Today, Polish indie developer The Astronauts announced that its RPG shooter game, Witchfire, has sold over 500,000 units since its Early Access debut two years ago.
A major new update titled 'The Reckoning' is also now live. The Reckoning takes Witchfire's combat beyond pure gunplay by introducing four new melee weapons, including a Morgenstern, Katar, and Shield. These provide players with powerful alternatives to the default fist and offer unique abilities or utility that witch hunters can seamlessly incorporate into their gunplay.
The melee arsenal is complemented by three new firearms, including the highly anticipated triple-barrel shotgun, the Tribunal, which encourages a run-and-gun playstyle, letting players dash or slide to charge upcoming shots. Charged overkills unleash a devastating shock explosion on enemies. Combined with the arsenal of brutal melee weaponry, players can now fluidly blend close-quarters aggression with ranged lethality and spell-slinging.
A shooting range featuring an interactive bestiary has been added to allow players to hone their skills. This provides the perfect laboratory for experimentation and will enable players to pit their loadouts against already conquered enemies before venturing into expeditions.
Witchfire is now fully verified on Steam Deck, and the development team has also introduced new accessibility options like font size adjustments and an arachnophobia filter. The latter is available just in time for a new spider-themed calamity — a powerful cursed event from the Witch's arsenal. Finally, extraction from expeditions has been completely overhauled and two new gameplay modifiers have been introduced to challenge even the most seasoned witch hunter. A complete list of changes and fixes can be found in the Steam patch notes or on the developer's website.
Witchfire blends RPG shooter tension with roguelite progression and Souls-like challenge. Players take on the role of a Preyer, an undead assassin fueled by the titular Witchfire who must battle the Witch of the Black Sea and her army. Each expedition offers meaningful choices, and between runs, the Hermitorium serves as a base of operations where players can craft distinct builds from an expanding arsenal of weapons, spells, and artefacts, all while piecing together the Witch's story.
It's been more than eight years since The Astronauts first talked about the game, their first project since 2014's The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. The game was supposed to debut in early access in 2022, but it got delayed by around a year to add an open world-like experience. Similarly, version 1.0 was originally scheduled for release before the end of 2025; however, a delay in the launch of the previous Witch Mountain update pushed Witchfire's full launch back to 2026. In the meantime, you can temporarily grab its early access version at a 20% discount on both Steam and the Epic Games Store.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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