STS2 Patch Notes — 2025-05-15

This week, we're still making significant changes to the back end for flexibility and performance improvements so please let us know of any issues like broken textures or egregious hiccups. General feedback about overall performance or quality of certain assets is also appreciated.

Content is still focused on getting the Defect to a good place while making general balance adjustments.

At the start of each run, the player now goes straight to Neow and there's a less intense HP refill effect. This mimics STS1's behavior and saves a click.

The Timeline is functional again and while it still has no affect on gameplay, transitions are smoother, the requirements for obtaining them are no longer random, and some save migration logic has been added so the screen isn't too broken. It's not quite ready for primetime yet.

CONTENT

Defect:

• Added new cards:
• Compute
• Consuming Shadow
• Exponential Growth
• Iterate
• Seeking Strike
• Added a former Ironclad card from StS1: Evolve
• Deprecated cards:
• Bitflip
• Chill
• Core Surge
• Stack card
• Static Discharge
• Steam Barrier

Enemies:

• Added new Sludge Spinner enemy

General:

• Character Epochs now unlock at the end of a run
• The first 2 Epochs unlocked are now Silent and Neow (excludes Regent)
• Total ascension progress is now tracked and displayed in the Statistics screen
• Started tracking wins and losses for each enemy encounter on a per character basis
• Unlocked cards, relics, and potions in the Statistics screen are now tracked properly

BALANCE

Defect:

• Changed Hyperbeam card:
• Energy cost increased from 2 -> 3
• Damage increased from 26(34) -> 30(40)
• Buffed Tempest card: no longer Exhausts
• Nerfed Chest Beam card:
• Energy cost increased from 1 -> 2
• Damage decreased from 30(40) -> 22(26)
• Reworked Cooldown affliction: "Cannot be played for X turns."
• Reworked Hotfix card: "Upgrade a card in your hand" -> "Gain 1 Focus this turn."

Enemies:

• Buffed Mytes: HP increased from 36(37)-41(42) -> 40(41)-45(45)
• Nerfed Phantasmal Gardeners: Lash damage decreased from 9(10) -> 8(9)
• Nerfed Thieving Hopper: Theft damage decreased from 19(22) -> 19(21)
• Changed Wasp Prism: Volatile power now waits a turn before it explodes

ART

• Added portrait art for Bone Wall, Lantern Key, Corrosive Wave, Cower, Haze, and Ricochet cards
• Resized and added VFX to character select screens
• Tweaked oil spill animation
• Adjusted Timeline expansion effect to make it less jarring
• Made minor improvements to VFX for applying powers
• Added VFX for when you gain your first Epoch

AUDIO

• Added background music and SFX for Queen and Torch Head Amalgam

USER INTERFACE & EXPERIENCE

• Added missing period at the end of the Replay extra text
• Added selection screen specifically for transformations
• Adjusted logo size in main menu so text buttons fit nicer on screen
• Added controller support for paginator settings
• Downsized proceed button assets for 1440p
• Fixed issue where obtained but not yet revealed Epochs were grayscale upon opening the Timeline
• Illusory Wall now flashes while it is active
• Moved controller button icon for proceed button to prevent loc overlap later
• Moved save indicator to top bar and matched its visuals to those of StS1
• Relics and potions the player has unlocked are now displayed via Epochs
• Total number of monsters slain is now surfaced in Statistics screen
• Updated reaction wheel wedge assets, color, and animation speed
• Shadow darkness for Proceed, Embark, and back buttons are now the same
• Updated Proceed button hover, unhover, press, hide, and show animation logic
• Slightly slower hover effect on main menu text buttons
• Timeline expansions are now smooth
• You can once again scroll the map while the transitioning to a room
• Your character's dead body is now shown on all post-game screens when abandoning a run or dying

WORDING

• Renamed relic: Star Dust -> Galactic Dust
• Renamed various potions:
• Trapped Spirits -> Pot of Ghouls
• Elixir -> Ashwater
• Brain in a Jar -> Clarity
• Malicious Sand -> Potion of Doom
• Fortifying Brew -> Fortifier
• Fysh Jerky -> Fysh Oil
• Lighthouse Drainage -> Glowwater Potion
• Cleansing Potion -> Cure All
• Crystalline Luck -> Lucky Tonic
• Ship in a Bottle -> Block Potion II
• Milk -> Necro Milk
• Phantom Draught -> Screamer Pod
• Pot of Glue -> Stable Serum
• Moon Brew -> Star Potion
• End of Days card description now uses the word "kill" instead of "destroy"
• Epoch unlock requirement info now has a "to reveal this Epoch." added on
• Vambrace relic now uses the same wording for doubling Block gain as Oddly Heavy Stone relic

BUG FIXES

Silent:

• Envenom card now properly triggers Snecko Skull relic

Defect:

• Added Frost orb tooltip to Cold Snap card

Necrobinder:

• Neurosurge card's Doom amount no longer visually appears to be increased by Doom-increasing effects like Oblivion

Potions & Relics:

• Fixed an issue where Snecko Eye relic would not randomize the costs of cards drawn before your first hand draw, due to combinations of effects like the Centennial Puzzle and Royal Poison relics
• Fixed save/load issue with Recursive Core relic
• Oddly Heavy Stone relic now properly applies to all instances of Block gained in a single card play
• Vambrace and Oddly Heavy Stone relics no longer trigger when a Block-gaining card gives the player 0 Block

Enemies:

• After killing the first enemy in the Infested boss fight, you now automatically turn to face the remaining enemy
• Decimillipede now fades out after it dies

General:

• Players can no longer hover over a treasure room relic while its animating
• Changing resolution during a run now correctly changes the resolution dropdown label
• Energy icons are now taken into account when autosizing text
• Ethereal cards now exhaust before cards with end-of-turn-in-hand effects trigger (This fixes an issue where, if you ended your turn with Melancholy and Burn in your hand, Burn would trigger before you gained block from Melancholy, causing you to take the damage instead of blocking it)
• Fixed localized strings not used on Proceed button in Rest Site, Merchant, and Treasure rooms
• Reaction wheel now keeps your mouse in place in non-1080p resolutions
• Started a WIP fix for animating era columns on timeline expansion
• You can now interrupt the start-of-act map scroll again

Multiplayer:

• Card shop removals and Wongo points are now saved per-player
• Fixed issue relating to run history & save/loading after finishing an Ancient room
• Fixed an issue where another player's card choices for the Shiny Monocle relic would be recorded as your choices

PERFORMANCE

• Main menu assets and character select assets are now BC3 compressed
• Power icon assets are now texture packed and use a small and large size depending on the use case
• relic.tscn now uses a smaller asset so its more crisp and loads and renders faster
• Smaller relic assets are now used for relic flash VFX