Genre: Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie
Striving for Light
Update 0.9.16
Bugfixes:
Fixed a recursion in the latest compatability patch for the 1.0 save file structure that lead to center skilltree node be replaced by a random skillnode. This resulted in one additional random skillnode getting added to your build on each map load/scene switch. This also resulted in showing the message that you do not have enough resources to attack as the additional skill node added some additional resource cost.
1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #8
Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #8, where we will unveil a major part of the extensive 1.0 content update. Last week we reveiled Weapon Stash Slots together with a new Weapon Swap System coming to Striving for Light with the upcoming 1.0 release. You can check out the new announcement trailer here in case you missed it:
Update 1.0 is the biggest update we have ever developed for Striving for Light, we leave no stone untouched to deliver a cohesive playing experience. A main focus of the 1.0 content update is not only adding new content but breathing new life into older content, to make this content viable and exciting again.
Everything you have seen in the past episodes of the reveal marathon are only the highlights between the extensive array of change, new features and improvements coming with the 1.0 content udpate. So you can expect even moaar surprises on the expansive patch notes for 1.0, than we will be able to share in these reveal marathon episodes.
Note that everything which is presented here is still in development and testing and might change until release.
Trinket Qualities
Trinkets that "only" grant stat bonuses can be very helpful in the early game but fall off during late game in terms of usability. So with 1.0 we want to bring more excitement to all trinkets that do not grant additional abilities or legendary powers.
Offensive, Defensive and Utility Trinkets that do not come with abilities will be able to drop in 3 rarities. Minor, Greater and Mythic, which all come with their individual loot beams.
Trinket rarity will now determine the power of their stat rolls making hunting for loot even more exciting as mythic trinkes are very rare but hold expansive powers, never before seen on trinkets.
Permanent Companions Rework
Permanent Companions can feel very powerful early on, but as your build develops and possibilities to spawn temporary companions increases they start to lack behind and can even feel useless. Why adding another permanent companion if you could just ramp up attack speed and further increase companion spawn rate from your weapon effects?
With 1.0 permanent companions will get some exciting buffs. Melee and Range Companions now have a 20% chance to trigger all your player attack effects for this attack type if you have the required resources this attack would require. If you do not have enough resources when the companion would trigger the attack only a normal attack will be performed dealing the companion damage but no additional player effects will be triggered.
We think this will open up new ways to play companion builds and allow for better damage scaling in endgame. This will also make the wolf and falcon companion different than the chicken companions. The resource penalty on chicken companions has therefore been reduced to -30% energy and endurance regeneration (was -40%). The resource penalties on wolf and falcon companion remains unchanged.
What about wolfs that cast molten orbs?
Permanent companions will have a 20% change to trigger all your range on attack effects and each projectile hit will have a 20% chance to trigger all your range on hit effects.
So what about crafting a build around lightning falcons? Well this should open up plenty of new build possibilites and playstyles. We are already looking forward what builds you will create!
Skill Stacking & Scaling Rework
You might have tried scaling damage on skills that only scale by stacking the same skill multiple times like meteor or lightning strike. As this scaling makes investing into these skills after a certain point simply not viable, especially for endgame scenarios. Therefore we have reworked the skill damage scaling of skills that only scale by skillstacking.
The damage scaling of skills that only scale with skillstacks (i.e. Meteor, Lightning Strike, Discharge) has now been decoupled from the skill trigger possibility. Previously the damage would only scale if trigger possibility reaches certain thresholds i.e. 200%, 300%. With the new skill damage scaling system each additional skill stack will always scale the skill damange even though the skill trigger chance is still below 100%. Furthermore the skill damage scaling now has a new skill stack damage scaling factor that will make those skills scale with greater magnitude to make them viable endgame skill choices.
Meteor Cast for example now scales on each skillstack:
1x Meteor Cast = 45 Damage on 50% On Range Attack Chance
2x Meteor Cast = 90 Damage on 100% On Range Attack Chance
3x Meteor Cast = 135 Damage on 100% On Range Attack Chance
Burning Skills Rework
Burning skills have been part of the game since pretty much the start of early access. Burning skills have been the very first condition damage skills and have been strong back then, but with the addition of weapons that feature inherent burning on hit effects they simply can not hold up.
Therefore, we gave burning skills a rework to feature bigger AoE sizes and also differentiate between on attack burning skills and on hit burning skills. On Attack burning skills will now feature a very large lava AoE effect that allows to cover huge areas to apply burning conditions to enemies.
The on hit burning skills drop a much smaller lava area effect as the on attack skills but overall remain bigger than all the burning AoE fields before 1.0. The effects have also been reworked for nicer visuals and improved performance. The skill descriptions have also been updated. Also each burning skill now has its unique icon to better tell them apart without needing to read the tooltips.
So what about to set the whole screen on fire?
We hope that this preview excites you for the upcoming 1.0 release! We are looking forward to hear your thoughts on all the new features and content.
But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 2nd of July.
You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.
Update 0.9.15
Even though we are currently deep into playtesting 1.0 and hunting and ironing out the final remaining bugs we decided to roll in a fix for a few of the most anying controller bugs to bring more enjoyment to the game until 1.0 drops on July 11th.
1.0 will contain a huge amount of controller support improvements and fundamental redesigns. We finally got our hands on a steam deck testing unit so we did now as well run into all these issues you have been running into, which are very specific to the steamdeck and how input is handled.
We will share more information on what improvements are coming to Controller Support, Steamdeck, and general Quality of Life in one of our upcoming 1.0 Content Update Reveal Marathon Episodes :)
Bugfixes:
Fixed wrong attack angle when aiming with the controller thumbstick which some times randomly jumps to the current mouse position
Improved controller menu navigation for controller (we can't roll in the full fix and improvement pre 1.0, but it will be fully resolved on 1.0)
1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #7
Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #7, where we will unveil a major part of the extensive 1.0 content update. Last week we reveiled New Weapons, New Skill, New Trinket and the new Enemy Weakening/ Debuff System coming to Striving for Light with the upcoming 1.0 release. You can check out the new announcement trailer here in case you missed it:
Note that everything which is presented here is still in development and testing and might change until release.
Weapon Stash Slots
With the upcoming massive 1.0 release content update Weapon stashes will be added. This highly requested feature now allows to store one additional weapon for each attack type: a stash slot for a melee weapon and a stash slot for a ranged weapon.
When hovering a dropped weapon you will now have the possibility to press TAB on keys or the left thumbstick to switch between your currently equipped weapon of the same attack type or your stash space.
This weapon could not only be an alternate crafting weapon that you want to keep for later during your run. You will also be able to swap between those two weapons of the same attack type during combat to open up never before seen build possibilities.
Weapon Swap with Stashed Weapon
The new weapon stash system comes with a new weapon swap system that allows you to switch between your 2 melee or your 2 range weapons on the fly during combat.
There will be a new hotkey for swaping weapons of the same attack type, which can be, of course, rebound in the options menu.
Actively using 2 weapons of the same attack type will surely unlock never before seen build possibilities. What about playing the new Sunderbow range weapon that increases projectile damage on your targets to then switch to your main range weapon to deal devastating damage.
On this occasion we also improved weapon pickup to make it easier to understand which weapon will be exchanged, preventing you from having to pickup weapons multiple times to understand what was picked up and which stats to compare.
Now when getting close to a weapon will bring up the stats of the dropped weapon as well as the weapon to exchange to allow a direct comparison.
Improved Auto Saving
The game now auto saves much more frequently to prevent progress loss.
We hope that this preview excites you for the upcoming 1.0 release! We are looking forward to hear your thoughts on all the new features and content.
But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 25th of June.
You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.
1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #6
[p]Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #6, where we will unveil a major part of the extensive 1.0 content update. [/p][p]Last week we reveiled all the Steam Features including Steam achievements and trading cards coming to Striving for Light with the upcoming 1.0 release. You can check out the new announcement trailer here in case you missed it:
This week we want to cover some of the new content coming with this massive 1.0 update. You might have spottet some new skills, weapons and trinkets in the announcement trailer. So lets take a closer look what the 1.0 update will add to the already very expansive set of skills, weapons and trinkets.
Note that everything which is presented here is still in development and testing and might change until release.
New Weapons
1.0 will add 4 new weapons to the core weapon pool. These weapons feature complete new mechanics never before seen on any item in Striving for Light. These weapons will feature not only the bouncing molten orbs that allow for a flexible melee range hybrid builds but also introduce brand new enemy weakening effects that utilise the with 1.0 new introduced enemy debuff system. But lets take a look at the weapons first:
Moltenedge - Melee Weapon: Every attack creates 3 molten orbs that bounce in attack direction piercing through all enemies. Damage scales with melee damage. Orb can trigger all your projectile on hit effects.
Shardpiercer - Melee Weapon: Every weapon hit weakens enemies and makes them receive +20 % increased damage from projectiles.
Nightgrape - Range Weapon: Every hit weakens enemies and makes them receive +10 % increased damage from companions.
Sunderbow - Range Weapon: Each projectile hit weakens enemies and makes them receive +5% more projectile damage.
Shatterspire - Melee Weapon: Every weapon hit weakens enemies and makes them receive +10% increased damage from melee weapons.
New Enemy Weakening/ Debuff System
The new weapons will utilise a new enemy weakening/ debuff system which will increase the damage enemies will receive for:
Direct Projectile Damage
Direct Melee Weapon Damage
Direct Companion Damage
Weakening Effects will be displayed above enemy HP bars to indicate your current damage bonus on the targeted enemy.
New Skill & Legendary Weapon Ability
Cinderfall - Melee Ability Skill Node: Every melee attack creates a molten orb that bounces in attack direction piercing through all enemies. Damage scales with melee damage. Orb can trigger all your projectile on hit effects.
Cinderfall - Legendary Weapon Ability: Every attack creates a molten orb that bounces in attack direction piercing through all enemies. Damage scales with melee damage. Orb can trigger all your projectile on hit effects.
New Trinket
Emberclast - Offensive Trinket: Orbs of molten fury leap from every strike. Every attack creates a molten orb that bounces in attack direction piercing through all enemies. Damage scales with melee damage. Orb can trigger all your projectile on hit effects.
And yes you guessed right, since this is no legendary trinket ability you will be able to equip this trinket 4 times. For the full molten orb mayhem :)
We hope that this preview excites you for the upcoming 1.0 release! We are looking forward to hear your thoughts on all the new features and content.
But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 18th of June.
You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.[/p]
1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #5
Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #5, where we will unveil a major part of the extensive 1.0 content update.
Last week we reveiled the Release Date for the 1.0 Release of Striving for Light including the Release Announcement Trailer.
Striving for Light will have its full 1.0 Release on July 11th 2025. You can check out the new announcement trailer here in case you missed it:
This week we want to cover some of the new Steam Features coming to Striving for Light with the 1.0 Release Content Update. There have been some highly requested features and we are looking forward to share more details on these in this post.
Steam Achievements & Stats
With the 1.0 Release we are bringing Steam Achievements to Striving for Light. Currently we are at a total of 196 Achievements and counting. These achievements will be shared accross all your leagues, game modes and save files and synced with steam.
Therefore we have reworked the existing achievement system to clearly separate and structure:
Steam Achievements - Global across all leagues and save files
Seasonal Challenges - League and game mode dependent
Unlocks - League and game mode dependent
Stats - Global across all leagues and save files
Furthermore we are adding stats to Striving for Light. Stats allow for some more long term achievements like defeating a certain amount of enemies, bosses, or collecting things like light fragments or ... deaths...
Some achievements are tied to these stats but they also give you a nice long term overview on what you have achieved playing Striving for Light.
Previously unlocks have been mixed into the general achievements those are now completely separate. We also added a hardcore / softcore toggle button that allows you from the main menu to view your current achievement progress without needing to enter the game and access it from the pause menu.
Steam Rich Presence
The 1.0 content update will also utilise steam rich presence, that will display your current in game activity across steam.
Steam Trading Cards, Badges, Profile Backgrounds and Emotes
With the release of Striving for Light you will also be able to collect steam trading cards for the game and craft badges.
On crafting badges you can get rewarded by Striving for Light steam emotes and profile backgrounds.
In case you feel like you need some extra spice to hype you up until release. We decided to share a new desktop wallpaper concept art.
We hope that this preview excites you for the upcoming 1.0 release! We are looking forward to hear your thoughts on all the new features and content.
But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 11th of June.
You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.
Update 0.9.13
This update mainly brings a compatability layer for the new save file system coming with 1.0 and the new character slots. We also added some improvements to the zoom level and translations.
Major Changes and Improvements
Increase max zoom out level slightly, and max zoomed out is now the default when loading the game. Also the nearest zoom level has been slightly reduced.
Improved Translations
Compatability layer for new save file system with character slots for 1.0 added
The 1.0 Release is coming July 11th. Here is our announcement post: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/543358846952800641?l=english
If you encounter any issues please report them so that we can make sure to fix all of them before 1.0 releases.
Striving for Light 1.0 is coming July 11th!
Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #4, this time with some big news!
We have been working extensively on the upcoming 1.0 patch for Striving for Light and can't wait to share it with you!
The 1.0 Release of Striving for Light will be on:
July 11th 2025
1.0 Announcement Trailer
We are happy to share the Striving for Light 1.0 Announcement Trailer. Showcasing the previously announced content in action and even moaaar. Fear not we will share further details about the teasers in the next reveal episodes.
Release Event
We are planing a Release Event where we will share more information in upcoming reveal episodes.
Updated Website + Presskit
We also have updated the Striving for Light Website and Presskit including new game art for weapons, skills and trinkets.
The 1.0 release is a major milestone for our studio, and we’re excited to share it with you! We can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the new features and content.
But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 4th of June.
You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.
1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #3
Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #3, where we will unveil a major part of the extensive 1.0 content update.
Note that everything which is presented here is still in development and testing and might change until release.
New Pinnacle Bosses
It has been a while since we implemented the Awakened Gatekeeper bossfights with 2 Aeodra to face off in epic pinnacle bossfights. So we felt that having more variety in pinnacle bossfights would be a welcome addition. With the massive 1.0 update we are introducting 2 new bosses.
Lyxara, the Dawnbreaker
Lyxara, the Dawnbreaker, channels the searing wrath of the sun itself, scorching all who dare oppose her.
Vareth, the Suncleaver
Vareth, the Suncleaver, wields a colossal blade infused with solar fury, cleaving through foes with blinding, sunlit strikes.
We think these new challenges will not only bring more much needed bossfight variety into the endgame but infuse the game with new challenges.
Redesigned Town Ankerath
Continuing our redesign streak from last weeks post, we can finally share that the buildings in Ankerath will receive a much needed overhaul with the upcoming 1.0 update. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/516335980136890830?l=english
Many town objects have been completely redesigned to make Ankerath feel like a true sanctuary — a cozy hideout and shining beacon of light amidst the darkness that engulfs the land.
No More Default Enemy Contact Damage
We have heard your feedback regarding enemy contact damage and we are happy to share that plenty of enemies will receive new attack pattern to remove default enemy contact damage entirely. With update 1.0 there will be no enemies dealing contact damage by default.
Some old enemies like the dragonflies in the basement map did not have any attack animations and therefore only dealt contact damage. Those enemies now got distinct attack patterns so that you will not have to fear to loose your run by walking into a fly during endgame ending your run :).
Release Date - Announcement soonTM
We are happy to announce that we will be announcing the release date of Striving for Light 1.0 very soonTM.
We hope that this preview excites you for the upcoming 1.0 release! We are looking forward to hear your thoughts on all the new features and content.
But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 28st of May.
You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.
1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #2
Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #2, where we will unveil a major part of the extensive 1.0 content update.
Note that everything which is presented here is still in development and testing and might change until release.
Redesigned Bosses & Enemies
Since we have been working on this game for around 4 years, some art assets look quite dated compared to all the new additions. For the 1.0 release we will be reworking nearly all gatekeeper map boss designes with fresh animations and new art. We tried our best to maintain the character and personality of each character.
We also did further refinements on the perspective of the gatekeeper arena. But wait this is not all, we have also redesigned all the secret bosses, the phoenix and someone else we have encountered on our journey...
Do you recognize him....? He got some surprises in store...
Redesigned World Elements
Not only enemies and bosses have become dated due to our long early access journey. Some world events also are showing their age and not reflecting our current visual standarts. Gatekeeper portals have received a redesign as well as all chests got a complete visual overhaul.
We also added some new chest designs to not only better communicate on which chests you need a key, but also make awakened gatekeeper chests look more impressive and apropriate in size to hold all the loot they hold in store for you.
Redesigned Skilltree and Skillnodes
Since the heart of Stiving for Light is the skilltree we thought it deserves a complete redesign as well.
All skill nodes have been completely redesigned with an entire new concept for the skill node frames. Up till now plenty of melee, range and companion skills had the same skill frame design and only a colour difference was indicating the type of skill. We went the extra mile to redesign ALL skill nodes icons.
We also created distinct skill node frames for all different skill types. Range skills will now be indicated by a spikey arrow type skill frame. Melee skills will have a more massive steel inspired skill frame. Companion skills will have wings. Universal ability skill nodes that trigger effects but are working with melee and range attacks now have a more universal skill node frame. Attack replacer skill nodes now have a exchange inspired skill node frame indicating that you can only pick on of those and that this skill will replace a functionality.
We also think this will be a further step in making it easier when navigating the skilltree with less hovering is required to distinguish where you want to go. Furthermore the skilltree background got reworked as well.
Enemy Ragdoll System
A new enemy ragdoll system will make combat feel more impactful and fun. Slaying enemies will now trigger a ragdoll effect with a gradual death animation. This will be a huge step up from the simple vanishing before, which looked odd especially on big enemies like endbosses.
Here is how it looks in action.
We hope that this preview excites you for the upcoming 1.0 release! We are looking forward to hear your thoughts on all the new features and content.
But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 21st of May.
You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.
