Witchfire, the 'RPG Shooter', is now available on Steam. After a year in early access at Epic Games it's finally becoming what I wanted it to be.

After a year of being an Epic Games Store Exclusive, the roguelike shooting game Witchfire has now made its way onto Steam. If you haven't been playing for a while or have been waiting for it to cook up a bit more, let me tell you that in the last 12 months, the game has come a long way.

The Astronauts have been tweaking Witchfire for some time now in order to make it less punishing. The initial release of 2023 showed a lot of potential, but the learning curve was more like a brick wall topped with barbed-wire and armed with a bottle Jack.

This has changed dramatically in two ways. In April, a new system, called Gnosis was added. This replaced the original difficulty level with a completely new mechanic, which advances much more slowly and at the player's own discretion. Witchfire requires higher levels of Gnosis in order to access certain aspects and areas. This is an incentive to raise the difficulty sooner rather than later. However, you can now increase your character's abilities and push further into the game, without getting stuck.

The Wailing Tower update in August added a new location, Island of the Damned. The Island of the Damned is actually (well, at least relatively) friendly for newcomers. It's small and easy to navigate with not too many enemies. There are also double resource drops and no "calamities", the semi-regular, run-or-die interruptions. As you explore the island and uncover its secrets, there's more trouble to be had. But overall, it's a great place for newcomers to improve their weapons and abilities and get a sense of how Witchfire works without getting their asses mercilessly stomped.

Calamities have been nerfed in the update before Steam High Stakes. Calamities are essentially murderous storms that appear out of nowhere. They have been a problem since Witchfire was released because they force players drop everything to fight (usually resulting in a death) or haul ass. They are supposed to be caused by mistakes made by the player, but they can feel random. The Astronauts has been working on making them more "deterministic", which is another way to say that if you cause one, it's all your fault. The calamity bar now advances more slowly and some triggers are gone.

The Astronauts, in the midst of all this, has changed the way it talks about Witchfire to better reflect its nature and the studio's future ambitions. Witchfire was initially described as a FPS based on "soulslike gameplay, extraction, and Roguelite gameplay." But that's been dropped. Developers now call it "a singleplayer shooter with RPG elements," reflecting the game's evolution and a desire for clarity.

"We realized that describing Witchfire's gameplay as a unique blend of souls, extraction and roguelite was not only vague, but potentially misleading," wrote Adrian Chmielarz, creative director. It could discourage players who would love the game once they realized its true nature or disappoint those who expected more rigid adherence of genre fundamentals.

"We've settled on a 'RPG Shooter'. The shooter aspect is obvious, but the RPG aspects, such as build crafting and lore are becoming stronger with each update. Chmielarz said that "coming soon" will be more story elements, and a greater emphasis on Witchfire's RPG aspects.

The good news for those who played Witchfire on Epic Games Store, and now want to move to Steam is that their saves will be carried over. The process is also as painless as it can be. Both games use the exact same save format and location, so there is nothing to do. Just install the game, fire it up and presto, you have it.

Witchfire has been a top seller on Steam since its release. Chmielarz stated in January that the Epic exclusive deal was also very good for the game: sales weren't as strong as they would have if it was available on both storefronts but the deal "helped to keep the studio independently" and Epic's smaller share of revenues has given Witchfire's budget a boost.

"Last, but not least, Epic has been genuinely good to me," Chmielarz wrote before the Steam launch announcement. "Helping, promoting the games. We're happy about the deal. Stay tuned, we will be moving to other platforms. But for now, we're happy [we] chose them."

Witchfire is a very different game now, and has been dramatically improved from its initial early access release. It's still not finished, but it's getting closer. The latest early access roadmap shows two major updates scheduled for release by 2025, along side various smaller patches and a 1.0 release at the end of the year. If you've been keeping up with Witchfire's progress on Epic, you won't be surprised by any of this. But if not, it's a good idea to take a look.