Hi everyone. We’d like to give you an update on what we’re working on for version 1.0 of Phantom Abyss.

In our last update we had said our plans are to release the next area the Rift, as well as an ending to the game. These plans haven’t changed - however we’ve also decided to add and change A LOT more.

A summary of these changes were shown of on a recent Twitch stream which you can watch a replay of here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1786727754

New Core Ability: Dash
Dash forwards in the direction you’re facing, including up or down!
Short cooldown

The Rift (4th area)
Torn-apart landscape
The Rift is an area slowly being torn apart by the abyss. It features large areas filled with floating debris, whirlpools, and corruption spreading through the walls.

Lasers: Moving, rotating and cycling deadly lasers.

Grapple nodes: Floating nodes that you can grapple-whip continuously without needing to land.

Challenges
Adventure mode has been changed to be a series of challenges. Each challenge REQUIRES you to use a specific whip. Beating the challenge will unlock that whip to be used in other modes. It will also progress to breaking a chain and unlocking the next area.

Players can also unlock whip skins by increasing the difficulty via optional curses (see curses)

Curse Revamp
Curses have been removed from whips.
They instead will be modifiers that players can turn on/off.
Turning on curses will increase the chance of what keys you find to purchase upgrades with.
Whip skin can also be unlocked by playing with a high curse level.

Upgrade Well
An upgrade well that provides permanent upgrades can be found in the HUB and in the first floor of temples.
Upgrades are purchased with keys. Rarer keys = better upgrades.

Updated HUB
The HUB has been dramatically condensed.
The portal is much faster to get to, and the HUB now focuses around 4 pillars. Each pillar represents one of the 4 zones in the game (ruins, caverns, inferno, and rift.)

Each pillar has the whips associated with that region, and the pillar lights up as players collect relics from that region. Collecting 3 relics from a region breaks the associated chain attached to Altec, and unlocks the next region.

New Whips
The Crowbar
Power: Shockwave
Wherever you whip creates a shockwave, interacting (and disabling) anything it touches.

The Snake
Power: Time Slow
Bound to a button - activate to slow time for several seconds.

Lunar Whip
Power: Super Dash
Dash is upgraded to be…super.

Whip and shrine powers adjusted
A lot of whip powers have been swapped around or added. Powers available at end-of-floor shrines are now always other whip powers.

Heals have been moved to blessing shrines - which are only found in hidden nooks and crannies.

Rank system adjusted
Rank system is still in place - however it no longer determines what temples you play. Players can gain/lose ranks by winning/losing in temples - and the difficulty of a temple determines how it affects your rank.

Retry added to death screen
No more loading the HUB to replay the game. Hit retry directly after you die!

Final cutscene for freeing Altec

Lots of bug fixes

We’ll be showing off a lot more of this content - including the Rift, in our next Twitch stream next month. Stay tuned for more details to come. Thanks everyone!

Team WIBY