Starforged Legacy news & patch notes

Update 0.2.0 - Flight Systems

Greetings, Commanders!

Today, we're deploying our first major Early Access update: Flight Systems! As outlined in our Early Access Roadmap, this update brings sweeping improvements and refinements to core gameplay systems, including the highly requested ability to save and resume runs, enhanced gamepad support, clearer rewards and mission feedback, updated enemy behaviors and early-game balancing, and much more!

We have a lot of ground to cover before you're cleared for launch, pilot. Given the sheer magnitude of this update, this broadcast will focus on the most important additions and changes. We highly recommend viewing the full Patch Notes for our extensive balance changes regarding Augments and late-game enemy scaling, available here: Let's get to the details.

Featured Content

Save & Resume Last Run

We lost a few good researchers to temporal anomalies in order to make this technology possible, but while we figure out where and when they ended up, let's focus on the here and now:

• Run progress is now saved whenever you leave a system and enter the Sector Select map, allowing you to return to a run the next time you play!

• Note: After winning a run, you must first choose Endless to return to the Sector Select map before quitting or returning to the Main Menu if you want to save and resume that run later.

Reward Clarity and UI Improvements

ALI, your ship's artificial intelligence companion, has received significant firmware upgrades (including some features our engineers don't recall adding... nothing to be concerned about, surely).

• Ship Upgrade cards now display the percentage change for each stat, making it clear how much an upgrade improves a stat. Stats that have reached their cap or floor now show a MAX label, so you can tell when further upgrades won't help.

• Detailed tooltips have been added to the Reroll, Banish, and Lock buttons on reward screens, as well as to Ship Info stat displays. Hover over or focus a stat to see its description, current value, and caps.

  • Note: Banishing an augment upgrade now suppresses all subsequent upgrade tiers for that augment for the rest of your run!

• ALI now provides clearer mission alerts and reward feedback, including a brief on-screen notification when collecting a power-up, active Challenge and Reward HUD markers, Modifiers (Armory, Industrial, Anomalous, etc.) for the current sector, and improved boss and mission notifications.

Gameplay Balance Changes & Difficulty Tuning

Tactical Abilities

Afterburner, Burst Drive, Phase Drive, and Micro-Warp Drive have been retuned to have a stronger baseline impact:

• Augments can still modify and specialize tactical abilities, but Upgrades no longer increase tactical ability 'Strength' directly (i.e., the speed Afterburners provide, the range of Micro-Warp Drive, the distance Burst Drive moves the player, etc.).

• Thruster upgrades now primarily affect Tactical Ability cooldown, as well as ship acceleration and speed.

Many reports said enemies were too fast or impossible to avoid. Sometimes, this was intentional. But at greater difficulties, the enemy's speed increased excessively, causing an imbalance between the player's and the enemy's movement. These changes to Tactical Abilities will offer players a more reliable, consistently scaling movement option.

Additional notable changes to movement systems include:

• Added a short activation lockout to Phase Drive and Afterburner to prevent repeated input from immediately canceling the ability.

• Capped tactical cooldown-reduction upgrades at roughly 50% cooldown reduction.

• Increased baseline Battleship acceleration.

• Tactical Mastery survival skill changed from increasing Tactical Ability power to reducing Tactical Ability cooldown.

Enemy Behavior

Enemy movement speeds have been retuned across all tiers, reducing extreme late-run speed spikes and making combat roles much easier to read. Enemy behavior has also been significantly improved:

• Melee enemies are now much harder to kite. Instead of trailing directly behind you, they anticipate where you're heading and attempt to cut you off.

• Large coordinated attacks now arrive as a few impactful fleet bursts. These formations now field a much stronger mix of specialist enemies (Exploders, Shielders, Chargers, Ranged) rather than mostly basic fighters.

• Cruisers now appear as deliberate, telegraphed threats. ALI sounds a new "Heavy Contact" alert when one is inbound, and they no longer randomly mix into the normal enemy stream, so each one lands as a real event.

Starmap & Progression Changes

To smooth out early-run pacing and give pilots a fighting chance to prepare before facing major threats, the Starmap has been heavily rebalanced:

• Armory sectors are now guaranteed to appear within the first three sectors of every run. These sectors grant a choose-1-of-3 Weapon Reward, giving you the necessary firepower to confront the mid-run intermediary boss, which now appears in sector 6.

• Enemy composition and intensity scales have been distinctively tuned across all threat levels. Normal, Hard, and Brutal now offer unique enemy weights, and Cruiser-class enemies will no longer deploy on Normal difficulty until Sector 8.

• Challenge map modifiers are now dynamically rolled per difficulty level. Normal mode features a starting pool of Radiation Fields, Meteor Storms, Ancient Battlegrounds, and Ion Storms, while Hard and Brutal unlock the full, unrestricted pool.

Controller Support & Menu Navigation

• For pilots navigating with a gamepad, we've implemented full right-stick manual-aim support, complete with a visible targeting cursor for precision firing.

• Gamepad focus and menu navigation have also been significantly improved across the Main Menu, Shop, Run Summary, and Narrative screens.

• The Codex is now fully controller-navigable. Move between entries in any direction with the stick or d-pad, including the new 'Group by Type' view, and use the shoulder buttons (LB/RB) to reliably cycle through all categories: Augments, Weapons, Components, Ships, and Loadouts.

Quality of Life & Accessibility

Along with this update's additions and changes, a host of new QoL features and options are available to help pilots customize their experience:

• Leaderboards have been separated and now feature Standard (one-loop) and Endless.

• ALI seems to have paired with your ship's tractor beam, enabling the automatic collection of nearby Caches during combat!

• Added a Gameplay Setting to disable gamepad vibration.

• Added an Audio Setting to toggle game audio when the application is not in focus (thanks for the suggestion, @RonEmpire).

• 'Interact' can now be rebound in the input settings.

Performance & Stability

We've also delivered several changes to improve performance and stability during longer, late-game runs and combat-intensive scenarios:

• Fixed a memory leak that could degrade performance during extended sessions.

• Fixed a hard freeze that could occur when reinforcement waves overlapped with status-field augment effects.

• Improved reinforcement-wave handling during intense combat.

• Reduced the cost and intensity of several heavy effects and audio moments, including Nuclear Tick VFX, smoke, and shield-hit audio.

Giving Feedback

Not to sound like a broken data disc, but your feedback is crucial to the development of Starforged Legacy!

We've created several channels for your feedback, suggestions, questions, and bug reports:

• We've created a Flight Systems Update Feedback Thread right here on Steam to track feedback for this update.

• Complete our short feedback survey available here and from the in-game main menu.

• Join our official Discord server to speak with the development team directly.

We'll be closely monitoring the reception to this update and any bug reports over the next week before we set our sights on our next "Hangar & Arsenal" update(s), where our focus will shift towards adding new content.

Starforged Legacy x NIMRODS

Before we sign off for the day, we'd also like to share a brand-new bundle: Starforged Legacy X NIMRODS! If you have a penchant for creating weapons of mass destruction (and you likely do if you've read this far into this transmission), be sure to check it out!

It's incredible that we're now bundling some of the very games we've played ourselves, which influenced Starforged Legacy and served as inspiration during its development. We couldn't have done it without you, pilots.

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

The Flight Systems update adds Resume Last Run functionality, improves clarity for Missions and Rewards, makes Ship Upgrades feel more impactful, overhauls Tactical Abilities and enemy behavior, and smooths early-run pacing, giving pilots better tools before facing their first major threat. We've also addressed several major player-reported soft-locks, runaway damage cases, performance issues, and controller frustrations.

Thank you to everyone who shared bug reports, controller feedback, performance notes, screenshots, and build feedback. Your reports continue to shape our Early Access priorities!

Content

Resume Last Run

• Progress is now saved whenever you leave a system and enter the Sector Select map, allowing you to return to that run the next time you play!

• Note: After winning a run, you must first select Endless to return to the Sector Select map before quitting or returning to the Main Menu if you want to save and resume that run later.

Tactical Abilities & Movement Rework

• Ship Tactical Abilities now have a stronger baseline impact:

  • Afterburner, Burst Drive, Phase Drive, and Micro Warp Drive have been retuned to feel better by default.

  • Augments can still modify and specialize tactical abilities, but Upgrades no longer increase tactical ability 'Strength' directly (i.e., the speed Afterburners provide, the range of Micro-Warp Drive, the distance Burst Drive moves the player, etc.).

• Capped tactical cooldown-reduction upgrades at roughly 50% cooldown reduction.

• Added a short activation lockout to Phase Drive and Afterburner to prevent repeated input from immediately canceling the ability.

• Increased baseline Battleship acceleration.

• Tactical Mastery survival skill changed from increasing Tactical Ability power to reducing Tactical Ability cooldown.

Enemy Behavior Changes

• Melee enemies are now much harder to kite. Instead of trailing directly behind you, they anticipate where you're heading and move to cut you off.

• Enemies that arrive one at a time now spread out around you instead of clumping on one side, and when you're on the move, they're more likely to appear in your path.

• Enemy movement speeds have been retuned across tiers, with reduced threat-level speed scaling to prevent extreme late-run speed spikes and make enemy roles easier to read.

• Reworked wave pacing so individual enemies apply steady, constant pressure, while large coordinated attacks now arrive as a few impactful fleet bursts instead of a never-ending stream of groups.

• Cruisers now appear as deliberate, telegraphed threats. ALI sounds a new "Heavy Contact" alert when one is inbound, and they no longer randomly mix into the normal enemy stream, so each one lands as a real event.

• Fleet bursts now field a much stronger mix of specialist enemies (exploders, shielders, chargers, ranged) rather than mostly basic fighters.

• Rebalanced ranged enemies so they are a threat worth prioritizing without flooding the screen, and fixed an issue that was causing them to under-spawn.

• Tuned enemy composition and intensity so Normal, Hard, and Brutal feel more distinct.

Reward Clarity & UI Improvements

• Ship Upgrade cards now display the percentage change for each stat, making it clear how much an upgrade improves a value.

• Stats that have reached their cap or floor now show a MAX label, so you can tell when further upgrades won't help.

• Added detailed tooltips to stat displays. Hover over or focus a stat to see its description, current value, and any cap or floor.

• Added tooltips for the Reroll, Banish, and Lock buttons on reward screens.

• Banishing an augment upgrade now suppresses all upgrade tiers for that augment for the rest of the run.

• Codex Augments can now be grouped by type (Hull, Shields, Thrusters, Subsystems, and weapon families). Toggle this with the on-screen button, G, or Y / Triangle.

• Added active Challenge and Reward Profile HUD cards so players can see the current sector modifier and reward context during gameplay.

• Updated Starmap mouse behavior so hovering previews sectors, while clicking commits the chosen destination.

• Leaderboards have been separated and now feature Standard (one-loop) and Endless.

• Sector Info panel updated to show map modifiers from challenge maps.

• Updated icons to be easier to understand for shops and challenge maps.

• Added new icons for map modifiers that were sharing them.

Gameplay & Mission Feedback

• Caches no longer need to be opened manually. Your ship's tractor beam now automatically pulls in and opens nearby Caches.

• The player ship's AI (ALI) now provides clearer mission alerts and reward feedback.

• Mission reward receipts now appear in the objective tracker area for the completed mission.

• Added boss and mission notification improvements.

• Added HP-bar-style objective feedback for single-actor missions.

• Collecting a power-up now shows a brief on-screen notification, making it clearer what you picked up.

• Changed the interaction text for power-up containers to make their purpose clearer. Now read as "Combat Container" and "Tactical Container".

• The Auto-Collect Experience skill now applies a brief collection effect instead of instantly grabbing experience with no feedback.

• Added an orange outline to all CWM bosses to make them stand out.

Controller Support

• Added right-stick manual aim support for Controller players, including a visible targeting cursor enabling more deliberate weapon aiming.

• The Codex is now fully controller-navigable. Move between entries in any direction with the stick or d-pad, including the Group by Type view, and use the shoulder buttons (LB/RB) to reliably cycle through every category: Augments, Weapons, Components, Ships, and Loadouts.

• Improved gamepad focus across Run Summary, Shop, Map Summary rewards, Main Menu, and Narrative UI screens:

  • Fixed Shop navigation so item cards, purchase buttons, and currency-style buttons can be reliably selected.

  • Fixed Map Summary reward entries so reward options expose valid focus targets and are no longer skipped by gamepad navigation.

  • Fixed the main menu gamepad navigation so all visible menu, survey, and social buttons are reachable in the correct on-screen order.

Additional Accessibility Settings

• Added a Gameplay Setting to disable gamepad vibration.

• Added an Audio Setting to toggle game audio when the application is not in focus.

• 'Interact' can now be rebound in the input settings.

Balance Changes

Augments

• Chain Reaction: Fixed the recursive kill damage, which was causing runaway damage values.

• Emergency Protocol: Now triggers its heal at 8 stacks instead of 10 and grants slightly more resistance at lower levels.

• Worldbreaker Payload: The unlock condition is now easier to complete.

• Glancing Blows: Removed scaling from Dodge on Tactical Ability usage; now a static 20%.

• Evasive Fire: Removed scaling from Dodge on Tactical Ability usage; now a static 20%.

• Offensive Evasion: Removed scaling from Dodge on Tactical Ability usage; now a static 5%.

• Offensive Evasion: Removed the stack count and buffed the value from 25%-70% to 50%-100%.

• Evasive Maneuvers: Removed scaling from Dodge on Tactical Ability usage; now a static 5%.

• Evasive Overload: Removed scaling from Shield restore; now a static 10%.

• Aftershock: Removed scaling on Health damage; now a static 10%.

• Power Surge: Shield Damage reduced from 50-100% to 20-70%. Enemy count reduced from 3-8 to 1-6. Cooldown increased from 1s to 1.5s.

• CQC Targeting Computer: Damage scaling reduced by about 50%.

• Energy Siphon: Global damage buff removed. Max Shield restore increased to 18%, plus an instant shield-recharge kickstart.

Gameplay

• Experience required per level has increased by 25%.

• Ironhide - Relentless Loadout: Aggressive Burn has been replaced with Vulnerability Overload, increasing global damage as shields are damaged.

• Nova Lance - Fission Loadout: Electro Reactive Armor has been replaced with Power Surge.

• Added distance-based damage falloff to missiles and most augment-based explosions to help compensate for their strength.

• Increased both Pulse Laser and Machine Gun base range from 45m to 50m.

• On Normal Difficulty, Cruiser-class enemy ships now appear only from Sector 8 onward.

• Reduced required kills for timed-kill missions to 60.

• Reduced the base damage of the "forking" attack on ranged enemies from 15 to 7.

• Boss additional enemy spawning rates have been reduced across all difficulties.

• 'Carrier' class enemies (mid-run boss) are no longer affected by slows, and the Thermoflux Projector power-up no longer damages them.

• Reduced base health of Ranged Tier 1-3 enemies.

• Tier 1 Ranged enemy now has fewer projectiles per shot in Hard and Brutal.

• Nuclear Field base damage reduced from 25 to 20.

• Nuclear Field base radius reduced from 3500 to 3000.

• Field weapon entry damage no longer stacks with the normal sustained tick. Enemies still take damage immediately when entering a field, but that hit now replaces their next tick instead of adding extra burst damage.

• Adjusted Hard and Brutal difficulty progression so the first few maps are less punishing, giving skilled players more room to establish a build.

  • Increased later-map scaling so these difficulties still ramp into a serious challenge, especially once runs reach the mid and late game.

    Shop and narrative map scaling were left unchanged to preserve recovery and routing choices.

• Reduced the collision size of most enemy projectiles to be more accurate and fair to players. They are now all slightly smaller than the visuals.

• Reduced the speed of exploder enemies by 25%.

• Reduced the damage Radiation Clouds from Map Modifiers inflict on enemies.

Missions & Rewards

• Added missing combo rewards for several Field weapons so they can now appear in Armory, Prototype, and boss reward choices.

• The Master Loadout skill now gives an additional weapon slot as well as a free choice of 1 of 3 prototype weapons at the start of each run.

• Ship Upgrades have received a major balance pass, making them feel more meaningful when chosen. Many low-impact upgrade rolls were increased, and several upgrade values were adjusted across Weapons, Shields, Hull, Speed, Fields, and Tactical Ability support.

• Skipping a Weapon Reward now gives an Augment choice instead of Credits.

• Buffed Thruster Cooldown and Shield cooldown enhancements to increase their values, and reducing rarity to rare makes them more effective.

• Reduced the chance of loot crates spawning from the Salvage Rights skill.

• Removed the augment reward from the Kill Pirates mission.

• The Cargo Runner mission now gives 15 more seconds to complete and gives an augment reward on completion rather than dropping a crate.

Starmap & Sector Modifiers

• Rebalanced the Star Map boss flow so there is now one boss before the final boss, appearing on Map 6.

• Armory sectors are now guaranteed to appear within the first 3 floors of each run.

  • Armory sectors now grant a choose-1-of-3 Weapon Reward.

• Challenge map modifiers are now rolled per Difficulty, with a starting pool of Radiation Fields, Meteor Storms, Ancient Battleground, and Ion Storm on Normal, and the full pool on Hard/Brutal.

• Gravitational Wells now spawn much less frequently and no longer boost player Health and Shields. Now, they remove any Shield cooldowns, causing Shields to recharge immediately.

• Updated 'Nebula' challenge behavior: weapon range reduction is now a flat 35%.

• Ancient Battleground now scales its mine count by Difficulty and fills the field more densely. Mine counts are Normal 15, Hard 25, Brutal 35.

Performance & Optimizations

• Fixed a memory leak caused by repeatedly applying Armor Breach, Stun, and Slow to enemies.

• Fixed a hard freeze that could occur during Reinforcement-heavy fights with Status-applying Field Augments.

• Enemy Reinforcement missions now spawn waves over a brief window rather than all at once, reducing fight-start stutter.

• Improved performance during heavy enemy spawning by simplifying single-enemy spawn-pressure rules.

• Removed Nuclear Tick VFX to reduce visual clutter.

• Updated enemy damage smoke behavior so repeated smoke effects render more cleanly.

• Removed player shield-hit audio from enemy shields so enemies no longer overuse the player shield sound.

• Reduced Pulse Laser volume.

Fixes

UI & Controller Navigation Fixes

• Fixed several instances of reward-screen soft-lock.

• Fixed controller navigation on the Starmap after closing a shop or a pop-up. Settings and ship stat panels now scroll properly with both the controller and the mouse wheel.

• Fixed the confirm button purchasing an Augment when pressed on a Codex category tab.

• Fixer shield sound list not updating when switching categories with a controller.

• Fixed issues with not being able to move between Codex entries.

• Fixed gamepad focus on the Banish button.

• Fixed Codex gamepad purchase focus restore and item-grid scroll-follow behavior.

• Fixed Difficulty Select gamepad navigation.

• Fixed issues where manual aim could get stuck when using it while entering different UIs.

• Fixed Run Summary mission cards showing duplicate completed unlocks or stale completion text.

Combat & Gameplay Fixes

• Fixed player projectiles hitting asteroids when they shouldn't—reduced asteroid collision size.

• Fixed enemies targeting the station after its shields went up. These enemies will now retarget to find the player.

• Fixed weapon range upgrades not increasing auto-target acquisition range. Beam and turret-style weapons now lock onto targets at their full upgraded range instead of their base range.

• Fixed players taking damage while in Warp.

• Fixed issues where movement abilities could become locked after the Tactical cooldown (and other stats) could go negative with repeated ship upgrades.

• Fixed 'No Hull Damage' unlocks failing when only shields were hit.

• Fixed Berzerker Energy not upgrading its tradeoff effect correctly.

• Fixed Merchant Ship repair zones not cleaning up on death.

• Fixed Merchant Ship death destruction cleanup.

• Fixed irregular Convoy movement.

• Fixed Fortified Space Turrets showing unnecessary HUD markers.

• Fixed Radiation Leak Augment not spawning its clouds.

• Fixed Proximity Mines and their subsequent radiation clouds from enemy Cruisers (minibosses) dealing massive damage to other Cruisers.

Progression, Rewards & Starmap Fixes

• Fixed map modifiers granting double rewards.

• Fixed an issue where completing a challenge map with a map modifier and the secondary mission on it would grant double map modifier rewards.

• Fixed locked reward cards becoming unlocked during rerolls.

• Fixed banished augments returning in reward choices.

• Fixed interacting with shops accidentally refreshing stock.

• Fixed rare Endless Mode cases where the starting sector could become selectable later in the run and cause a stuck warp.

• Fixed Starmap sector descriptions sometimes not matching the selected destination.

• Fixed an issue where level progression advanced in steps rather than linearly.

• Fixed the experience bar not updating properly when XP was gained.

• Fixed upgrade screen stat previews, including temporary buffs, which made Ship Upgrade values inaccurate.

Audio, Visual & Tech Fixes

• Fixed a performance issue that could cause frame drops in large battles when using status-chaining augment builds (Thermal Stasis, Stasis Fracture, Plasma Breach, Overloaded Circuits). Plasma Breach and Overloaded Circuits also no longer roll critical hits on their plasma damage.

• Implemented a potential fix for Phase Beam SFX continuing during warp sequences.

• Fixed some inconsistencies in Reactive Armor, Evasive Fire, Disruption Field, Stasis Field, and Plasma Tether Augment descriptions.

Greetings, Commanders!

High Command has released a priority transmission for all enlisted pilots: the Starforged Legacy Early Access Roadmap! This is a visual representation of our development plans for Starforged Legacy. As a 'living' roadmap, it'll be updated to reflect the state of the game as we deploy new content and integrate community suggestions:

(At the bottom of this post, you'll find a plain-text version of our roadmap for users who intercept this broadcast on smaller displays or prefer something easier to read.)

As you can see, our next major updates are split into two phases:

• Flight Systems - Will primarily focus on improving existing gameplay systems, including controller and keyboard navigation, saving runs for future continuation, balance, and gameplay clarity.

• Hangar & Arsenal - Once this strong foundation is in place, we'll shift our efforts to expanding our pilots' arsenal of Augments, Weapons, and playable Starships.

Future expansions might include even more Ships, Loadouts, Augments, Weapons, additional challenges (Environmental Hazards, Sector Modifiers, and Narrative Events), as well as additions to the playable Regions and Enemies that populate them. You're not squeamish about aliens, are you, pilot?

For our small crew, providing concrete dates as to when these features can be expected is difficult, but expect progress updates, sneak peeks, and opportunities for early feedback as they come together.

Ongoing Improvements

Starforged Legacy will also receive regular updates to address immediately-actionable feedback, balance changes, bug fixes, improved stability and optimization, and any other content we may want to ship independently of major patches—think our recent 0.1.1 and 0.1.2 updates.

We're planning a sizeable update in the coming weeks to deliver on several community requests: performance improvements; reward/input soft locks; controller reliability; early-game and first-boss fairness; and a jumpstart on gameplay clarity (tooltips for stats, showing percentage changes for upgrades, power-ups, etc.). Stay tuned!

Community Feedback

While it might be R&D scrapping together weapons for our pilots' use, engineering snuffing out the glitches in the ship's autopilot, and High Command keeping the whole operation on schedule by threatening to open the airlocks on the both of them, the most valuable contributions to our Early Access journey come from you.

We regularly check our Steam discussions and feedback survey for bug reports, suggestions, and questions. Of course, you also have a direct line to High Command (us) via our official Discord server.

Your reports, feedback, suggestions, screenshots, videos, and honest reactions have already helped us improve the game tremendously. We're deeply grateful for the time you've spent playing, testing, and telling us what feels great, what's still a little rough around the edges, and what needs another pass.

Thanks again for helping shape Starforged Legacy. We're just getting started.

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

Current State of Early Access

• Normal, Hard, Brutal Difficulties & Endless Mode.

• 166 unlockable Augments for Weapons, Thrusters, Shields, Hulls, and Sub-systems.

• 12 unlockable Loadouts across 6 Ships.

• 12 core Weapons (Field, Missile, Projectile, Beam).

• 36 Narrative Encounters with multiple outcomes.

• Procedurally generated Starmap with random environmental sector Modifiers and Secondary Objectives.

• 50 Skills unlockable via meta-progression Skill Tree.

Flight Systems

• Better gamepad, keyboard, and menu navigation.

• Resume last run from safe sector breaks.

• Early game tuning for first boss, starter Ships, and Weapons access.

• Balance pass for Augments, Upgrades, Shops, Shields, Dodge, and Movement.

• Improved Upgrade, Reward, and Mission clarity.

• Performance improvements.

Hangar & Arsenal

• New Ships & Loadouts.

• New Weapons.

• New Augments.

• Augment toggle // pool curation.

• In-game Codex improvements.

Future Major Content

• New Enemies.

• New Maps.

• New Ships & Loadouts.

• New Weapons.

• New Augments.

• Additional challenges.

• \ Steam Achievements.

• \ Additional language support.

Captain's (Developer) Log #4

Greetings, Commanders!

Today's transmission is brief, as High Command is currently routing all resources to shipping hotfixes, stability improvements, and balance tweaks based on your invaluable feedback from launch week. That said, we wanted to share a few updates and highlight the community that's made our first week so incredible!

Since launching into Early Access, we've welcomed over 3,600 new pilots to our ranks, shattered our previous concurrent player records with 240 active commanders braving the void simultaneously, and—most validating of all for our small crew—achieved a Very Positive rating on Steam!

Once again, from our veteran pilots who helped root out faulty wiring in our open beta, to the new recruits preparing for their first expedition, thank you. We have so much more in store for this Early Access, and we are glad to have you on board for the journey. We're excited to share a visual roadmap with you all soon—potentially during this week's Steam Bullet Fest, so keep your eyes peeled and comms open!

Community Feedback

With a wave of new pilots expected to take flight in the coming days, here is a quick reminder to make liberal use of our Steam discussions, in-game feedback survey, and official Discord server for all bug reports and suggestions, no matter the scale. We read every single one.

In case you missed it, we've already deployed our first two patches dedicated to addressing community feedback! You can find additional information on those patches here:

A note for pilots in training: As of June 7th, the changes to our shader compilation process, along with the relevant fixes and balance changes from updates 0.1.1 and 0.1.2, have also been applied to the demo version of Starforged Legacy!

Steam Bullet Fest

Starforged Legacy will be participating in Steam's Bullet Fest, featuring a 10% discount until June 15th!

Technically speaking, this is still just our launch discount extended throughout Bullet Fest, but you shouldn't concern yourself with technicalities. You should concern yourself with the rebel reinforcements warping to your locale after intercepting this transmission, however.

To help you survive this ambush, seek additional training in our phenomenal bullet-heaven bundles (including our new bundle with Pesticide Not Required), and demo available to prospective recruits during Steam Bullet Fest!

Community Scan

The outpouring of support for Starforged Legacy during launch week has been incredible, and we've been lurking (or perhaps, not so covertly, chatting) in as many of these streams and discussion posts as we can.

We've highlighted some exemplary commanders below—these instructional videos aren't mandatory for new recruits, but heavily recommended if you value your pressurized cabin.

Once again, a tremendous thank you to @MrJuicebags for providing us with gameplay to feature on our developer broadcast during launch—show his (and all of these creators') videos on Starforged Legacy some support!

*Note: The apocalyptic strength of the above 'Miku Beam' actually claimed the #2 global high score for quite some time. Full extent of damages still inconclusive.

If there are any notable videos or streams we've missed, or content creators who you think might enjoy a key to Starforged Legacy, please let us know!

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

Today's hotfix focuses on improving performance, reducing visual clutter during combat, and smoothing out several balance and reliability issues reported by players. We've also shipped adjustments to the first boss encounter so its difficulty better matches its relatively early placement in runs.

Thank you to everyone who shared bugs, performance notes, screenshots, and build feedback. These contributions are what enable us to move quickly and address the most pressing issues!

Performance & Optimizations

• Menus now have their own frame-rate limits, helping reduce unnecessary GPU usage outside of gameplay.

• Gameplay now utilizes a smarter default frame-rate limit based on your monitor refresh rate. Existing players will have this setting refreshed once, and can still change it afterward.

• Added a new shader cache to reduce shader-related hitches and improve gameplay smoothness.

• Improved performance during busy fights by reducing the cost of distant or less important enemies.

• Improved build compression settings to reduce CPU strain and improve loading behavior.

• Removed unused high-resolution skybox assets to reduce build size and asset overhead.

• Optimized skybox textures to reduce memory usage while keeping space backgrounds sharp.

• Pickups now render more efficiently, which should help performance when many are on screen.

• Enemy Reinforcement missions now spawn waves over a brief window instead of all at once, reducing the stutter that could occur when the fight starts.

• Reduced heavy visual effects in the main menu to improve performance and lower unnecessary system load.

Visual Clarity & VFX

• Plasma damage effects no longer stack up into huge visual clouds, improving FPS and making combat easier to read.

• Plasma DoT effects are now cheaper to render, helping performance in Plasma-heavy builds.

• Plasma and Radiation effects are easier to tell apart, making it clearer what belongs to you and what belongs to enemies.

Balance Changes

Augments

• Reactive Recharge now has a 10-second cooldown and will only trigger when the player is missing shields. This should make the augment behave more predictably and prevent wasted triggers.

• Plasma Contagion now needs a nearby enemy to keep spreading. This prevents enemies from repeatedly reapplying Plasma to themselves and creating unintended damage loops.

First Boss Encounter

• The first boss and certain elite enemies now aim more fairly. They no longer fire at your predicted location, giving players a better chance to dodge through skillful movement.

• The first boss and its minions have 25% less health, making the first major boss fight less punishing and better paced for early runs.

Interactables

• Paid interactable spawns are now capped at 4 per sector, and their endless-mode scaling has been tightened. This should prevent later sectors from filling up with too many paid interactables at once.

• Augment Beacons are now rarer, and their credit cost scales more strongly with map progress. This should make them feel more like a meaningful opportunity instead of something that floods endless runs.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where certain max health effects, especially Hungry Field combined with max health upgrades, could cause your current health to drop unexpectedly when moving between sectors. Your current health should now be preserved correctly when your maximum health changes.

• Fixed field weapons scaling far beyond their intended fire rate after stacking attack speed upgrades. This should prevent extreme performance drops caused by runaway field-weapon builds.

• Fixed an issue where selecting a Star Map hex could sometimes send the player to a different hex than the one they chose.

• Fixed the Worldbreaker Payload augment unlock condition being impossible to complete. The requirement has been lowered from 100 kills to 50 kills.

• Fixed Skill Tree tooltips that sometimes remained on screen after closing the Skill Tree.

• Fixed the Junkyard elite enemy’s low-health radiation cloud so it now correctly deals damage.

• Fortified Turrets should now spawn with their intended weapons.

• Orbiter Auto Slugger enemies should now spawn with their intended weapons.

• Armor Breach effects should now trigger and display more reliably.

• Fixed an issue that could cause ranged enemies to spawn with incorrect weapons.

• Fixed an input focus issue that could cause controls or menus to behave incorrectly after changing settings.

As our first patch since the Early Access launch, this update delivers a major shader-compilation rework to reduce in-game stutter and GPU temperatures, resolves several prominent crashes, and fixes frozen reward screens. On the balance side, we’ve tuned critical builds to keep late-game maps challenging, balanced several augments, and adjusted how Field Weapons receive upgrades. Additionally, all three of 'Relentless' Ironhide's (players' first accessible ship and loadout) default augments have been updated to make the NUE more friendly and fair, as we've received several reports that the ship was underperforming dramatically compared to the Nova Lance.

Thank you, Commanders, for all your feedback and support. Most of today's fixes are in direct response to the reports we've received, and we'll continue to monitor discussions for additional feedback!

Performance & Optimizations

• Reworked first-launch shader compilation. Shaders now compile up front via a dedicated process that the game waits for before the main menu loads, rather than during gameplay. This should significantly reduce in-game stutter, frame drops, and GPU overheating that some players experienced, especially right after an update. (We also bumped the shader cache version and removed the old placeholder loading screen.)

• Improved performance by reducing select texture sizes.

• Improved performance during high-level fleet encounters by spreading large enemy support waves over multiple frames instead of spawning them all at once.

Content

• Field Weapons no longer roll targeting range-based upgrades; instead, they draw new radius-based equivalents.

• Improved lighting on the Starmap so your ship is easier to see in darker sections.

• The leaderboard now includes an 11th entry to show the user's high score relative to the global top 10.

Balance Changes

• Critical Stacks reworked. Now triggers on Critical Hits instead of every hit, with larger gains per stack (up to +16% Critical Chance per crit) and a 5-stack cap, making it a snowball pick for crit-focused builds.

• Critical Support capped. Now capped at 10 stacks, limiting its bonus to +300% Critical Damage per magazine to control late-game scaling.

• Combat Catalyst now stacks both Damage and Fire Rate on each kill (was Fire Rate only), with longer duration and an 8-stack cap. Your shots hit harder when you chain kills rather than just firing faster.

• Emergency Protocol's damage reduction per Plating stack now scales with augment level (3% to 8% per stack), so a fully-invested Ironhide can reach up to 80% damage reduction at max stacks, up from the flat 30% it gave at every level.

• Aggressive Burn's damage resistance while using Afterburners now scales from 30% to 55% across levels.

• Recycled Ammo's chance to refund a fired round has been substantially increased (15% to 40% by augment level, up from 5% to 10%), a solid DPS gain that pairs well with reset-on-reload augments like Belt Fed and Repeated Rounds.

• Nuclear Warheads now spawn a Radiation Cloud once every 5 kills instead of on every kill, preventing screen-clog when missiles wipe out clusters of enemies.

• Radiation Rounds now creates a Radiation Cloud once every 5 kills instead of on every kill, preventing pierce and AoE shots from spamming overlapping clouds.

• Fallout Zone Radiation Clouds now grow larger with each augment level, so leveling the augment meaningfully expands its area of effect.

• Defense Protocol now works correctly with Field Weapons, using a scaling targeting distance and firing at the nearest enemy in range instead of a random one.

• Red Line now damages the player rather than modifying their health. This means it will now trigger augments that are "On Damage Taken". Additionally, it now affects the player's shield rather than their health.

• Dodge, Health Resistance, and Shield Resistance are now capped at 75%.

• Reduced Crit Chance received from upgrades by 50%.

Fixes

• Implemented a potential fix for an issue in which players could get stuck on reward screens with no option other than to skip the reward.

• Fixed a crash that could occur when uploading a score to the leaderboard.

• Fixed a crash that could occur when an enemy or boss died while one of its abilities was still active.

• Fixed a crash related to Field Weapons.

• Fixed reward screens (Upgrade, Augment, Weapon Select) sometimes becoming unresponsive to mouse and keyboard input after a confirmation pop-up.

• Fixed Max Weapon Slot skills (Reinforced Frame, Master Loadout) not granting extra slots.

• Fixed the Field Range skill not scaling past level 5; it now increases range with each point invested.

• Fixed Swarm Missile and Rail Gun’s unlock conditions not triggering correctly.

• Fixed Volatile Proximity's unlock condition not triggering correctly.

• Fixed floating combat numbers overlapping: shield-regen and healing now use the same "lanes" system as damage numbers, and rapid damage ticks no longer stack on top of each other.

• Fixed the Gravity Well map modifier drifting out of position and expiring early; wells now stay in place for the full encounter.

• Fixed Ancient Battlefield mines expiring too quickly; they now last longer.

• Fixed the gamepad not working as intended during Narrative Events.

• Fixed the Solar Flare map modifier sending repeated notifications.

• Fixed the Perfect Form skill not granting increased damage and being removed whenever any damage was taken, not just on hull damage. Its tooltip also didn't reflect that it would only stack 20 times.

• Fixed Perfect Form and Precision Overload applying buffs while on the Starmap.

• Fixed several Hungry Field issues: Hull dropping sharply during warps, boss starts, or stack updates; Hull being reduced on map transitions; and health upgrades being applied twice.

• Fixed a critical-hit double-dip where "% of damage dealt", and "on crit" procs (Plasma damage-over-time, Ammo Explosion, Chain Reaction, and others) could re-roll critical hits and snowball into runaway, multi-million damage on high-crit builds.

• Fixed Red Line dealing damage to the player while in the Star Map or while warping. It now deactivates on warp.

Starforged Legacy Early Access Now Available!

Greetings, Commanders!

It's time to abandon the flight simulators, strap into the cockpit, and set your sights on the merciless galaxy ahead—Starforged Legacy's Early Access is OUT NOW!

After over two years in development, reaching this launch window is an incredible milestone for our small crew. Thanks to your support during development, we've cleared over 10,000 wishlists, logged more than 4,500 test flights on the demo, and even shot up to #4 on Steam's 'Popular Upcoming'! From everyone at Second Shift Games, we'd like to extend a massive thank you to each and every test pilot who discovered game-breaking synergies, completed our feedback survey, or simply shared words of encouragement. Starforged Legacy wouldn't be the same without you.

To celebrate our launch, you can get Starforged Legacy for 10% off until June 15th!

We've also partnered with phenomenal survivors, sci-fi, and indie titles to bring you even more action—check them out! If you already own any of these titles, you can still take advantage of the bundle discounts!

We've also pushed a substantial update to the Starforged Legacy Demo, and we will continue to update it in tandem with the full release as we review our pilots' after-action reports.

What's Next

We suspect our pilots will encounter anomalies among the stars that even our most advanced training simulations can't anticipate, so High Command will be keeping a close watch on discussions, reviews, and feedback survey responses in the coming days, addressing any instances of 'anomalous activity' (bugs) as they arise.

This is the very beginning of Starforged Legacy's Early Access, and we have much more planned for you (Early Access Roadmap coming soon). During this time, your feedback is our greatest resource, and we highly encourage you to share your experiences, thoughts, and suggestions with the team.

Join the Community

Think R&D might've 'overtuned' a particular weapon, hatch an idea for a new augment, or set a new high score? Join our official Discord and let us know! It's the best way to speak with the Second Shift Games team directly, as well as stay updated on Starforged Legacy news and updates!

Speaking of community, know any streamers, YouTubers, or other content creators who have a soft spot for starships and survivors titles? Drop us a line or point them our direction—we'd love to send transmission their way!

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

This hotfix focuses on bug fixes, combat tuning, UI polish, and reward/progression fixes for the Demo version of Starforged Legacy.

Content

• Added more narrative event variety.

• Updated Map 8 boss tuning, enemy spawns, VFX, and SFX.

Balance Changes

• Rebalanced Normal and Hard difficulty progression. Normal has been softened, especially early, while Hard has been retuned to stay challenging.

• Removed overtuned Difficulty-category Challenges for now. They may return later with better difficulty gating.

• Rebalanced several weapons, including Standard Missile, Cruise Missile, Plasma Arc, Swarm Missile, Phase Beam, Rail Gun, and Nuclear/Kinetic Field tuning where applicable.

• Standard Missile now has homing.

• Rail Gun now starts with more pierce.

• Adjusted Luck scaling so early Luck is less explosive while later Luck remains meaningful.

• Updated Nova Lance’s identity augment to better support its precision/critical-hit playstyle.

• Tuned Hard difficulty enemy behavior and loadouts.

• Adjusted several demo unlock requirements to better match demo pacing.

• Improved several narrative, mission, and currency reward payouts so risky choices feel more worthwhile.

• Improved shop value and clarity by adding a ship repair feature.

UI & Quality of Life

• Improved the secondary mission widget so that optional objectives are clearer.

• Improved Codex and ship customization flows, including locked loadout details and ship/loadout purchasing.

• Added a Codex action to clear all new-item badges.

• Improved weapon, ship component, and loadout stat displays.

• Improved reward timing, card pop-ins, currency display, settings UI, boss health bar, and notification polish.

• Updated player-facing terminology from “Movement Abilities” to “Tactical Abilities.”

• Improved boss nameplates and boss HUD behavior in several cases.

• Improved secondary mission readability and behavior.

• Improved Merchant Escort, Merchant Rescue, Cargo Runner, and other mission reward/cleanup behavior.

Fixes

• Fixed Phase Beam and Pulse Laser dealing much more damage than intended when hitting the same enemy through multiple collision primitives.

• Fixed currency being duplicated after saving and reloading a run.

• Fixed several reward confirmation pop-up softlocks.

• Fixed manual fire sometimes getting stuck when using gamepad input, which caused auto-targeting to stop working on the gamepad.

• Fixed enemy kill missions not properly tracking kills.

• Fixed no-damage objectives not failing correctly after taking hull damage.

• Fixed some bosses missing their Boss enemy tag, which could make them take too much damage.

• Fixed skill tooltips sometimes staying on screen after returning to the main menu.

• Fixed the first-time movement style popup not defaulting to the recommended ship-relative movement option.

• Fixed the final boss not granting rewards correctly.

• Fixed several augment issues, including Reactive Armor, Beam Efficiency, Heated Chamber, Hardened Bullets, and Critical Support.

• Fixed a reward edge case where maxed-out weapon slots could block single prototype weapon rewards.

• Fixed Cluster Warheads using full damage instead of its intended scaled damage, and rebalanced it with a fire-rate penalty and a fixed explosion count.

• Fixed the first run always rolling the same secondary mission.

10, 9, 8... 7 Days to Launch!

Greetings, Commanders!

We are officially 7 days away from the Early Access launch of Starforged Legacy on June 1st! The station's crew has been working around the clock to ensure your starship is fueled and its weapons calibrated—it's nearly time to strap in and prepare for the galaxy ahead!

Before we take flight, we want to share important information about Starforged Legacy's launch pricing and take one last opportunity to celebrate the milestones you helped us reach!

Price Reveal & Launch Discount

Starforged Legacy will launch at an entry price of $7.99 USD! All things considered, High Command should probably be paying you for exposing yourselves to the dangers of the void, but hey, starship fuel isn't cheap!

In reality, we heavily considered the costs of many other bullet-heaven titles, and we believe this accurately reflects the tremendous replayability the game currently offers. Don't forget, Starforged Legacy is launching into Early Access, with plenty more content planned (more on this soon), and we may increase the price of the game at a later date!

We'll also be launching with a 10% discount for the first two weeks, alongside several bundles featuring other incredible sci-fi, survival, and roguelike games from other developers. Be sure to check them out!

Community Milestones

The response to Starforged Legacy over the past few months has been incredible and an overwhelming motivator for our team's very first title. Thanks to you, we've crossed two huge milestones:

• 7,500+ Wishlists

• 4,000+ Demo Plays

Not only have you helped us exceed our expectations, but the feedback we've received via our in-game survey and community Discord over the course of our demo and countless playtests has been invaluable in shaping what Starforged has become. Speaking of which...

Test-Fly the Demo

If you've yet to get into the cockpit, our free demo is still live! This training simulation includes access to three starships, Normal, Hard, and Endless modes, and a limited selection of weapons and augments R&D has deemed suitable for new recruits—as well as a few unlockable, more advanced weapons and augments for pilots who prove their competency!

You can find more information on the demo here:

Support Development in the Final Week

If you haven’t already, Wishlisting Starforged Legacy tells Steam players are excited. It costs nothing but means everything to us! We also encourage you to play the demo and share your thoughts! Find an incredibly broken synergy, or have an idea for a cool ship augment? Let us know via our feedback survey or chat with the developers directly in our community Discord!

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

The Starforged Legacy Demo is Back!

Greetings, Commander!

We're less than two weeks away from our flagship expedition—the Early Access launch on June 1st! To prepare for deployment, High Command has issued a new and improved training simulation. Or, in civilian terms, the Starforged Legacy Demo is back!

This combat simulation includes a broad selection of augments, ships, and unlocks (including both Hard and Endless Modes), and should serve as invaluable training for new recruits ahead of our Early Access release. If this is your first exposure to Starforged Legacy, we’d like to extend a formal welcome to our ranks and encourage you to strap in, take flight, and let us know what you think—the rebel fleet is itching to make your acquaintance.

If you’ve been following our development for a while now, take note we've implemented countless balance changes, fixes, optimizations, UI redesigns, and, of course, new content since February's Steam Next Fest Demo. A comprehensive list of changes would be far too long for us to transmit in a single broadcast, so to avoid overloading your systems, we've provided a breakdown of the changes most crucial to your survival:

Highlights

Enhancements Overhaul

Enhancements have received a significant rework to make upgrade choices clearer at a glance. Upgrades are now strictly component-focused. Instead of abstract bonuses floating somewhere on your hull, choices now clearly communicate exactly which part of your ship they improve and how your stats change.

The Enhancement pool itself has also been refined significantly:

• Older or overlapping upgrades were consolidated, and new or rebuilt upgrades add more interesting tradeoffs and combinations.

• Defensive upgrades now have more variety, fire-rate upgrades were rebuilt into clearer families, and several formerly single-stat picks now carry a small secondary bonus so choices feel more dynamic.

• Many enhancements are no longer global boons (e.g., '+10% Crit Chance'), encouraging more thoughtful choices from pilots.

Revamped Starmap

The Starmap, your key to navigating contested space, has undergone massive changes since our open playtest, most notably the Hex Info Panel. Now, your preliminary scans will reveal information about adjacent sectors, including potential hazards, rewards, and optional objectives!

In addition to the Elite and Shop sectors, seven new sector subtypes have been identified (discernible by the icon above each hex):

• Armory - Sector success rewards a single pre-augmented combo weapon.

• Riches - More mineable asteroids. High Credit yield.

• Industrial - Special Material-yielding mineables. High Material yield.

• Research - Additional anomalies. Scan for science.

• Experience - +15% in this sector, but no mineable resources or anomalies detected.

• Strange Signal - An unknown transmission. Outcome unclear (guaranteed Narrative Encounter, with unguaranteed survival).

• Prototype - Sector success rewards 1-of-3 pre-augmented prototype weapons.

Providing this level of insight into the sectors ahead will enable our navigators to make more strategic decisions or choose a route that helps them gather the right resources for their next Unlock. Speaking of which…

Unlocks, Challenges, and The Codex

The Skill Tree, Codex, and Mission Board now form the backbone of the unlock system for your progression through the ranks. The Skill Tree gives players permanent pilot growth, while the Codex tracks the expanding arsenal of ships, loadouts, weapons, and augments.

Pilots will be cleared to access more advanced weapons, augments, ships, and loadouts through challenges such as clean boss fights, timed boss kills, no-damage streaks, secondary mission completion, ship mastery, survival pressure, and high-damage single-run builds—all visible via the Mission Board.

Once you've proven yourself in the field (likely one populated with asteroids), you'll be able to unlock additions to your arsenal, or permanently add new augments to your drop-pools by unlocking them via the Codex with your hard-fought Materials, Science, and Artifacts.

Additionally, players will receive updates during and after runs via the new Post-Game Summary Screen (pictured above) on their progress toward current challenges and recent unlocks.

Demo F.A.Q.

How do I access this if I downloaded the February Demo?

If you still have our previous demo installed, Steam should automatically trigger an update. If not, simply head over to our store page and click "Download Demo" (and "Add to Wishlist", this is a vital step).

How much content is in the Demo?

The Starforged Legacy Demo contains both Normal and Hard difficulties, access to Endless Mode, limited access to the skill tree, 3 (the same ever-faithful starships we've had available in our playtests, each with unlockable alternative loadouts!), 4 base weapons, and 51 of the 160+ augments available in the full version. Additionally, access to 3 more weapons and 16 advanced augments can be earned through the completion of in-game challenges!

Will my progress carry over to the main game?

No, progression made in the demo will not carry over to the main game. This is a training simulation, after all.

Will the Demo receive updates?

Currently, the demo sports hours of content and unlockables—while we're likely to reserve additional content for the Early Access release of Starforged Legacy, it's not out of the question. We will, however, be deploying fixes and balance changes based on our pilots' after-action reports!

Does the Demo work on Steam Deck?

Currently, most, if not all, content in-game is accessible via gamepad, though we're still working towards complete Steam Deck compatibility. This is one of our top Early Access goals. While the game is playable on Steam Deck, players may encounter some unpolished controls.

Where can I give feedback?

As in our previous playtests, a feedback survey will be available at all times from the main menu, and we also highly encourage you to join our community Discord server to chat with the developers directly (and be notified of important announcements, releases, etc.).

Wishlist Starforged Legacy

We're hurtling towards our June 1st launch date at an incredible pace, and it would mean the known galaxy to us if you wishlisted and followed Starforged Legacy before our launch, and shared our demo with other fearless pilots and survivors-enthusiasts!

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

This hotfix addresses the issue where enemy difficulty was capping out mid-run because the scaling curves didn't extend far enough, along with a batch of gamepad improvements, skill fixes, and content polish.

Balance Changes

• Enemy scaling curves extended to Threat 3000.

  • Damage and speed were capped at Threat 20 (reached around map 6–9 on Normal), and health was capped at Threat 100 (hit within the first few maps of Endless). Beyond those caps, enemies stopped scaling in threat and became pure sponges, with health-to-damage ratios reaching 30:1 at Threat 100.

  • New curves extend all three attributes to Threat 1000, keeping the sponge index between 3:1 and 9:1 throughout.

  • Six plateau windows have been added at Threat 5–8, 16–22, 35–45, 75–90, 150–180, and 300–350, where scaling briefly pauses, giving players room to feel their upgrades before pressure resumes.

    • All existing values below the old caps are unchanged.

• Salvage Rights nerfed. The skill was generating far too many crates. It now only triggers on Tier 4+ drops and has a 50% lower proc chance.

• Shop Balance: Shops now have a limited stock of weapons and augments per visit. Refreshing the shop will not offer more once the limit is reached. Enhancement prices now scale with rarity, with higher-tier enhancements costing more.

UI & Quality of Life

• Gamepad navigation to Ship Overview added from the Pause Menu.

• Ship Overview now appears on the Run Summary Screen. Players can review their full loadout at the end of a run.

• Gamepad confirm input standardized across all menus. Gamepad 'Down' now confirms on all screens from the Main Menu through Gameplay, using the UI Select input action consistently. Gameplay-spawned shops are also fixed.

Fixes

• Fixed Smart Rounds not functioning correctly.

• Fixed an issue where entering Pause while placing a teleport would permanently lock the player in placement mode, preventing teleporting.

• Data Harvest now correctly scales with each skill point invested. Previously, only the first point had any effect.

• Skill tooltip no longer shows a "0% increase" next-level stat line on maxed skills. The next-level line is now hidden at max rank.

• Gamepad input prompt now appears correctly on the Purchase Skills tooltip.

• Fixed player's score not carrying over correctly into Endless mode.

• Updated Drive Key border for better legibility.

• Fixed Death Mark Tether augment not triggering correctly.

• Mine explosions have been replaced. The previous effect may have been causing issues and didn't fit the game's visual style.

• Fixed gamepad reroll not consuming charges. Using the reroll on the gamepad refreshed the reward options but never decremented the reroll attribute.

Greetings, Commanders!

Pre-flight checks are complete, and safety protocols are disengaged—our open playtest is now live until April 18th! Access has been granted to all those who've requested it, and for prospective pilots who've yet to, you can still do so on our Steam page!

This week's playtest will include two opportunities for our recruits to become full-time pilots, that is to say, two ways to earn a full-game key!

Last but not least, in addition to the content revealed in our original playtest announcement, we'll also be testing an early iteration of the long-requested Endless Mode! If you enjoy being barraged with enemy fire and mercilessly pursued through the cold, unforgiving expanse of the universe, worry not—you can do so indefinitely!

What To Look Out For

• Narrative Encounters - These will appear as dedicated nodes on the Starmap and randomly when warping into a new sector. Each scenario offers multiple outcomes and a level of risk associated with each decision.

• Luck System - A new player stat that tips the cosmic scale in your favor across several systems—narrative encounters, crate and cache drops during combat, and augment, enhancement, and weapon reward quality.

• Skill Tree Expansion - The full skill tree (48 skills across Damage, Survival, and Exploration paths) has been completely redesigned and expanded. Additionally, Lock and Banish charges join Rerolls to give you more control over your manifest.

  • All skill costs will be reduced by 50% temporarily to allow players (you) to explore more of the Skill Tree during the limited playtest!

• New Mineable Resources - In support of our Skill Tree expansion, materials and Science can now be collected via Mineable Asteroid Clusters and new roaming Anomalies.

• Endless Mode - Upon defeating the Rebel Flagship, players can now choose to continue their runs indefinitely. This will generate a new Star Map for the player to complete, with increasing Threat Levels.

These are, of course, in addition to countless improvements to enemy behavior, performance, and gameplay! For a more in-depth debrief on some of today's major additions, refer to our last transmission:

Report To High Command

We strongly encourage all pilots to submit their mission reports to their commanding officer (which, just so happens, is a feedback survey—don't question it; they outrank you). Additionally, we welcome any and all additional feedback, suggestions, and reports of anomalous activity to be made directly to High-Command via our community Discord, links to which can be found below.

Playtester Key Raffle & Discord Role

Once again, we'll be raffling off a handful of keys to the full game to those who participate in the playtest! Here's how to enter:

Calling All Test Pilots

Greetings, Commander!

Sign-ups are now open for Starforged Legacy's upcoming open beta testing, running from April 10th through April 17th—just one week away! We're introducing several completely new systems of cosmic proportions, including Narrative Events, the Luck System, a major Skill Tree Overhaul, Banish and Lock Charges, and several game 'feel' and combat adjustments.

Many of these additions and gameplay additions are direct responses to player feedback from our last developer log, so whether you're a seasoned pilot from our demo or a fresh recruit with a concerning lack of self-preservation, High Command needs your data! Additionally, all pilots who report their findings will be rewarded not only with the warm, fuzzy satisfaction of contributing to the future of Starforged Legacy but will also be entered into a Game Key Raffle and receive an exclusive Discord role.

New Content

While this playtest will encompass countless balance changes, performance improvements, new enemy behaviors, augments, and gameplay adjustments, the following dossier outlines our major new features and your primary objectives for feedback:

Narrative Events

Narrative Encounters will appear as dedicated nodes on the Starmap and randomly when warping into a new sector. Each scenario offers multiple outcomes and a level of risk associated with each decision. Generally, higher risk means higher reward, but you'll need to consider how much of your hull's integrity, salvaged cargo, or even system efficiency you're willing to risk.

The integration of narrative encounters into gameplay doesn't end there. Having a specific skill or ship components (i.e., a Warp Drive) can alter the options available in some scenarios, allowing you to completely avoid danger or double your take!

Luck System

Luck is a new player stat that tips the cosmic scale in your favor across several systems:

• Narrative Event outcomes

• Enhancements offered on level-up

• Crate and Cache drops during combat

• Augment and Weapon quality from rewards

• Beacon rewards

Luck doesn't touch combat stats—it's purely economical. You'll build Luck through a new enhancement, two new augments, certain narrative event outcomes, and the new skill, Stacked Odds. Speaking of skills...

Skill Tree Expansion

The full skill tree (48 skills across Damage, Survival, and Exploration paths) has been recalibrated from the ground up.

Every skill now has a cost structure that scales with its level, so early skills are more accessible and later upgrades feel earned. High-tier skills (Tier 5+) require Materials, Science, or Artifacts, making mid-to-late progression feel meaningfully different from early unlocks. Skill effects have also been adjusted so the power you get per level is proportional to what you pay—this prevents dead-level upgrades where a skill feels flat for two or three ranks. Skills also now include more choices outside of pure stat increases; they actually change the way you can play as well as open up additional gameplay mechanics.

Some new skills include:

• Perfect Form (Damage Tier 6) - Your damage increases steadily for every second you go without taking hull damage. One hit resets it to zero. It's a skill-expression node built for players who've learned the enemy patterns—and it pairs naturally with a Survival skill, making it more forgiving (more on that below).

• Crisis Protocol (Survival Tier 5) - The first hull hit you take on each combat map is completely negated. When it triggers, your shields also partially restore, and you get a brief damage boost. It's one free mistake per map—and it also happens to protect a Perfect Form stack if you're running both trees, which is an intentional cross-tree interaction.

• Deep Space Scanner (Exploration Tier 5) - Adds HUD markers that show you where all beacon types are on the map, and unlocks new conditional choices in narrative events that aren't available to ships without it. The narrative angle is the interesting part. It's a skill that changes what you see in the story layer, not just the numbers.

Lock and Banish charges join Rerolls to give you more control over your manifest. These new skills, unlockable from the 'Exploration' path of the Skill Tree, grant you the ability to lock an upgrade, augment, or weapon reward to save it for later, or banish an unwanted augment from your reward pool for the remainder of your expedition.

Gameplay Adjustments

Two visual changes should be immediately noticeable. Enemy ships now bank (roll) during turns—when a ship changes direction, it tilts into the turn and recovers smoothly, making combat feel more dynamic and easier to read. Similarly, enemy ships now have a subtle drift when stationary or in low-velocity flight—a slight bob and sway that makes zero-gravity space feel more alive rather than static. Both changes are purely visual (no hitbox or gameplay alterations), but they enhance the feeling of fighting in space.

Give Feedback, Get Rewarded

Joining The Playtest

Enlisting for the playtest is easy. Just visit the Starforged Legacy Steam page and hit 'Request Access' on the playtest widget near the top of the page. You'll be granted access once the playtest build goes live on April 10th, or immediately if you request access during the playtesting period.

Giving Feedback

Have an idea for a narrative encounter of your own? Feel as though that one exploding enemy isn't packing as big a payload as it could be? Does Starforged Legacy remind you of another game? Let us know in our Discord! After all, Starforged Legacy is your game to influence as much as it is ours (well, we'll need to retain at least 70% of the decision-making power for safety reasons—you get the remaining 30%, mostly regarding which way to point the guns).

Playtester Key Raffle & Discord Role

Once again, we'll be raffling off a handful of keys to the full game to those who participate in the playtest. Here's how to enter:

EA Launch Moved To June 1st

Attention, Commander!

We have some very important news to share regarding our launch preparations. To ensure our debut project meets both the expectations we've set for ourselves and our community, the Early Access launch of Starforged Legacy will tentatively be moved to June 1st.

While we were aiming for April, some core systems—such as Narrative Events, Additional Weapons (and their augments), and the New Player Experience as a whole—have proven to need more time to be fully realized, which is why we've decided to take another month and some change for development.

We realize this delay might be disappointing to some eager pilots, but know that with this additional development time comes more opportunities to share upcoming content to tide you over during the next few months—in fact, we'd like to start with a look at one of our more ambitious current endeavors: an overhaul of the meta progression and the Skill Tree.

Skill Tree Overhaul

The Skill Tree is an opportunity for pilots to spend their hard-earned (or salvaged... or "liberated") credits, materials, science data, and artifacts on permanent, fleet-wide upgrades.

Skills can range from passive bonuses and multipliers (i.e., Pickup Range - Increases tractor beam range for collecting experience, currency, and items by X%) to upgrades that wildly improve your survivability through skills and triggered abilities (i.e., Emergency Takeover - Once per run when your ship takes lethal damage, your ship's reactor is overloaded, instantly killing all nearby non-boss enemies, knocking back others, healing 25% Max Health and recieving brief damage immunity).

In addition to restructuring our previous skill tree with a new latticed, tiered-based approach (and heavily rebalancing the cost of each skill), we've also added a considerable suite of new skills to interact with Beam Weapons and Narrative Events.

It's our hope that the Skill Tree will not only serve to give players a true sense of progression (after all, you'll need to cement your legacy somehow), but also encourage thoughtful player decisions in tandem with the new Narrative Events—do you really want to risk your shield for the cache of materials in that cosmic storm?

Here's a sample of the new entries you can expect:

• Deep Space Scanner (Exploration) - Adds directional HUD markers for all Beacon types. Unlocks new conditional options in narrative events.

• Adrenaline Surge (Survival) - While health is below \, Movement Speed increased by \ and Fire Rate increased by \.

• Perfect Form (Damage) - Damage increases by \ every Y seconds without receiving damage. Resets upon receiving hull damage.

Lock. Banish. Reroll.

With this skill expansion also comes new options for skill expression. Our augment pool deepens with every new weapon and community suggestion, so we've added a way for you to narrow your options.

Joining Rerolls, which allow players to reroll any reward or upgrade options, are Lock and Banish charges. As the names imply, Lock charges will allow players to 'pin' an option within their reward window, while Banish charges can be used to entirely jettison any augment choice from your reward pool into the cold, unforgiving void, giving you more control over your 'build' and allowing you to avoid a similar fate.

Get Involved

We truly appreciate your understanding and support in this decision. We've just surpassed 6,000 wishlists, a remarkable milestone for our small team and first project. We're immeasurably excited for our Early Access launch and the upcoming journey toward 1.0, and thank you for being a part of our inaugural crew.

If you're eager to get back into the cockpit during this time, we highly recommend joining our Discord community to be notified when private betas are available so you can test upcoming features!

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

Demo Closure Final Notice

Attention, Commanders! This broadcast is a reminder that the Starforged Legacy Demo will be deactivated tomorrow, March 14th!

While we're grounding you for now, this is by no means the end of the demo; in fact, it's far from it.

The demo will return closer to our Early Access launch after we've incorporated feedback from Steam Next Fest! Our last developer log outlined our top focus areas, our plans to address them, and offered a first look at upcoming features for the game: Narrative Encounters and Ship Customization!

In case you missed it, you can find Devlog #3 here:

We also want to take one last opportunity to thank all 3,600+ pilots who have already taken to the stars in our demo, and commend those of you who submitted feedback and bug reports for the game. Starforged Legacy wouldn't be what it is without you!

In the meantime, stay updated on development by wishlisting the game and following us on socials (listed below)! We may also run private playtests to collect feedback on new features during this period, and we strongly encourage you to join our official Discord server to be notified when they occur!

You still have time for a few more test flights; make them count!

Top Gun(s)

It's very likely our in-game global leaderboard will reset before its rerelease, so we'd like to take this opportunity to recognize our top-performing pilots during the Steam Next Fest demo period:

Congratulations, Psycho, Metal666nZ, exotinez, blockpaw, And1, Entichers, Icefraud, PhilipL, Nirimetus, and DUCE NUKEM for achieving the top ten high-score positions out of over 3,600 pilots (including us developers) and thousands more individual attempts! While we don't have any medals to award you, know your triumphs will be forever immortalized here in the records of High-Command (our Steam News section).

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

Captain's (Developer) Log #3

Good afternoon, Commander!

In today's log, we want to share our evolving plans for the Starforged Legacy Demo, including its temporary closure on March 14th as we move from recruitment to refinement. We also want to give you an early look at two major features making their way into the game: Narrative Encounters—where your choices could have lasting consequences—and Ship Customization! Let's get into the details.

The Demo Is Leaving (Temporarily)

Following Steam Next Fest, we received an enormous amount of incredible feedback on the demo. We've seen over 3,500 new pilots take to the stars, pushing our total wishlist over 5,000 and rapidly approaching 6,000!

With this in mind, we'd like to begin addressing said feedback as soon as possible, primarily regarding the 'New Player Experience'. Here are some of the major pain points we've identified, and what we're doing to fix them:

Player Feedback

Our Response

Ship controls feel unintuitive, especially for players coming from other survivors-games who expected screen-relative movement (press 'D', player moves right). Others felt the ship was slow to respond to turning inputs.

We're adding an alternative movement scheme as a settings toggle. You'll be able to choose between the current ship-relative controls (space sim style) and a new screen-relative mode where your ship moves in the direction you press and auto-rotates to match. We're also tuning ship responsiveness so every ship class feels tight to control from the moment you start flying.

Button mapping didn't follow standard conventions, creating friction across the entire experience for controller players.

We're working on updating gamepad controls to better follow platform conventions. We're a small team on a tight schedule, but this is a priority, and we're going to do our best to get it done.

Enemy behavior didn't sell the fantasy of commanding a warship in deep space. Combat worked mechanically, but close-range enemies felt more like a zombie horde than a space battle.

We're reworking close-range enemy behavior so combat reads and feels like a space battle. We want every enemy encounter to reinforce the fantasy of piloting a warship, not just surviving a swarm.

Players wanted more story, more meaningful choices, and a reason to keep coming back between runs.

Narrative encounters are a new feature we've been developing behind the scenes that, unfortunately, wasn't ready in time for the demo. See below for more details!

Players died without realizing they were in danger. There wasn't enough feedback when taking damage, and the transition from 'I'm fine' to 'I'm dead' happened too fast.

We've improved player damage audio, added more distinct visual indicators for hull damage versus shield damage, and added a low-health screen indicator, so you always know when your ship is in trouble. You should always be able to feel the difference between a scratch and a crisis.

Newer players struggled to understand what pickups do, how upgrades work, and what they should be paying attention to early on.

This is our top priority during the demo hiatus. We're rethinking how the game communicates its systems in the opening minutes and taking a close look at what the first few minutes look like, especially when you play for the very first time. The goal is for every player to understand the build system well enough to start making interesting choices in their first run.

Difficulty could spike unexpectedly, with enemies scaling faster than intended, creating frustrating, unfair spikes.

We've overhauled how enemy difficulty scales. Previously, difficulty increased while you were on a map, which meant slower players were punished unfairly. Difficulty now increases based on how many nodes you've completed on the star map, with different node types contributing different amounts. This makes difficulty progression more predictable and puts you in control of the pace.

Multiple players reported FPS drops in late-game combat, and some experienced crashes.

Performance optimization is a priority. We take this seriously and are actively working on it.

Players wanted to see their current weapon stats and augments when picking upgrades. Without knowing what you already have, it's hard to make informed build decisions.

We're adding a 'Ship Info' screen that you can access whenever you need it. It will display all of your ship's components, their augments with full tooltips and stats, and any upgrades or enhancements you've collected.

Players asked for text size options, colorblind support, and more flexible controls.

Accessibility improvements are on our roadmap. We want as many pilots as possible to be able to play, and we're working toward that goal.

Players want more to work towards between runs. The current skill tree feels thin, and some players wanted more options to customize their starting loadout.

We're expanding the meta-progression system, and the skill tree is getting deeper. We'll also have twice as many ships and loadouts at launch, with more to come through updates after release.

The current layout feels too linear. Players want more branching paths and meaningful choices on the star map.

We've restructured the Star Map to make the decisions more interesting. Major boss encounters now serve as clear convergence points in your journey, giving you a visible milestone to prepare for. Shops are no longer guaranteed at fixed intervals and instead appear naturally alongside other node types, making path selection a real strategic choice about what your build needs most.

Overall, these issues were hurting our player retention and overall receptivity (first impressions are crucial), so rather than leaving a suboptimal demo active, we've decided to temporarily deactivate it, focus on creating a more polished experience for new pilots that incorporates major new features, and re-launch it close to our Early-Access launch date.

What does that mean for you?

• The current Starforged Legacy Demo will close on March 14th, meaning you have one week left to complete expeditions and provide feedback.

• The Demo will return! We plan to relaunch a more polished, feature-complete demo closer to our Early Access debut.

• We may run focused, private beta tests via Steam to collect feedback on in-development features during this hiatus. If you want to help shape the new user experience and new features, be sure to join our official Discord!

We can't thank you enough for your feedback on Starforged so far, and although our demo may be going offline for now, we encourage you to stay updated on development by following us on socials!

Now, about those 'new features'...

On The Radar

Narrative Encounters

A returning feature that some testers may remember from early in Starforged's Alpha makes a comeback: Narrative Encounters. These will offer a glimpse into the (deceptively deep) lore we've built for the universe while also adding an element of risk, reward, and unpredictability to Starforged!

Pictured above is a very early, and very much in-progress implementation of narrative encounters.

Narrative encounters will appear as dedicated nodes on the Starmap, but can also occur randomly when warping into a new zone. Each scenario offers multiple outcomes and a level of risk associated with each decision (indicated by the colored dot next to each choice). Generally, higher risk means higher reward, but you, the pilot, will need to consider how much of your hull's integrity, salvaged cargo, or even system efficiency you're willing to risk.

The integration of narrative encounters into gameplay doesn't end there. Having specific augments or ship components (i.e., a Warp Drive) can alter the options available in some scenarios, allowing you to completely avoid danger or secure additional rewards!

Your choices are also interconnected. Be mindful of your decisions in your first encounter, as they might help (or haunt) you in future scenarios. The galaxy has a long memory.

Ship Customization

In our pursuit of rewarding pilots for their successful expeditions (beyond the luxury of living and fighting another day), we're exploring Ship Customization!

We're currently testing different color schemes and patterns to help distinguish unlockable loadouts. Whether these will remain as preset 'skins' or develop into unlockable finishes and patterns that you can mix and match is yet to be decided by R&D.

Ultimately, we want your ship to reflect your rank and journey among the stars. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this, as well as on the aforementioned Narrative Encounters!

Remember, this content is still in development and expected to change before release!

In Case You Missed It

Once again, we'd like to thank Juicebags for providing us with gameplay to showcase during Steam Next Fest—show some support by checking out their recent video on the Starforged Legacy Demo!

Additionally, we've received quite a bit of coverage from creators since our last devlog, and we encourage you to support them too!

If there are any notable videos or streams we've missed, or content creators who you think might enjoy a key to Starforged Legacy, please let us know!

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

Tutorial Changes

• Players will now encounter a more curated selection of augments on their first run. This is to create an easier introduction to the augment system and concept of crafting a 'build'. After one run is completed, successfully or not, all augments will be incorporated into the drop pool.

Balance Changes

• Autocannon AOE radius increased from 800 to 1000.

• Speed Enhancement now also grants Movement Speed and Acceleration in addition to Thruster Power.

• Critical Surge no longer removes Shield Cooldown on activation.

• Shielder enemies now have significantly higher base shields and better shield scaling with threat level, letting them fulfill their tank role properly.

• Ironhide's Relentless loadout (default) now starts with Vulnerability Overload instead of Nanobots.

  • Nanobots (Hull): Ship automatically repairs itself by {1} of Max Health every {2}.

  • Vulnerability Overload (Subsystem): Increases Global Damage Scalar up to {1} based upon the amount of Shield that is missing.

Fixes

• AOE weapons now correctly damage large enemies and shielded targets. Previously, if the hit point were far from an enemy's root position, the AOE radius check would sometimes miss them entirely. AOE now guarantees damage to the initial hit target first, then damages everything else in the radius.

• Shielder (enemies) shields now appear correctly in builds. A mesh configuration issue was preventing their shields from rendering.

• Micro-Warp Drive teleport camera no longer zooms out twice.

• Special Target now uses health thresholds to determine when it drops credits, rather than whenever it's damaged.

Win A Key To The Game

Greetings, Commander! We're seeking a few standout cadets to graduate to full-time pilots—which means it's time for another key giveaway!

To those who remember our previous combat trials (high-score contest), you can consider this the written portion of your exam. Though contrary to most exams you likely (hopefully?) have taken, this one will ask you about the most interesting way to blow up spaceships. It's simple to enter:

Critical Fixes

• Ship stats now display correctly. The Ship Customization screen and pause menu previously showed inaccurate values after augments, enhancements, and buffs were applied. This has been completely overhauled—stats now update in real time as you change your loadout.

  • Ship Customization now features live stat previews. Hovering over loadout presets shows their exact stats before you confirm the switch.

New Content

Player Tutorial

• An optional tutorial now appears on your first run. It explains movement, combat basics, and core systems. The text adapts based on whether you're using a keyboard/mouse or a gamepad. Includes a "Don't Show Again" option.

Hard Mode Overhaul

• Special enemies now appear twice as often across all maps.

• Mini-bosses can now spawn alone starting at Map 4 (they never appeared alone in Normal).

• Mini-bosses spawn in group waves starting at Map 2 instead of Map 4, increasing to a 95% chance by Map 10 compared to Normal's 75% maximum.

• Higher-tier enemies enter the spawn pool two maps earlier, so you face stronger threats sooner.

• Hard difficulty now grants 20% more Credits, Materials, and Science to offset the increased challenge.

• Pickup drop chances are reduced by 50% compared to Normal.

Balance Changes

Augments

• Critical Swarm (Swarm Missile) - Now caps at 10 stacks and grants less Critical Chance per stack. Previously caused nearly infinite projectile counts.

• Critical Surge (Weapons) - Critical Chance bonus and Shield restoration amount reduced.

• Full Charge (Beams) - Now only requires Shields to be active, not full, making it more reliable.

• Hardened Bullets (Projectiles) - Reworked: "On Pierce, {1} Chance to Stun." No longer increases Pierce Strength.

• Heated Chamber (Projectiles) - Reworked into a Pierce-to-Plasma enabler. Now: "On Pierce, applies Plasma Damage at {1} of Damage Dealt."

• Dreadnought Protocol (Nemesis Subsystem) - Damage buff now stacks every 5 kills instead of every kill.

Missions

• Trader Rescue health reduced from 400 to 300, with the time requirement decreased from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.

• Merchant Rescue health reduced from 500 to 350.

• Merchant Escort health reduced from 600 to 300.

• Kill secondary mission cap decreased from 120 to 70 (120 was unattainable).

• Secondary missions now grant score upon completion.

Visual Enhancements

• Projectile burst time increased for Autocannon, Cruise Missile, Standard Missile, and Railgun to better showcase the increased projectile counts from buffs.

• Weapon impact VFX lifetime reduced for clearer visuals during intense fights.

• New icons for all three Beam weapons and seven status-focused augments (Breach Detonation, Destabilizing Fire, Plasma Contagion, Overloaded Circuits, Plasma Breach, Exposed Systems, Thermal Stasis).

• VFX improvements include less abrasive Breach Detonation effects, a new generator charge effect for Shield Burst, new VFX for Power Surge, and better fade-out for damage explosions.

• Map modifier notifications now display "CHALLENGE: \" and remain visible throughout the entire map for better awareness.

Audio Enhancements

• Warp charge sound volume reduced from 1.0 to 0.75.

Quality Of Life Changes

• Gamepad ship controls overhauled. The left thumbstick now directly points your ship in the direction you're aiming rather than using the old control scheme.

• Difficulty setting now displays in the top-right corner of the HUD during runs.

• Difficulty select UI added with full gamepad support.

• Ambush Boss now drops a weapon reward bundle instead of a chest.

Fixes

• Fixed Shield Burst to hit all enemies in the radius instead of just the closest.

• Fixed Shattered Momentum to work correctly. Emergency Protocols (Ironhide's signature augment) now correctly activates when coming off cooldown if you're below 25% health. Previously only triggered on damage taken.

• Micro Warp Drive's Teleport ability now works with gamepad and includes a camera zoom effect on activation.

• Fixed Shattered Shields incorrectly triggering in the hangar and on map start.

• Fixed Ambush missions spawning continuous enemies when they shouldn't.

Critical Fixes

• Gamepad navigation on the Star Map now works correctly. Players using controllers can properly continue to the next map.

Augments

New Augments

• Offensive Evasion (Subsystem): Dodge Chance increased. On Dodge, gain Global Damage for a duration. Stacks.

• Evasive Maneuvers (Subsystem): Dodge Chance increased. On Dodge, Dodge Chance increased further. Stacks.

• Evasive Overload (Subsystem): On Dodge, restore Max Shields and release a Plasma pulse dealing damage based on Current Shields.

• Charged Barrier (Shield): While Shields are active, builds Global Damage over time. Stacks are lost when Shields break.

• Shield Burst (Shield): When Shields begin recharging, deal damage based on Max Shield in an area.

• Overclocked Capacitors (Shield): Shield Recharge Cooldown reduced, but Max Shields reduced.

• Reinforced Bulkheads (Hull): Increases Base Health but reduces Movement Speed.

• Last Stand (Hull): When Health drops below the threshold, gain Global Damage and damage resistance. Has a cooldown.

• Red Line (Subsystem): Global Fire Rate increased, but Health drains over time. Deactivates at low health.

Functionality Changes

• Evasive Fire (Thruster): Using Tactical Ability increases Dodge Chance. On Dodge, all weapons gain Fire Rate.

• Glancing Blows (Thruster): Using Tactical Ability increases Dodge Chance. On Dodge, Knockback, and Slow nearby enemies.

• Gravitational Tether (Thruster): Using Movement Ability creates an Anomaly that pulls in and stuns/slows multiple enemies.

Balance Changes

• Added one more floor to the Star Map, giving you one extra map before the final boss fight.

• Mini-bosses now have spawn cooldowns: 45 seconds on Normal, 25 on Hard, 10 on Impossible.

• Augments can now drop at higher levels (2-5) instead of always level 1, with higher levels being increasingly rare.

• Slow status effect now also reduces enemy weapon attack speed, making it effective against ranged enemies.

• Breach Detonation damage and radius reduced.

• Contaminator boss damage scaling reduced.

• When enemies collide with your ship, they now spin after being stunned for better visual feedback.

• Higher-tier enhancements are now rarer.

• All kill-based loadout unlocks have been reduced from 10,000 kills to 5,000.

• Most secondary missions now reward small Materials or Science drops upon completion.

• Special Target mission duration increased from 30s to 45s, and base health reduced from 1000 to 750.

• Space Station base health reduced from 1000 to 500.

Quality of Life Changes

• Health and Shield damage splashes are now less opaque in the center, improving visibility during heavy damage scenarios.

• Audio no longer plays while the game is paused.

Demo Content Update

Greetings, Commander!

New threats have been detected lurking among the stars—and we're equipping you with the latest laser technology to confront them! Your arsenal has been expanded with dozens of new augmentations and enhancements from R&D, focusing on better tuning of beam weaponry and dishing out status effects!

Before you begin searching for new mission objectives and enemy encounters, be sure to familiarize yourself with your ship's enhanced Star Map, designed to provide more deliberate choices, as well as the newly installed signature subsystems that each starcraft is now equipped with, further reinforcing each ship's playstyle and combat abilities.

Build 2253

Beam Weapons

Three new beam weapons have arrived, sporting superior accuracy and high-impact crowd control:

• Pulse Laser: A high-fire-rate laser weapon with pinpoint accuracy.

• Plasma Arc: Bounces between targets to inflict damage and apply status effects to clusters of enemies.

• Phase Beam: A powerful, high-impact laser that penetrates all targets in its path at the cost of lengthy charge-time.

*Technical Note: While these new weapons are truly awe-inspiring, we strongly advise against staring directly into their apertures.

New Augments

To support the new hardware, we've added 30+ new augments focused on improving and modifying your beam weapons, as well as expanding the role of status effects (Slow, Stun, Armor Breach, and Plasma) in your strategy!

Additionally, to further distinguish the individual roles of the fleet, each ship is now equipped with a Signature Subsystem. These are permanent fixtures that provide a unique augment that helps define each craft's identity and approach to combat:

• Ironclad Core (Ironhide): Emergency Protocols - When below {1}% Health, triggers automatic repairs of {2}% Max health every second for {3}s. Cooldown 60s.

• Nova Core (Nova Lance): Precision Overload - Critical hits apply Armor breach, increasing damage taken by 50%. When above {1}% Health, Critical Chance increased by {2}%.

• Nemesis Core (Nemesis): Dreadnaught Protocol - On Kill, increase Global Damage by {1}. Resets on Warp. Reduce all incoming damage by {2}. Movement speed reduced by {3}. Every {4} weapon hits Stuns.

The Contaminator Boss

In response to your numerous (and highly destructive) campaigns into their territory, the rebels have deployed a new mechanical monstrosity: The Contaminator.

The Contaminator will now serve as your final challenge in each expedition in place of the Rebel Flagship. This new threat heavily utilizes radiation and deployables as a means of area control, and has a variety of new attacks:

• Breach Reactor Core: Every 30s the Contaminator will spawn three Breached Reactor Cores. These cores spew Radiation Clouds that grow larger the longer they remain active. If destroyed, the lingering radiation will dissipate.

• Radiation Thrower: The Contaminator launches several high-damage radiation clouds at its target.

• Micro-Warp Drive: The Contaminator is fitted with a Micro-Warp drive. Initiating at 80% health, this is used to periodically teleport and pursue the player.

Galactic Navigation

The Star Map has been rebuilt with a much more focused, branching structure, designed to give pilots greater agency over their route. Outposts (shops) are now guaranteed every three nodes and always appear directly before the boss, so you're never caught lacking supplies.

Additionally, we advise pilots to look out for high-value targets during their expeditions. Rebel convoys are to be eliminated before they can activate their warp drives and escape the sector, and priority targets carrying large amounts of credits and augments will be especially lucrative kills—if you can catch them. Be wary of the Rebel Armada, however. If you see rebel ships accumulating in the distance, brace yourself for a Mini-Boss Onslaught!

This is our biggest update to Starforged Legacy so far, and these highlights don't even cover all the visual improvements and combat adjustments in this patch. The best way to experience everything this update offers is by trying the demo...

... but a full list of additions, balance changes, and fixes can be found below!

Feedback Survey & Bug Reports

In addition to this being our largest content update to date, it also serves as our final major preparation before Steam Next Fest. We're expecting a large influx of new recruits joining our ranks, so your feedback will be exceptionally valuable as we work to fix any bugs and make balance changes before Next Fest begins on February 23rd!

As always, the best way to give us your feedback is through our feedback survey (found here), in-game, or by chatting with us directly on our community Discord (link below)!

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you happy holidays, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

New Content

Ship Identity

• Signature Subsystems: Each ship now has a locked Signature Subsystem that remains consistent across all loadouts. These carry unique augments that define each ship's playstyle:

  • Ironclad Core (Ironhide): Emergency Protocols - When below {1}% Health, triggers automatic repairs of {2}% Max health every second for {3}s. Cooldown 60s.

  • Nova Core (Nova Lance): Precision Overload - Critical hits apply Armor breach, increasing damage taken by 50%. When above {1}% Health, Critical Chance increased by {2}%.

  • Nemesis Core (Nemesis): Dreadnaught Protocol - On Kill, increase Global Damage by {1}. Resets on Warp. Reduce all incoming damage by {2}. Movement speed reduced by {3}. Every {4} weapon hits Stuns.

Weapons

• Beam Weapons: Three new pieces of laser technology have been added to the arsenal:

  • Pulse Laser: A high-fire-rate laser weapon with pinpoint accuracy.

  • Plasma Arc: Bounces between targets to inflict damage and apply status effects to clusters of enemies.

  • Phase Beam: A powerful, high-impact laser that penetrates all targets in its path at the cost of lengthy charge-time.

Augments

New Augments

• Adaptive Shielding: Shield Recharge Rate increased by {1}. When shields fully recharge, gain {2} Shield Resistance for {3}.

• Energy Siphon: Every {1} kills, restore {2} Max Shields and gain {3} Global Damage for {4}.

• Full Charge: While Shields are full, Damage increased by {1}.

• Shield Battery: On Kill, {1} Chance to restore {2} Max Shields and Shields begin recharging immediately.

• Capacitor Burst: When Shields fully recharge, Damage increased by {1} for one shot.

• Beam Efficiency: Damage increased by {1} for each Beam weapon equipped.

• Critical Cascade: On Kill, Critical Chance increased by {1} for {2} seconds. Stacks up to {3} times.

• Searing Beam: On Hit adds Plasma Damage at {1} of Damage Dealt.

• Stasis Pulse: On Hit {1} Chance to Slow.

• Overcharge: Increases Damage by {1} but also increases Charge Time by {2}.

• Charging Pulse: While Charging, deal {1} of Weapon Damage every {2} seconds to enemies within {3} radius.

• Radiation Wake: Beam creates Radiation Clouds along its path, dealing {1} of Damage Dealt.

• Extended Aperture: Increases Targeting Range by {1} and Beam Width by {2}.

• Temporal Laser: Each hit has a {1} chance to apply a random effect on the hit target.

• Escalating Arc: Each bounce increases damage by {1}.

• Extended Arc: Bounces increased by {1} but Fire Rate reduced by {2}.

• Arc Amplification: On Crit, next bounce chain gains {1} additional bounces. Resets on Reload.

• Refraction: On Crit Refract beams to {1} amount of enemies in a {2} Radius, dealing {3} of the initial Damage.

• External Power: Every 10 kills, spawn a rotating beam cross at the kill location dealing {1} of kill damage. Lasts for {2}.

• Overcharged Emitter: Fire Rate reduced by {1}% but Damage increased by {2}% and Critical Chance increased by {3}%.

• Destabilizing Fire: Plasma Damage has {1} chance to apply Armor Breach increasing damage taken by {2}.

• Exposed Systems: On Hit, if target has Armor Breach damage is increased by {1}.

• Breach Detonation: On Hit, if target has Armor Breach deal {1} of Damage Dealt in {2} Radius.

• Plasma Contagion: Plasma Damage has {1} Chance to spread to enemies in {2} radius.

• Shattered Momentum: On Kill, if the enemy was Slowed deals {1} of Damage Dealt in {2} Radius.

• Thermal Stasis: When Plasma is applied, {1} chance to also apply Slow.

• Plasma Breach: When Armor Breach is applied, {1} chance to also apply Plasma Damage for {2} of Weapon Damage.

• Stasis Fracture: When Slow is applied, {1}% chance to also apply Armor Breach increasing damage by {2}.

• Overloaded Circuits: When Stun is applied, {1} chance to also apply Plasma Damage for {2} of Weapon Damage.

• Aftershock: When Stun ends, deal {1} of target's Max Health as damage in {2} radius.

• Neural Cascade: When Stun is applied, {1} chance to Stun {2} additional nearby enemies.

Ship Loadouts

• New Loadouts: Three new loadouts are unlockable, one for each ship, built around the new beam weapons:

  • Phantom (Ironhide): Unlocked by defeating 10,000 enemies with the Plasma Arc.

  • Overdrive (Nova Lance): Unlocked by defeating 10,000 enemies with the Pulse Laser.

  • Aegis (Nemesis): Unlocked by defeating 10,000 enemies with the Phase Beam.

Skill Tree

• New Unlockable Skills: Three new skills can now be purchased to improve beam weapons:

  • Beam Critical Chance: Increases the critical chance of beam weapons.

  • Beam Weapon Damage: Increases the base damage of beam weapons.

  • Beam targeting Range: Increases the targeting range of beam weapons.

Boss Overhaul

• Final Boss: previously known as the CWM (Rebel) Flagship, the final boss has been redesigned as the Contaminator. This new threat heavily utilizes radiation and deployable structures as a means of area control, and has a variety of new attacks:

  • Breach Reactor Core: Every 30s the Contaminator will spawn three Breached Reactor Cores. These cores spew Radiation Clouds that grow larger the longer they remain active. If destroyed, the lingering radiation will dissipate.

  • Radiation Thrower: The Contaminator launches several high-damage radiation clouds at its target.

  • Micro-Warp Drive: The Contaminator is fitted with a Micro-Warp drive. Initiating at 80% health, this is used to periodically teleport and pursue the player.

Star Map

• Star Map Rebuild: The Star Map has been reworked into a more focused, branching structure.

• Shop Frequency: Shops are now guaranteed every three nodes and always appear directly before the boss.

Map Modifiers

• Ranged Onslaught: A new map modifier in which only ranged enemies spawn.

• Mini-Boss Onslaught: A rebel fleet crowds the sector, and mini-bosses periodically arrive.

Secondary Objectives

• Special Target: Optional elimination mission of a special rebel cruiser. Each hit against this target drops 1-8 credits and drops an augment on-death. Persists for 30s before fleeing the system.

• Convoy: A reverse version of the 'Escort' mission. Eliminate a rebel convoy before it is allowed to charge its warp drive and flee the system.

Balance Changes

Augments

Functionality Changes

• Power Surge: On Crit, shields pulse for {1} Max Shield as damage to {2} nearest enemies. Cooldown {3}.

• Reactive Armor: Now applies Slow in addition to damaging nearby enemies.

• Titanium Plating: Max Shields reduced by {1}, but Health increased by {2} and Health Resistance increased by {3}.

Drop Pool Adjustments

• Bastion Protocol: Removed. Functionality replaced with Adaptive Shielding.

• Shielded Armor: Removed. Functionality replaced with Energy Siphon.

Enemy Balance

• Ranged Enemies: Ranged enemies now appear as soon as from map 1.

• Melee Enemies: Tier 1 and 2 melee ships have universally had their health reduced.

• Enemy Spawning: Enemy spawn groups have been restructured to create two intensity 'peaks' per map rather than a gradual escalation.

• Enemy Collision: Enemies that collide with the player ship are knocked back briefly and stunned rather than sliding away.

• Rebel Carrier: Carrier enemies now drop 40 experience (previously 20).

Weapon Balance

• Weapon Modulator: The enhancement that added extra projectiles per burst to all weapons (Weapon Modulator) has been split into three separate enhancements. Each now only boosts its respective category, so the power spike from this enhancement scales with how committed you are to a single weapon type rather than rewarding every build equally.

  • Beam Array: Increases projectile count of all Beam weapons.

  • Split Chamber: Increases projectile count of all Projectile weapons.

  • Multi-Launcher: Increases projectile count of all Missile weapons.

• Increased Weapon Capacity: All ship classes have had their maximum weapon capacity increased. Frigate 2 → 3, Cruiser 2 → 4, Battleship 3 → 5.

• Weapon Enhancements: Weapon-specific enhancements now only appear if you're carrying that weapon type.

• Plasma Damage: Plasma Damage can now critically strike.

• Standard Missile: Standard Missile base damage increased from 15 to 20.

• Autocannon: AOE size increased by 20%.

• Machine Gun: Crit chance increased by 5% and pierce chance by 10%.

• Slow Status: Slow status now also slows enemy weapon attack speed.

Map Modifiers

• Ion Storm:

  • Reduced spawn delay to 1-3s.

  • increased the minimum and maximum radius of Ion strikes.

• Gravitational Anomaly:

  • Reduced spawn delay to 3-6s.

  • Decreased damage scaler to enemies.

  • Gravity environmental dangers no longer damage bosses or mini-bosses.

Visual Enhancements

• Outline Scaling: Removed scaling from entity outlines, improving quality and consistency.

• Enemy Glow: Enemies now emit a subtle glow to improve visibility.

• Meteor Storm: Added meteor VFX to the background and foreground during the Meteor Storm map modifier.

• Stun VFX: New stun VFX for improved readability.

• Ship Destruction: Player and boss ships now utilize an improved destruction method for improved performance and chaos.

Quality of Life Changes

• Secondary Mission Rewards: Secondary mission objective widget now displays the rewards gained for completing it.

Miscellaneous

• Removed 'Impossible' difficulty.

Fixes

• Fixed ship names, icons, and class displaying incorrectly on the pause menu.

• Fixed Plasma Aftershock dealing significantly more damage than intended.

• Fixed various edge cases involving enemy death, causing crashes or cascading ability loops.

• Fixed issues related to player progress not being saved.

Captain's (Developer) Log #2

Good afternoon, Commander!

This has been an exciting month for Starforged Legacy, with Bullet Heaven Fest 3.0 bringing 1,000+ new pilots to the demo (which has recently attained the 'very positive' tag on Steam)! We want to welcome these recruits formally and, to mirror the interest shown in the project, share what we've been working on since launching the demo:

On The Radar

New Weapons

Unfortunately for the rebels and aliens of the galaxy, the R&D department is working on a brand new weapon type: Beam Weapons! Here's a look at two such weapons:

You've just witnessed early iterations of the Pulse Laser, a rapid-fire, low-penetration, high-capacity weapon (great for taking advantage of 'On-Fire' stacking augments), and the Plasma Arc, a mid-damage, moderate fire rate weapon that jumps between targets, scaling the number of jumps with weapon penetration!

This is our first venture into a completely new weapon type since our early alpha, and we're excited about the potential for upgrades and enhancements, which will surely require extensive testing—more on that later.

New Threats

While we're naturally rooting for you, we can't just give you powerful new tools without also providing something for the enemy—that wouldn't be fair. That's why we're working on giving our bosses more advanced and deadlier mechanics! No hard feelings, right?

These are two in-progress, signature abilities of the Pirate Contaminator. This boss will periodically launch breached reactor cores that must be destroyed before they pollute the sector with expanding radiation clouds. Under particular pressure, it will resort to its spatial contamination ability—blanketing the entire sector with a corrosive smog that can only be avoided by retreating into designated 'safe zones'!

Remember that this content is still in development and expected to change before release!

New... Beta Test?

Of course, we need to ensure these new weapons are safe for field use, which is where you come in!

These features and future content will likely be reserved for the Early Access launch of Starforged Legacy and will not be added to the demo. Still, we'll want to gather feedback on new features through a closed beta here on Steam—particularly brave pilots (or those who lack a decent sense of self-preservation) are encouraged to join our community Discord to be notified when these betas go live!

In Case You Missed It

We recently deployed an update to the demo to address common crashes and save data issues—thank you to those who shared their crash logs and reports with the team! Read the full changelog here:

We recently debuted a new trailer during the Bullet Heaven Fest 3.0, revealing our target launch date of April 16th:

Finally, we'd like to extend a special thank you to Juicebags for providing us with gameplay to broadcast during the recent Bullet Heaven Festival—show some support by checking out their recent video on the Starforged Legacy Demo:

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you happy holidays, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback and played the Demo! This patch is more of a stability patch than a gameplay patch. We wanted to address some of the issues we’ve been seeing with saving and crashes, and make additional performance tweaks.

Crash Fixes 

• Fixed a crash with projectiles overlapping with ships and asteroids that are breaking apart during death.

• Fixed a crash with the save system, which was saving at bad times and causing crashes.

• Fixed an issue where sometimes the save file wouldn’t load properly on startup.

• Removed the unused game analytics plugin that caused potential crashes.

Save System Improvements

• The save system will now write the new save to a temporary file, wait for it to finish, then replace the original save file to help prevent data loss. 

• The save system will also now load auto-save files properly if the main save is corrupted or missing.

Performance

• Changed how we were handling sounds to hopefully improve performance.

Visual Enhancements

• Updated Impact VFXs to help with visibility.

• Radiation VFX is now scaled appropriately to its size.

• Updated inhabitable planet background visuals.

• Updated the cracked planet background visuals.

• Updated Missile VFX to have a more visible radius ring and reduce some part scaling.

Fixes

• Fixed issue where opening up the 'Quit Game' popup before opening the 'Main Menu' popup would still cause the game to quit.

• Fixed issue with game not properly saving gameplay settings and being set to odd values when restarting the game.

  • NOTE: This will reset your settings to their default values.

Greetings, Commanders!

Whether you're a fresh recruit that's just joined us for the demo or a decorated pilot that's been with us since the open beta (we salute you!), we want to take a moment to let you know about other channels where you can follow the development of Starforged Legacy and recieve news from High Command (otherwise known as us (otherwise known as Second Shift Games)).

Join us on X (formerly Twitter) and Bluesky, where we post game announcements and updates, important dates, occasional sneak peeks of upcoming content, answer questions, and showcase content from creators and the community!

Click here to find us on TikTok and YouTube, where we take a more... avant-garde approach to highlighting our game and its many 'intended' features, sure to bring some cosmic horror humor to your feed (and, of course, essential announcements).

Finally, you're direct line to us here in the control room: join us on Discord to talk directly with devs, share your thoughts on the game, report bugs, and pitch suggestions for changes or new features! It's the perfect place to tell us how much you're enjoying our demo (or how you've managed to break it already).

We also tend to post early concepts for systems in our Discord's #sneak-peeks channel, and our Discord community is the first to know about major news, events, or giveaways. It's the single best place to follow and influence the development of Starforged Legacy, and potentially the future ventures of us here at Second Shift Games!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander. // END TRANSMISSION //

Bullet Heaven Festival 3.0 is live with hundreds of participating games—including Starforged Legacy! We're incredibly honored to be among the few dozen 'featured' titles of the event, alongside some of the games that inspired us, and we're seizing this opportunity to deliver a critical signal: our Early Access Launch Date Trailer!

That's right, we (and you) are launching into Early Access on April 16th, 2026!

Until then, your support is invaluable. We truly mean it when we say that Starforged Legacy wouldn't be what it is today if it weren't for our playtesters contributing their suggestions throughout the alpha and open beta. There's a short, 5-minute survey link in-game, or you can use the links below to join our community Discord and chat with the team directly.

Whether you're a veteran from the alpha or a fresh recruit, we encourage you to try and dethrone some of our developers from the in-game leaderboard, wishlist the game, and leave us a review on the Starforged Legacy Demo page!

And remember to show some love to all the titles participating in this year's Bullet Heaven Festival!

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

Demo Launch

The demo for Starforged Legacy is LIVE on Steam! Discover over 100 strategy-defining augments and enhancements, unlock nine unique loadouts across three pilotable ships, and steel yourself against an ever-changing, hazardous galaxy in your ceaseless fight for survival in this spacefaring survivors-like!

How long will the demo be available? Good question! It will be available at least until our early access release. Oh, when's that? Well, we don't have a public release date yet, but stay tuned for a 'special signal' transmitting your way soon. How soon? You ask a lot of questions. Lucky for you we have plenty of cryptic answers. Let's just say, sometime between December 4th and 11th, which also happens to be the duration of the Bullet Heaven Festival 3.0 here on Steam, which we also happen to be a featured participating title! What a coincidence!

We answered a few additional questions about the demo in our last devlog, but want to reiterate that this marks the end of the Starforged Legacy Open Beta. Thank you to all 1,000+ brave test pilots who participated—this demo wouldn't be possible without you! And to our beta, see you space cowboy...

Build 2105

With the release of our demo, we'll be saying farewell to our open beta, but that doesn't mean an end to our periodic updates! In fact, today's launch comes with an update that directly addresses much of the feedback we've received over the last few weeks. Some of our key additions with today's update are:

• Updated Gamepad Support - The last few menus (Player Shop, Skill Tree) have received controller-friendly navigation!

• MAJOR Performance Improvements - With adjustments to both how enemy AI is handled and CPU to GPU gameplay VFX conversions, you'll see significant game-wide performance improvements.

• Forced Miniboss Encounters - Maps 3 and 6 now guarantee 'Ambush' missions for consistent challenge milestones (or 'checks'), while also providing another way for players to obtain new weapons.

• New Hangar Level - As previously teased in our last devlog, you'll now select your ship and loadout from inside a futuristic, spacecraft hangar (Ooh, Aah)!

• Enemy Melee/Collision Rework - To prevent one-shotting, we've taken a three-step approach to modifying how melee enemies interact with the player, including a 1-second damage cooldown, increased self-inflicted knockback, and a movement speed penalty.

Of course, this doesn't even begin to cover the myriad of balance changes and big fixes included with this patch. Well-informed pilots can view the full notes below!

Feedback and Bug Reports

Just because the open beta has concluded doesn't mean we no longer need your honest feedback (and tendency to break the game)! We'll continue iterating on Starforged Legacy until launch and hope you'll keep sharing your feedback and bug reports with us via our community Discord! Starforged Legacy wouldn't be where it is today if not for your input, and you have our sincerest thanks!

Communication Systems Online

Receive incoming transmissions: news, announcements, devlogs, and deep-space disturbances, by following Second Shift Games on X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok, or by visiting our website: SecondShiftGames.com.

Join our community Discord to chat with the developers and fellow pilots, and give your feedback on the game!

Wishing you clear skies, Commander.

// END TRANSMISSION //

New Content

Ship Hangar Customization Level

• New Ship Selection Screen: You now choose your ship and loadout in a hangar bay with atmospheric lighting and background activity. It looks way cooler than the old menu.

Improved Gamepad UI Support

• Shop UI: Full controller support for browsing and purchasing.

• Skill Tree UI: Complete gamepad navigation (MVP implementation).

• Star Map: Now uses widget stack with pause menu access.

• Social Buttons: Added to the main menu and pause menu with controller support.

• Map Summary UI: Can access pause menu with gamepad.

• Movement Ability Bindings: Now displays gamepad button bindings alongside keyboard.

Gameplay Settings

• Camera Shake Toggle: Enable/disable camera shake effects.

• Show Damage Numbers: Toggle damage number visibility.

• Format Damage Numbers: Choose damage number formatting style.

• Negative Sign Removed: Damage numbers no longer show negative values.

• Settings UI Improvements:

  • Revert to default button added.

  • Depth of field is disabled in the scalability settings.

Balance Changes

Player Shop

• Shops No Longer Increase Map Index: Prevents difficulty spikes from using shops.

• Shop Prices Adjusted: Slightly reduced costs across the board.

Ship Movement

• Speed Increased: Base movement speed improved across all ship types.

• Acceleration Increased: Ships reach top speed faster.

• Rotation Improved: Better turning responsiveness.

• Warp Drive Cooldown Reduced: Less waiting between map transitions.

Mission Balance

• Forced Miniboss Encounters: Maps 3 and 6 now guarantee 'Ambush' secondary missions.

• Miniboss Spawn Behavior: Normal enemy spawning pauses during miniboss fights, resumes after defeat.

• Ambush Boss Rewards: Now drops weapon cache if the player is not at max weapons, and XP + choice of Augment if they are.

• Map Modifiers Blocked: Maps 3 and 6 no longer allow map modifiers (prevents blocking Ambush missions).

• Ambush Removed from Distress Calls: Now only appears as a forced secondary mission.

• Region Scanners: Now take off when the mission is complete.

Enemy Balance

• Carriers: Now actively orbit targets rather than remaining static.

• Enemy Spawning: More spread out around the player.

• Performance-Based Scaling: Weighted more toward single enemies, triggers only when the player performs very well.

• Cluster Prevention: Reduces the number of large enemy groups following the player.

• Enemy Collision:

  • Damage Cooldown: Enemies can only damage the player once every 1 second (instead of per hit).

  • Increased Knockback: Enemies are knocked back further on collision with the player.

  • Movement Speed Penalty: Enemies gain a temporary movement slow after hitting the player.

Weapon Balance

• Autocannon: Damage increased from 15 to 18.

• Standard Missile: Damage increased from 12 to 15.

Augments

Buffed Augments

• Critical Burn: Damage increased.

• Evasive Fire: Fire rate increased.

• Hologram Skin: Now scales with Thruster Component Level.

Nerfed Augments

• Phase Drive: Movement speed scales less from Thruster Component Level.

• Heated Chamber: Pierce chance reduced.

Functionality Changes

• Rapid Retrieval: Removed movement speed bonus, increased pickup radius scaling.

Drop Pool Adjustments

• Non-Weapon Augments: Less frequent (weight reduced from 5 to 4).

• Radiation Rounds: Should now appear more consistently.

• Thruster Targeting: Temporarily removed.

Interactables

• Thruster Power-Up: Removed from drop list.

• Upgrade Beacons: Now cost much less.

Mining System

• Mining Functionality Changes: Asteroids now explode when fully mined and drop all your currency at once instead of giving small amounts constantly.

Visual Enhancements

• VFX Performance: Explosions, projectile trails, and other effects now run much smoother without sacrificing visual quality.

• Radiation Clouds: Radiation clouds are darker, allowing enemies and projectiles to be seen through them better. Lightning effects are more visible and impactful.

• Shield Visual Feedback: When you or enemies are hit, the flash effect is more visible with glowing edges. Shields now get brighter as they're about to break, giving you a clear warning.

• Visual Polish: Improvements to background environments and ship damage effects. Enemy outlines are clearer, making them easier to see during combat.

The game runs significantly smoother everywhere, especially during intense combat with lots of enemies and explosions on screen. You should notice much better framerates across the board!

Audio Improvements

• Better Sound Quality: Fixed audio crackling and popping sounds during intense combat.

• New UI Sounds: Added new sounds for missions and UI interactions.

• Mining Volume Adjustments: Mining lasers are much quieter now.

Quality of Life Changes

• Trader Interactable: Now has a HUD marker so you know you can interact with it

• Unknown Technology: Mission object no longer blocks your movement.

• Ship Unlock Text: Updated to say "AVAILABLE IN EARLY ACCESS".

• Skill Tree: No longer pauses the game (you can keep an eye on the action).

Fixes

• Victory After Death: Fixed players winning a run even after dying.

• Enemy Projectiles: Fixed not being able to damage players.

• Ion Storm Hazard: Fixed having projectile speed applied.

• Gravitational Anomalies: Fixed not spawning in the correct location.

• Glancing Blows: Fixed showing as a percentage instead of a distance.

• Swarm Missile: Fixed initial speed getting overridden in subsequent launches, now scales with weapon projectile speed.

• Projectile Explosions: Fixed doing additional hit reaction on initial enemy hit.

• Boss Shield Collision: Fixed old shield collision still active (caused weapons to hit empty space).

• Boss Despawning: Fixed bosses not despawning when dead.

• Boss Spinning: Fixed destroyed ships spinning out of control on self-destruct.

• Enemy Stunning: Fixed enemies not receiving the stun cooldown and appearing unstunned.

• Star Map: Fixed widgets not positioning correctly.

• Settings UI: Now properly allows applying graphic settings.

Balance

• Cluster Warhead Augment no longer spawns projectiles but creates additional explosions around the hit location.

  • This was changed as the augment could potentially create hundreds of projectiles, causing massive lag.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where save files would not load properly upon restarting the game.

• Fixed the boss map icon using the incorrect icon.

• Fixed issues with enemies getting stuck in Asteroids, Interactables, and Mineables on spawn.

• Fixed issue with Secondary Mission HUD Displays not showing progress updates.

Miscellaneous

• The Gameplay Settings panel has been reset for all users to apply new defaults.

• Leaderboards have been reset.

• Music volume on a fresh startup was reduced.

• Master and Music volume sliders no longer start at 100%.