Weekly Patch Notes — Ability Feel, Steam Deck Polish, and Better Run Summaries

This week’s update is focused on making Where Giants Fall feel cleaner, sharper, and more satisfying moment to moment.

The biggest improvements are in combat readability, active ability feel, controller and Steam Deck support, menu flow, and run summary clarity.

Highlights

• Status effects are easier to read again, with clearer freeze, stun, and poison aura presentation.
• Several abilities have been retuned to feel faster, more readable, and more impactful in real combat.
• Controller-first play and Steam Deck usability have been improved across gameplay, menus, and summary screens.
• Run flow is more stable, with better world-load handoff and a restored phase-complete intermission flow.
• The phase summary now shows more useful run information, including kills, stage gold earned, and newly gained items.

Combat Readability & Status Effects

Enemy crowd-control and damage-over-time states are now much easier to read during combat.

Updated aura presentation for poison and stun/sleep helps status effects read more clearly in the middle of combat.

• Frozen, stunned, and poisoned enemies now display distinct matching aura effects.
• Poison aura visuals have been cleaned up so they read more clearly without overpowering the target.
• Singularity now shows its dedicated player aura during the cast, with better scale and placement.
• Fixed a rare error that could occur while status-effect visuals were being cleaned up as enemies despawned.

Ability Updates

Several active abilities received tuning and presentation updates to make them feel stronger and more distinct.

Blink

Blink has been reworked into a faster, more aggressive mobility tool.

• Longer teleport distance
• Shorter invulnerability window
• Faster visual timing
• Stun pulses on both departure and arrival
• Stun strength now scales with ability level

Cyclone Dash

Cyclone Dash now travels farther and reads more cleanly through the full dash.

• Longer travel distance
• Better VFX stretch across the dash path
• Cleaner running-slide pose through dash and short recovery

Human Catapult

Human Catapult has been retuned to better sell forward momentum and the airborne payoff.

• Better glide-style airborne presentation
• More forward speed carried into landing
• Heavier impact damage on crash-down

Flash of Light

Flash of Light is now more flexible in the middle of combat.

• Can now be cast while moving at every level
• Timing has been cleaned up
• Healing has been improved
• Level 5 now adds a shield and a nearby stun when the heal lands

Rejuvenation

Rejuvenation now has a stronger gameplay identity.

• Uses the Heart of Nature aura
• Grants bonus movement speed while the player stays at full health
• Level 5 now emits damaging slow pulses during the heal

Dragon Breath

Dragon Breath level 5 now feels much closer to a true ultimate channel.

• Better channel presentation
• Cone visuals now better match the actual damage area
• Dedicated ultimate/channel audio
• Expanded level 5 presentation with an opening burst, player aura, and repeated cloud-burst waves

Frostwave

Frostwave ultimate now has stronger pace and battlefield presence.

• Dedicated cast sound
• Faster and better-spaced ultimate waves
• Longer travel distance
• Better terrain-following behavior
• Cleaner airborne alignment

Blood Pact

Blood Pact has been tightened into a shorter, cleaner lifesteal window.

• Larger aura that follows the player more clearly
• Dedicated cast audio
• Cleaner combat read while active

Singularity

• Restored player aura presentation
• Naming cleanup for Manaburst: Singularity across loadout and ability text

Movement & Player Feel

General player feel received a wider polish pass.

• Added dedicated jump and landing sound effects
• Improved slide correction
• Cleaned up glide-style presentation on airborne abilities where appropriate
• Adjusted grounding offset to fix the player hover look
• Added recovery protection if the player somehow falls below the world

Weapons & Feedback

Weapon presentation and reward feedback also got attention in this update.

• Demonlash replaces the older Scythe presentation
• Demonlash now hits harder, reaches farther, and sweeps wider
• Demonlash ultimate is now named Maw of Ruin
• Presentation polish for Machine Gun, Grenade, Demonlash, XP pickup audio, and ultimate VFX handling
• Experience orb pickups now have their own dedicated reward sound

Menus, Loadout & UI

The menu flow has been cleaned up and unified.

• Main menu rebuilt around a dedicated loadout overlay
• Character, weapon, biome, and ultimate selection now live in a cleaner unified flow
• Ability naming and loadout copy were cleaned up across the menu
• Controller navigation, default focus, and rebinding flow are now more reliable
• Gameplay and overlay scaling have been improved for Steam Deck, ultrawide, pillarboxed, and letterboxed layouts

Steam Deck & Controller Support

Steam Deck support moved forward in a meaningful way this week.

• Added a dedicated runtime profile
• Improved controller bindings and gamepad navigation
• Tightened gamepad-first runtime input handling
• Improved UI scaling across gameplay, pause, rewards, loadout, and summary screens
• Reduced accidental conflicts between gameplay input and overlay-related controls

Run Flow & Summary

Run flow is now more stable and better at surfacing useful information.

• Initial world loading is more reliable before player control is fully released
• Restored the phase-complete intermission screen when entering the portal
• Expanded the phase summary to show:
  • Kills
  • Stage gold earned
  • Newly gained items
  • Item icons and hover tooltips on the summary card

Boss & Stage Presentation

Boss and stage naming received a cleanup pass.

• Boss telegraphs and cast bars now use clearer player-facing names
• Swamp Queen has been renamed to Morvessa, Mother of Dread
• Her arena is now called Morvessa’s Lair
• Enemy, boss, and giant presentation received additional cleanup and consistency work

Looking Ahead

This patch is part of the ongoing push toward a cleaner, stronger overall play experience — especially around readability, control feel, and the full run flow from start to summary.

More updates soon.