloud encounters are intended to feel faster, trickier, and less predictable than other mission regions.

Re-Order Queued Cards

You can now re-order and move queued cards before they resolve.

Since queued card order directly affects action resolution order, this gives players much more control over combat planning and combo setups.

This has been one of the most requested combat quality-of-life features so far, and it should open up a lot more tactical flexibility during battles.

Medium Changes

Tooltip Fixes

The disappearing tooltip issue should now finally be fixed.

There may still be a few edge cases where tooltip positioning appears slightly above or below where intended, but those remaining cases should be much smaller and easier to clean up going forward.

Advisor Mission Background Effects

Advisor Missions now include subtle animated background effects to help environments feel more alive and atmospheric.

Combat Log Improvements

The combat log can now be resized.

Additional combat log clarity improvements include:

• Dodged attacks are now clearly identified

• Mirror reflected attacks are now clearly identified

• Actions affected by insanity are now properly explained

Other Changes

• Scouted/Observed enemies affected by insanity now warn players that targets will be random

• Fixed Future Sight not properly applying Observed

• Updated facing direction for some enemy portraits

• Ancestral Guidance playback text is now green instead of red

• Removed developer/debug info accidentally visible in expanded item tooltips

• Initiative Tracker expanded tooltips are now more user friendly and easier to read

This update is focused heavily on improving the new player experience, mission flow, performance, and overall reliability across the game.

A large number of smaller fixes and refinements were also made throughout combat, UI, events, and progression systems.

Biggest Changes

Improved Tutorial

The tutorial has been updated to better guide new players through the opening experience.

It now does a better job highlighting important buttons, menus, and interactions players should pay attention to while learning the game.

Mission Selection Improvements

The mission selection flow has been redesigned to be much more user friendly.

Changes include:

• Mission selection is no longer hidden away behind a button

• Current and next mission nodes are much clearer

• General navigation and readability improvements throughout the mission screen

The goal here was to make progression feel smoother and easier to understand, especially for newer players.

Major Reliability & Stability Improvements

This patch also includes well over 100 smaller tweaks, fixes, and refinements aimed at improving:

• Overall reliability

• UI consistency

• Combat flow

• Mission transitions

• General game responsiveness

A lot of work in this update focused on reducing friction and making the overall experience feel smoother.

Performance Improvements

• Improved performance when loading the game

• Improved performance when starting a new game

• Made scene transitions feel smoother and more pleasant

Combat & Gameplay Changes

• Enemy AI is now more likely to use backup actions if preferred actions are unavailable

• Fixed Gold Snatch and Adrenaline Spike causing infinite loops

• Fixed AP bonus timing issues for:

  • Focus Crystal

  • Mana Battery

  • Dark Shield

  • Blood Contract

  • Focus Band

• Tweaked Soulreaver Axe to behave as intended

UI & Event Improvements

• Improved overall event user experience

• Intro video is now optional

• Tweaked Blessing page in the Mission window

• Improved the stat reward screen visuals

• Caravan popup now appears much faster (0.5 seconds instead of 2.5)

• Prevented accidental multiple clicks on “Next Month”

Developer Notes

This update was largely focused on improving the overall feel and usability of the game.

A lot of the work here is aimed at reducing confusion for new players, improving responsiveness, and smoothing out the flow between menus, missions, events, and combat.

The tutorial and mission selection changes are especially important because they address some of the biggest points of friction we’ve seen from player feedback so far.

As always, thank you for all the support and feedback. This is still our first Steam release, and community feedback continues to directly shape development.

Biggest Changes

Trading Post & Merchant Caravans

The Trading Post has now been fully implemented.

• Merchant caravans will periodically arrive in your city offering items and command cards while they remain in town. Currently there are 8 different caravan types, each with their own selection of goods and specialties.

• When a caravan arrives, you’ll now receive a popup notification in the city.

• This system is intended to make city progression feel more alive while giving players additional ways to build and customize parties between missions.

New Content — Nightmare Enemies

• Added 11 new Nightmare enemies.

• Nightmares are twisted creatures born from fear, madness, and corrupted dreams, bringing new mechanics and encounter variety to later missions.

Reward & Mission Improvements

• Added Small, Medium, and Large Gold Chests as possible reward options

• Additional tweaks and polish to battle reward screens

• Tweaked mission map node layouts for cleaner navigation

UI & Combat Improvements

• Improved readability of the advanced combat log

• Queued card hover lines now animate

• View Deck, Exhausted Deck, and Discard Deck windows now remain open until manually closed

• Improved overall deck browsing flow during combat

Bug Fixes & Other Changes

• Fixed Marksman Hawk causing gameplay hang-ups

• Fixed Blink Stone to work correctly

• Additional polish and smaller fixes across combat and UI systems

Developer Notes

This update is a pretty major step toward making the city feel more interactive and alive between missions.

The Trading Post and caravan systems are something we’ve wanted in the game for a long time, and this is just the first version. We plan to continue expanding merchants, rewards, items, and caravan variety over time.

The new Nightmare enemies are also part of a larger push to make different mission regions feel more distinct both mechanically and visually.

As always, thank you for all the support and feedback so far. This is still our first Steam release, and community feedback continues to directly shape development.

This update introduces a brand new enemy prediction system, a new mission enemy set for The Dark, additional class cards, combat readability improvements, and several gameplay polish updates.

Biggest Changes

Improved Starting Recruits

The starting 6 recruits are now partially hand-crafted instead of being fully random.

Their stats and starting cards are now designed to ensure:

• Ensured variety between recruits

• More interesting early choices

• Fewer underpowered starting parties

Blessings are still randomized, so each run should still feel different.

The goal here is simple: make the opening of the game more fun and less likely to create frustrating early runs.

New Enemy Prediction Mechanics

One thing we’ve been experimenting with internally is making enemy behavior more readable and learnable.

To support that, we added two new status effects:

Scouted

Reveals:

• What action the enemy is taking

• Who they are targeting

Observed

Reveals:

• What type of action the enemy is taking

These effects are designed to reward planning, prediction, and tactical decision-making without completely removing uncertainty from combat.

New Content — The Dark

Added 11 new enemies to The Dark mission.

The theme of The Dark revolves around terrifying creatures lurking in endless night and shadow.

Some enemies you may encounter include:

Shadow Lurker

A shadowy creature that strikes from nowhere and spreads madness.

Echo Phantom

A phantom that mimics your tactics at reduced power.

Abyss Gazer

A floating mass of eyes that slows the party and erodes sanity.

The Lord of the Night

A major boss enemy with a deep pool of dangerous actions and abilities.

New Cards

Ranger

• Scout Enemy — 0 AP, Common, applies Scouted to 1 enemy

• Study Prey — 2 AP, Epic, applies 4 Observed to 1 enemy

Psychic

• Read Mind — 0 AP, Rare, applies 2 Scouted to 1 enemy

• Premonition — 1 AP, Common, applies 1 Observed to all enemies

• Threads of Fate — 3 AP, Rare, applies 2 Scouted and 4 Observed to all enemies

• Mind Probe — 1 AP, Legendary, applies 5 Scouted to 1 enemy, Exhausts after use

Assassin

• Watch the Prey — 0 AP, Common, applies 2 Scouted to 1 enemy

• Assassin’s Network — 2 AP, Rare, applies 2 Observed to all enemies, Exhausts after use

Witch

• Cauldron Sight — 2 AP, Rare, applies 2 Observed to all enemies

• Fate Whisper — 1 AP, Rare, applies 2 Observed to 1 enemy, Exhausts after use

UI & Combat Improvements

• Hovering over a portrait in the character tracker now highlights the character below

• Cards now visually indicate when you do not have enough AP to play them

• AP costs now turn green when a character can play the card at a discounted AP cost

• Improved scaling for cards in hand

• Updated post-combat UI to better display character statistics

• Fixed status effect panels displaying incorrect values

• Additional tooltip fixes and readability improvements

Other Improvements

• Performance updates across several systems

• Born Magician now correctly only increases damage for magic spells

Developer Notes

This update is a pretty important one for the direction of combat.

A major goal for the game has always been learning enemy behavior patterns and making tactical decisions around prediction and risk. The new Scouted and Observed systems are the first major step toward expanding that idea in a more visible and interactive way.

We’re very interested in hearing how these new mechanics feel during real runs:

• Are they fun?

• Too strong?

• Too weak?

• Too confusing?

• Worth building around?

As always, thank you for all the feedback and support so far. This is still our first Steam release, and player feedback continues to directly shape development.

This update introduces the first draft of the game's story, along with a large number of balance changes, UI improvements, event adjustments, and bug fixes.

Story

The biggest addition in this update is the first full draft of the game's story.

There is now a complete story experience in the game from beginning to end. This is still an early version, and we plan to continue expanding, refining, and improving the writing and presentation over time.

Please note:

• Story content is currently available in English only

• Additional language support for story content is coming soon

• The story will go through some revisions and expand

Balance Changes

Wizard

• Arcane Burst now Exhausts after use

• Arcane Burst rarity increased by 1 tier

• Mana Flow now costs 2 AP (was 1 AP)

Monk

Chi Burst was heavily overperforming and was likely the biggest balance outlier in the game.

Changes:

• Damage reduced from WIS x2 → WIS x1.5

• AP cost increased to 3

• Rarity increased by 1 tier

Please let us know how this feels after the update — whether it still feels too strong, too weak, or closer to balanced.

Additional Monk adjustments:

• Pressure Strike increased from 1.15 → 1.25 DEX scaling

• Sweeping Strike reduced from 0.58 → 0.5 DEX scaling

Armor Restrictions

• Heavy Armor is now restricted to Warrior, Paladin, Antipaladin, Cleric, and Skald.

• Light Armor is now restricted to Warrior, Paladin, Antipaladin, Cleric, Skald, Barbarian, Thief, Swashbuckler, Ranger, Druid, and Shaman.

Blessings

• Heavy Burden now affects initiative order when moving rows instead of affecting AP

Event Improvements

• Event rewards and penalties have been increased to make choices feel more meaningful

• Fixed the Blind Priest event causing a crash

UI Improvements

A major focus of this update was improving the mission reward screens.

While reward contents are still intentionally hidden until a reward type is selected, the UI now provides much more information to help players make informed choices without feeling completely blind.

Additional UI improvements include:

• Continued fixes for overlapping windows/modals

• Added several missing graphics

• Refreshed mission map backgrounds for Forest, Cave, and Hell

• Improved how map routes are displayed

• Updated the View Deck screen during combat

• Improved nickname descriptions and requirement displays

Character & Party Info

• Character sheets now include a Career section:

  • Missions survived

  • Fights won

  • Recruit survival tracking before promotion

• Party and Veteran summaries now display Missions Survived instead of a generic mission count

Options Improvements

• Added resolution settings

• The game can now be muted/unmuted while running in the background

Bug Fixes

• Numerous tooltip-related fixes

• Trying a different render codec for the video since it wasn't viewable on some devices

• Fixed issues where the party could fail to save if leaving during the intro mission

• Fixed a bug where enemies with over 100 HP could prevent tooltips from appearing

Developer Notes

This update touches a lot of different areas of the game, but the biggest milestone for us is finally getting the first full version of the story implemented.

There’s still a lot we want to add and improve, but it feels great to finally have a complete narrative foundation in place while continuing to improve gameplay, balance, and overall polish.

As always, thank you for all the feedback and support. This is still our first Steam release, and community feedback continues to directly shape development.

We’d especially love feedback on:

• Story and presentation

• Balance changes

• Reward screen clarity

• Event rewards and difficulty

The road ahead for Blessed To Die is focused on strengthening the foundations of the game while continuing to expand its world, systems, and strategic depth. Future updates will bring major gameplay improvements, new threats, expanded progression systems, additional story content, and more opportunities for players to shape the fate of their city and veterans.

Major Focus 1: Stability & Balance

Extreme focus on balance issues, stability, and gameplay improvements.

Planned Focus:

• Crash and freeze fixes

• Major gameplay balance adjustments

• Gameplay improvements for all Tier 3 classes

• Improved events

• Additional story content

• Combat readability improvements

• UI polishing

Major Focus 2: City Under Siege

Expanding strategic pressure, immersion, and city systems.

Planned Focus:

• Advisor Missions completed

• Raid System 1.0

• More story content

• New and updated art

• Boss-specific rewards

• More audio effects

• UI fixes and readability improvements

• Advanced Combat Log improvements

• Continued gameplay balancing

Major Focus 3: Endless Threats & Combos

Replayability, experimentation, and long-term progression.

Planned Focus:

• Endless/Breach Seal overhaul

• New blessings system

• New enemies

• New items

• New cards

• Legendary Recruits & Veterans

• More exciting boss mechanics

• More UI polishing

• Expanded Character Journal

• Replayability systems

• Additional balancing improvements

Major Focus 4: Workshop Mods & More

Long-term community support and player creativity.

Planned Focus:

• Steam Workshop integration

• Mod support tools

• Community customization support

• Potential custom classes/cards/events

• Additional quality-of-life improvements

Please Note: Development priorities may continue to evolve throughout Early Access based on community feedback and ongoing testing, but the overall goal remains the same: continue improving Blessed To Die into a deeper, more polished, and highly replayable tactical deckbuilding RPG experience. Thank you to everyone supporting the game and helping shape its future.

This update is mainly focused on improving stability and overall game feel.

A lot of work went into reducing crashes/freezes, cleaning up combat behavior, and making the flow between the city, missions, and battles smoother.

We will be releasing a roadmap in the next day or two to address our priorities and what will be addressed next.

Stability & Performance

This was the biggest focus of the patch.

A large number of fixes were made targeting:

• Random freezes

• Combat-related crashes

• UI issues during transitions

• Save/persistence problems

• General mission flow stability

Overall, the game should now feel much more reliable during longer play sessions.

We improved the combat log to better explain the initiative order.

Combat Improvements

Combat also received a major polish pass.

Updates include:

• Improved status effect behavior

• More consistent initiative handling

• Cleaner combat logs and messaging

• Better readability for combat-related UI

• Improved card/deck source messaging during battle

A lot of smaller combat edge cases were cleaned up as well to help fights feel more predictable and understandable.

UI & Flow Improvements

Several areas of the game received additional polish and fixes, including:

• Main menu

• City hub

• Character sheet

• Pause/options screens

• Mission map

• Combat UI

• Card pile windows

• Combat logs

• Fixed roster issues at recruitment buildings

Keyboard and controller prompts should now also display more consistently.

Progression & Save Improvements

Additional fixes were made to progression and save handling to improve consistency between missions and city management.

This includes improvements related to:

• Injury handling

• Mission progression

• Returning to the city after runs

• Mid-run progression tracking

Localization

Updated and expanded localization support across:

• English

• German

• Spanish

• French

• Japanese

• Portuguese (BR)

• Russian

• Chinese (Simplified)

This includes combat text, initiative messaging, and additional UI improvements across supported languages.

Developer Notes

This update was all about making the game feel smoother and more stable overall.

Not every patch is about adding big new content — sometimes it’s about improving the experience players already spend the most time with. A huge amount of work went into fixing annoying edge cases, improving reliability, and making combat easier to follow.

Your feedback continues to help shape development.

If you run into any remaining crashes, freezes, or strange combat behavior after the update, definitely let us know. Reports from players have been extremely helpful for tracking issues down quickly.

Thanks again for all the support so far!

This update is focused heavily on combat readability, mission flow, deck building improvements, and overall polish across the game.

The biggest addition is the new end-of-battle summary system, alongside major upgrades to the mission deck builder and a large number of UI, reward, and gameplay improvements.

Battle Summary System

After every encounter — victory, defeat, or draw — you’ll now see a full Battle Summary highlighting how your party performed.

The summary calls out leaders for:

• Most kills

• Most damage dealt

• Most healing

• Most damage taken

An MVP is also selected from your core party based on overall performance during the encounter.

The new summary screen features updated presentation elements including improved portrait framing, stronger combat styling, and clearer visual feedback to help battles feel more satisfying and readable.

Combat & HUD Improvements

A large amount of combat polish went into this update, including:

• Improved tooltip reliability during combat and menu transitions

• HP bars no longer block clicks behind them

• Queued targeting lines are now more stable and reliable

• Faster loading for post-battle reward screens

• Improved combat data caching for smoother UI performance

Mission Deck Builder Improvements

The mission deck builder received a major usability pass.

New features include:

• Attack / Heal / Utility composition breakdowns

• Card search

• New sorting and filtering options

• Better restoration handling when party composition changes

• Improved readability for unplayable cards

The goal here was to make deck construction faster, clearer, and easier to understand during preparation.

Party Loot Bag & Reward Improvements

• Party Loot Bag is now properly capped at 6 items

• Clear messaging now appears when the bag is full

• Loot bag state is more reliable between missions

Post-battle rewards were also improved:

• Stronger visual identity for the rewards screen

• Improved reward variety logic

• Fixed issues where some unlocked command cards were not properly carried back to the city collection

Balance & Content Changes

• Stunning Strike is now exclusive to Warrior and Barbarian

• Starting deck adjusted:

  • -1 Total Defense

  • +1 Generic Battle Draught

• Forest event scouting reward increased from 1 Renown to 10

Blessedipedia Improvements

The in-game wiki received several quality-of-life upgrades:

• Entries are now sorted alphabetically

• Tab layout behavior is now more stable and consistent

Developer Notes

This update focused a lot on game feel and clarity.

One of the biggest goals was making combat outcomes feel more impactful and readable, while also improving the overall flow between missions, rewards, and deck building.

A lot of the changes in this patch are the kind players may not consciously notice immediately, but together they should make the game feel smoother, faster, and easier to understand.

This is still our first release on Steam, and your feedback continues to directly shape the direction of development.

If you’ve been playing, we’d especially love feedback on:

• Combat readability

• Deck building flow

• Reward pacing

• UI clarity and usability

Thanks again for all the support and feedback so far.

This update is heavily focused on expanding The Trials of Heroes while continuing to improve localization, rewards, and overall game polish.

Headline Feature

20 New Enemies – The Trials of Heroes

The biggest addition in this update is the expansion of The Trials of Heroes, the arena-themed Advisor Missions.

You’ll now face a much wider range of gladiators, champions, brutal fighters, and dangerous arena combatants designed to create more varied encounters and tactical situations during runs.

The goal is to make arena missions feel less predictable while continuing to reinforce enemy behavior patterns players can learn and adapt to over time.

Localization Improvements

• Added new localization entries for French

• Improved UI localization consistency across multiple languages

• Standardized mission-related terminology across the interface

Localization support is continuing to grow, and these updates should make the experience feel cleaner and more consistent across supported languages.

Gameplay & Reward Improvements

• Improved reward scaling logic based on mission difficulty

• Reward pools now better reflect harder encounters and higher risks

• Added distinct reward selection logic to reduce duplicate rewards and improve variety during runs

This should help rewards feel more meaningful and varied, especially during longer sessions.

Technical & System Improvements

• Updated Universal Render Pipeline settings and localization assets

• Added new enemy and enemy card definitions for expanded gameplay variety

• Updated audio metadata to improve background loading behavior for combat and narrative audio

• Removed obsolete and unused assets

Developer Notes

This update was largely about strengthening systems behind the scenes while also adding a major batch of new enemies to The Trials of Heroes.

The arena missions are intended to become one of the most replayable parts of the game, so expanding enemy variety there is a major focus moving forward.

We’re also continuing to improve localization support and overall UI clarity based directly on player feedback.

This is our first release on Steam, and your feedback is already helping shape the game in meaningful ways.

If you’ve been playing, we’d especially love feedback on:

• Balance and reward pacing

• UI readability and clarity

• Enemy variety and mission pacing

Thanks again for all the support and feedback so far.

🎉 Early Access is Live! 🎉

Blessed To Die is now available in Early Access.

This version already delivers the core experience: building a squad, managing a shared deck, planning entire rounds ahead of time, and surviving dangerous missions where every decision matters.

But this is only the beginning—and your feedback will directly shape the game moving forward.

Early Access Means It’s Still Evolving

Let’s be upfront:

• The game is still being polished

• Balance is actively being adjusted

• Some systems are still expanding and improving

You’ll likely run into rough edges, and that’s exactly why player feedback is so important right now.

What Makes Blessed To Die Different

One shared deck. Three characters. Your party draws from a single shared deck into one hand. Characters can only play certain cards based on class, tags, gear, and effects—turning deckbuilding into a full party strategy system.

Plan the entire round before anything happens. Queue actions under AP constraints, hit End Round, and watch combat resolve in initiative order. Prediction, sequencing, and timing matter just as much as raw power.

Recent Improvements in 0.3.2.1

Leading up to Early Access, several major updates were added:

• Localization support for Simplified Chinese, Russian, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), and Japanese

• New art style for map backgrounds

• Improved UI, especially during combat

• Initial controller support

• Status effect icons added

• Improved options screen

• New blessing graphics

• Additional sound effects and combat feedback

What’s Next

Current priorities include:

• More language support

• Expanded controller support

• Additional advisor mission content

• More random events and risk/reward outcomes

• Ongoing balancing and bug fixes

Help Shape the Game

If you play, I’d love to hear your thoughts:

• What feels fun?

• What feels confusing?

• What needs balancing or improvement?

Leave a review, post feedback, or join the discussion. Every bit of feedback helps guide future updates.

❤️ Thanks for Being Here

Seriously—thank you for checking out the game and supporting its Early Access launch.

This is just the start!

This update is a big step forward for the game—adding more variety to your runs, improving overall feel, and continuing to smooth out rough edges across the experience.

Headline Features

• 10 New Enemies – The Outlaws' Hideaway The Hideaway is starting to feel a lot more alive (and dangerous). You’ll now encounter all kinds of outlaws and bandits, along with corrupted creatures like mutant sewer rats and twisted alligators. The goal here is to make encounters feel more varied while reinforcing enemy behavior patterns you can learn over time.

• Steam Cloud Saving Your progress now syncs automatically, so you can jump back in without worrying about losing a run.

• Steam Achievements (First Batch) The first set of achievements is live—more to come as the game grows.

• New Music & Combat Sound Effects Added new tracks for combat and non-combat, along with the first pass of combat SFX. This is an early step, but it already makes fights feel much more impactful.

Content & Visual Updates

• Added new Advisor Mission backgrounds:

  • The Outlaws' Hideaway

  • The Nightmares

  • The City in the Clouds

  • The Trials of Heroes

  • The Forever Dark

• Updated city background visuals

• Continued font improvements (still in progress)

• Ongoing UI updates in the city (more to come)

Systems & Gameplay

• Updated enemy behavior rules to feel more consistent and learnable

• Reduced veteran wages (should ease some economic pressure mid-run)

• Improved how Advisor roles are displayed in the Palace

Quality of Life

• Added a proper loading option

• Updated Options screen

• Improved post-victory screens

Fixes

• Fixed issues with post-victory screens

• A large number of smaller bug fixes and edge cases

What’s Next

• Continued UI improvements across the game

• More work on Advisor Missions

• Ongoing bug fixing and balance tuning

• Starting work on:

  • Full controller support

  • Additional language support

Developer Notes

We’re really excited about how the game is evolving right now. A lot of this update focused on strengthening the core experience—especially making encounters feel more distinct and improving overall feedback during combat.

Next week, the game will be part of a sale, and we’re looking forward to having more players jump in.

This is our first release on Steam, and your feedback is already helping shape the game in meaningful ways.

If you’ve been playing, we’d especially love feedback on:

• Balance (difficulty spikes, economy, run pacing)

• UI clarity (what’s confusing, hard to read, or slows you down)

That kind of feedback is directly influencing what we prioritize next.