With spring well upon us, we’ve prepared a week-long 33% discount and a detailed development update.
First things first: for those asking if the 1.0 release will happen this year we can say the progress we made now should make that possible. We'll share a more precise date once Act 3 testing is complete.
The following text contains minor spoilers.
Now, today's update to the testing build is quite substantial and includes:
Two unique aftermath scenes for the missing children rescue mission:
A scene where you talk to a stranger and prepare peace negotiations
An event where you handle the garrison's outrage upon the arrival of the Romans
Companion siege preparation talks, including:
Tactical choices on how to improve the fort’s defenses
Requests from various characters to prioritize their private goals during the siege
Night raid scenes, featuring:
A Roman camp infiltration
An attack on the Roman siege machine
Reworked and rebalanced title assassination scenes, and many smaller bug fixes and improvements.
This means all the different starting points, based on what your character wants to achieve during the siege, are now in place. The next update to the testing build will bring the story to completion!
True to the spirit of role-playing games, there are many hidden and unexpected ways to improve your odds before the siege.
And in true Sacred Fire fashion, the war options are deeply interwoven with companion relationship arcs - developed long before the siege - allowing players to transform their companions, one small gesture at a time or, on the contrary, leave them to their fate.
Being alone outside the fort at night creates powerful moments to express your protagonist’s motivations, whether noble, rage-fueled, or purely opportunistic.
The camp infiltration is masked by an open assault led by the garrison to destroy Roman siege machines. As in all battles in Sacred Fire, you can choose a less risky path: staying on the ramparts to provide cover fire.
However, if you dare to venture beyond the safety of the fort’s walls, you’ll experience some of our favorite companion moments emerging from the surrounding danger.
Additional Updates
As mentioned above, in addition to the new major events, the testing build has been expanded with:
Scenes that resolve the rescue mission and prepare the grounds for peace negotiations:
A very dangerous situation from the very first moments the Romans arrive at the fort:
An alternative tactic to waiting behind fort walls for the Romans to besiege, a true war leader’s approach focused on decimating the enemy at any cost:
Mechanics & UI Improvements
Reworked title assassination mechanics:
Added influence checks to determine success
Gave the player agency in reacting to the outcome
Changed the outcome effect to a renown penalty
Rebalanced Renown and Idea point rewards for boosting/debuffing insights (progressive: 5–25 per level)
Refactored the chapter progress modal to correctly show and count negative influence values
Fixed issues with Continue Percentage boosts and emotion reset on control button press
User feedback improvements:
All branching points and NPC deaths are now marked
Fixed “2 in a row” fade-out visual glitch
Improved async loading and checkpoint screenshot generation for smoother gameplay
What’s Next
The final Act 3 update, featuring the siege, all endings, and epilogues, is coming soon. Once Act 3 testing is complete, the final steps before the 1.0 release include:
Localization support
Voice acting
Character art variety
Community features like achievements
Feedback Welcome
You can help shape this final phase by joining the Act 3 testing build via our Discord. Your feedback will help us polish and fine-tune these changes before public release.
2.6.4f5 - Community feedback fixes and improvements
UI fixes and refinement:
left-over tooltip fix
bottom UI bars critical values flashing: less aggressive and only when stats change for worse
remember boosted dice rolls in rewind mode
Better async loading:
better loading progress animation in game and title scene loading
no lag while verifying save directories at title startup scene
no lag in switching between characters in the continue the game screen
no lag when checkpoints screenshots are generated and saved
More robust save system:
remember last save slot fix
prevent overwrite of old Early Access save slots
Community feedback changes:
new game tutorials on/off toggle after first pop-up tutorial
non-lethal attacks also on dogs in Act 1
Bug fixes:
dark UI background in character screen stays even during combat scenes
Fixed an instance when NPC received an item, but gained no wealth in Act 1
Winter Update
Hello everyone,
With the end of winter approaching, we’re ready to roll out another short development update – along with a 33% discount!
First things first, we know that some of you have been asking about a release month for 1.0. While we’re still waiting for Act 3 testing to be complete to make a better estimate, we can already tell you that we’re aiming for a late summer release this year.
Today’s update marks an important milestone for us, as the testing build has been updated with the rescue mission scenes you can see in the intro cinematic.
Note: The following text contains minor spoilers.
For the first time, you can explore how all the ideas behind the tactical options seen in the intro were discovered. You’ll also get to experience the companion dynamics in this high-stakes scenario, if you’ve managed to learn the location of the captured children from a certain hostile warlord.
In addition to your brother Wid leading the rescue, you can be accompanied by one of five characters as your primary ally, based on your choices. The scenes leading up to the rescue give you the chance to sway characters who are either undecided or who directly oppose a risky rescue mission on the eve of a siege.
The aftermath of your choices during the rescue is among our favorite scenes: what to do with the Roman commander, Ygrain, the children, and the stranger who inexplicably keeps helping your people?
What’s Next
For testers who didn’t focus on rescuing the children during their playthrough, there will be an update to the testing build next month, which will include strategizing talks, siege preparation scenes, and a night raid infiltrating the Roman camp. Then, a final update with the siege and all the different endings and epilogues will follow.
In the next few days, we'll be also rolling out a few updates from the testing build into the public build, such as UI and quality-of-life fixes, including the non-lethal attack to stop the dogs in Act 1.
Feedback Welcome
We’ve received useful feedback on the music track alternations and the NPC title assassination additions to the testing build, so these will remain in testing for now. They need more fine-tuning to ensure they enhance the experience rather than detract from it.
Feel free to join the testing of this Act 3 build via our Discord and help us test and tweak these changes before we release them publicly. In the meantime, thank you for your support and patience.
To celebrate Sacred Fire’s participation in the Czech and Slovak Games Week, we’ve prepared a historically low discount of 33% and another short development update.
While we continue to add more bits of Act 3, we’re also going to be testing quite a few new things in today’s update to the testing build:
Role-playing
The player character has always been able to use insights to spread rumors about characters and weaken their renown. To add another layer of consequence to your choices, if feeling angered or betrayed, characters from your community can now spread rumors about you to weaken the strength of your titles (epithets like ‘the Strong’, or ‘the Swift’).
On top of the above change, level-up costs for Titles and Ideas have been rebalanced to make the higher levels more valuable and reward the player for unlocking more of them.
End-of-line dice rolls can be boosted now to further increase the level of control players have over their stories, but also to rebalance what it means to have enough motivation points, as it increases the number of places they can prove useful.
As promised, non-lethal attacks that slow down the dogs chasing after the escaped slaves in Act 1 are part of the new build.
User Experience The process of toggling the in-game tutorials at the start of the game has been refined.
Each of the many orchestral tracks is now alternated with 2 new tracks to increase the variability of the experience.
Rewind mode not only shows what choices the player made in the past steps but also remembers the probability of success of the selected choices, including which of them were boosted with motivation.
The UI bars at the bottom effects when reaching critical values have been refined.
The new build introduces various fixes, including a fix to a left-over tooltip bug and a bug that caused the game to misremember the last save slot.
Feedback welcome
Feel free to join the testing of this Act 3 build via our Discord and help us test and tweak these changes before we release them publicly. In the meantime, thank you for your support and patience.
With the summer in the rear-view mirror, here is a short update about the development progress of Sacred Fire!
While it’ll take a little bit longer before we’re ready to release a new testbuild with a fresh batch of scenes from Act 3, there have been a couple of pieces of community feedback we’ll be testing.
There will be a direct way to turn off tutorial pop-ups fairly early into the game. While these tutorials are useful to people new to the genre, they’ve been bugging more experienced RPG players or streamers enough to let us know about it.
Some players also asked for the ability to boost the NPC checks that appear at the bottom of the screen next to the Continue button.
Currently, the game already enables players to spend their motivation on keeping their fear and anger low, so as to not negatively affect NPCs. We realized that the 4 “presence” traits from the character creator could also be used to make a difference in these situations.
Take for example this dice roll: In this case, the game checks whether Morl will react in a hostile way. If the player character has the menacing presence trait, you will now be able to spend 1 motivation point to make sure this dice roll goes their way, progressing the story without Morl acting belligerently.
We see this as an improvement, because it adds another way for the player to gain control over how the story evolves, while also adding a little bit of extra depth to character creation.
We’ll be back with another update once a new Act 3 Testing Build is out. In the meanwhile, thank you for your support and patience, and feel free to join the testing via our Discord.
As part of the Steam Summer Sale festivities, we’ve prepared the long awaited Act 3 Testing build for you.
While the testing build contains only a handful of scenes for now -- like another set of rewards and dynamically generated dreams as you rest after the big Act 2 battle -- it contains also the long awaited resolution to your and Etain’s childhood friendship backstory for both male and female protagonists.
Like last time, the testing build will be expanded gradually with more scenes, advancing your Sacred Fire journey towards its grand finale. Please note that the testing build does not contain voice-over, as we need to fix all the bugs in Act 3 first before recording with the voice talent.
As mentioned before the decision to cut no corners when writing Act 3 increased its scope considerably. And while we think the experience, without all the different resolutions and endings, would be crippled, unfortunately the game won’t be ready for a full release this summer.
The increased scope and the consequent production hurdles ended up pushing the full release into the next year. We’ll be narrowing the release down as soon as the testing of Act 3 is over.
I wish things would be easier and I could deliver the game to you faster. Yet, we’re making progress and sticking to making sure experiencing Sacred Fire’s 1.0 breadth and depth will be an exceptional experience for both new and long-term fans.
In the meanwhile, thank you for your understanding, patience and support. If you aren't part of the public test yet, you can easily join now! Here's how:
Welcome to the latest update from the trenches of solo development.
First things first - the testing of what’ll be available of Act 3 will start at the end of spring, meaning by the end of June. Those waiting for the full release, will then have to wait a little bit longer, as the feedback and amount of bugs in the testing build will determine the 1.0 release date.
While our last update was marked by the joy of writing out the story to its full potential, the increased scope meant spending more resources on localization and voice-over, putting increased pressure on the development. It’s thanks to my publishing partner’s flexibility and my determination that we tackled all the hurdles and can now bring you the good news of the game moving towards the finish line in an uncompromised state.
I understand the wait is long, both for players who’ve experienced the game recently, and for those who’ve been waiting for a conclusion to the story for a long time. That, however, is the road we went down ever since releasing the first public demo - of expanding the scenes with more player choice and NPC reactions based on your feedback. With Act 3, we wanted to avoid the common ailment of games in this genre - diminishing player choices, unanswered plot threads and patch-on endings.
Instead we tried to create many satisfying moments for many different playthroughs, addressing truly rare game states.
So, we want to thank you. Thank you for your feedback, your support, and your patience over the years! It's thanks to you that Sacred Fire could grow into what’ll hopefully end up being a satisfying choice-driven experience for all of you.
P.S.: Oh, and yes, for those kindhearted players out there, don’t worry, we’ve heard you : there will be an option for non-lethal attacks to stop the dogs in Act 1 as well.
With the new year in full swing, we're excited to bring you a brief update about the game's development progress.
All the writing is now finalized, and localization of Act 3 has commenced. In the end, Act 3 contains almost twice as much content as Act 2. Currently, I'm in the process of integrating visuals, stat changes, and dice rolls into all the lines.
Minor spoilers ahead.
In addition to the three main Act 3 events—the Raven rescue mission, the Roman camp infiltration, and the ultimate battle with several siege stages and iconic moments—we're pleased with how we've tied up all loose ends. We've brought all relationship arcs, mysteries, conflicts, and player agendas to a narratively satisfying conclusion.
Furthermore, Act 3 boasts over 10 pages worth of individualized epilogues detailing the fate of the kingdom and the characters based on your choices, including a variant where the fort is saved, but the protagonist dies.
To highlight a few additions based on community feedback, here are some elements that made it into Act 3 and the Sacred Fire story thanks to you:
A way to enable Ygrain rise above her bitterness
An opportunity to get even with Wid, if you get knocked out in Act 1, without overdoing it
Morl's relationship can develop romantic undertones for female protagonist playthroughs. This decision was made simply because it made for a better story than the originally planned romance with a Roman captive. Please note, Sacred Fire does not focus on romance, and not all romances are equally extensive; some pairs have more to overcome than others
Three distinct ways to upgrade the fort before the siege
Successful endings for a coward and an opportunist playthrough, including a royal treasury heist
While many lines still need setting up, I'm eager to share Act 3 with you all. Thank you for your feedback, support, and patience!
If you haven't already, you can join the community on Discord! It's the place for all things Sacred Fire.
As mentioned in our last announcement, Sacred Fire is participating in the annual Czech and Slovak Games Week, and you can pick it up with a 25% discount all week long!
With only a handful of scenes left to write to conclude the whole story, the rest of the development is now easier to predict. So we are bringing you an updated roadmap, including the final milestone: the release of version 1.0.
Once the writing is complete, the next phase is to set up all the visuals and dice rolls for Act 3, line by line, and prepare its English version for community testing, which will begin in Spring 2024.
Based on our previous testing and bug fixing experience, we realized that by the time it’s done, we’ll be able to complete the art for character customization and localization needed for the 1.0 release.
This way, Act 3 will be publicly released already with localization as part of the 1.0 release.
I understand it’s been a long wait for the conclusion to the story, but we want to make sure we release Act 3 in a state that keeps the player and character agency at the high level established in previous acts.
Based on your feedback, the scope of the script, compared to what was planned, has doubled, and the game is richer and better for it.
Thank you all for your feedback, support, and patience!
Autumn Update & The Annual Czech and Slovak Games Week
Hello, everyone!
We're thrilled to bring you a brief update on our Act 3 progress and share news about an upcoming event! Sacred Fire will be part of the annual Czech and Slovak Games Week, with a 25% discount starting on November 13th.
Over the past few months, we've been focusing on writing the final battle scenes and all the intricacies leading up to it. These pivotal moments will enable players to amass various allies and tactical options that may greatly influence the outcome of the fateful battle.
Moreover, multiple paths have been implemented enabling you to avoid the battle. You can act cowardly, opportunistically, and pragmatically, or look for diplomatic and peaceful resolutions.
With only a handful of scenes left to write, it’s an exciting time for us, being this close to finalizing the story. What’s a challenge, but also a joy to watch, is making sure the rest of the cast stays driven by their individual beliefs and principles as the narrative unfolds.
Maintaining this principle allows for impactful outcomes— dialogues held earlier can prevent characters from making rash decisions that could cost them their life. Conversely, it provides opportunities for manipulation, exploiting their darker instincts, and letting them risk their lives instead of you.
Please keep in mind, after the writing is done, the big task of setting up all the visuals and dice rolls begins, so it’ll take time till Act 3 is ready for testing. I’ll be back with more news in a couple of weeks during the Czech and Slovak Games Week. Thank you for your support and patience!
